Ivan Homola • Wednesday, November 23, 2022
AUTHOR
IH
Ivan Homola, Author
Indie maker with a passion for SEO working on web projects. Ex-mobile dev-agency owner. Now, helping early stage founders turn their side projects into businesses.
Are you a developer who is frustrated about managing code snippets?
Would you like a better app that can boost your productivity to the next level? Or even assist you in writing code?
We found seven amazing code snippet apps that work on Windows and Mac and help you get your code blocks under control.
What is a code snippet manager?
In simple words, a snippet manager is a tool that helps you organize and manage your code snippets. In addition, it can help you keep track of your snippets and share them with others.
Snippets apps are essential to save time while working on your project. With them, you can reuse complex or useful coding logic.
Benefits of using a Snippet Manager:
- It Keeps a record of code snippets.
- Quickly find and insert.
- It makes it easy to switch.
- Flexible search options.
- Making it easy to share with your team.
- Great way to save time and effort.
- Cloud-based Solutions (Access anytime and anywhere)
Codiga
Codiga is a full-featured solution for your coding productivity.
There are three major features of Codiga:
- Code Snippets Manager
- Automate Code Review
- Code Analysis in the IDE and in pull requests
Code Snippets Manager
An advanced snippets app that can help you to import, create and share snippets inside your IDE.
Codiga Coding Assitant can help you to save hours of your time, and it can also help your team to collaborate on projects quickly.
Codiga Code Snippets manager works on all platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) and inside your IDE (JetBrains, VS Code, VisualStudio).
Codiga also has the Codiga Hub: where all public code snippets are searchable and indexed. You can easily add your code snippets to the Codiga Hub and share them with anybody!
Automate Code Reviews
It's a real pain when you are waiting for a code review, especially when the review is required.
Codiga's automated code review system can analyze and merge your pull requests in seconds.
It can give instant feedback and highlight the major issues, performance, and security in your codebase.
Code Analysis
It is a process of inspecting code to ensure it meets coding or security standards. It can include looking for errors, security vulnerabilities, and compliance issues.
Codiga’s static code analysis can give instant feedback about the important issues of your code inside your IDE within seconds, so you can save time while writing code.
Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, and Linux
GitHub Gist
GitHub Gist is a simple way to share snippets with others. All gists are git repositories that are automatically versioned, forkable and usable.
You can use it to store snippets, documentation, and small scripts.
It is super simple to create it.
All you need to do is insert snippets inside the gist editor, and that's it.
You may have seen this in action on different blogs like:
Some features:
- Make it Public or Secret.
- People can preview, clone, and comment on it.
- Supports Syntax Highlighting.
- Simple Menu
- Embed and share with others.
- The interface is quite clean.
- Edit existing Gists content.
- Download in Zip
It's good for bloggers and those who want to store snippets.
But, there need to be more features inside GitHub gists, like a search feature, flexible VS code extension, and a proper way to share code snippets with your team members. So, you can not consider it a coding assistant.
Snappify.io
It is the best choice if you want to take a screenshot of your code block and make it beautiful.
It's a great snippet management app. The core quality is to make snippets look good with the full-blown graphic editor.
A cloud-based solution:
- Code Highlighting
- Annotations like arrows, circles, rectangles, ellipses, polygons, etc.
- Embed the snaps directly into your websites.
- Interactive Snaps
- VS Code extension
- Folder Management
- Pre-made templates.
- Download Snaps in PNG image format.
It's an alternative to Carbon.now.sh, but with better features.
SnippetsLab
SnippetsLab is a note-taking app for macOS that allows users to store and organize snippets.
There are several highlighting features:
- Markdown
- SnippetsLab Assistant
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Tags Management and Smart Group
- Pack of 13 customizable themes
- Search Flexibility
- Gist integration
- Multiple Languages
- iCloud Automatic Backup (Keep your code library safe and synced)
It's a good snippets app for macOS users only. Some missing features include reviewer assistance, instant feedback, and analysis.
MassCode
It is an open-source and free solution to help you create and organize snippets.
Some highlighting features are helpful, like:
- Presentation
- Real-time render for HTML & CSS
- Quick Access (Flexible Search)
- Synchronize with iCloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive.
- Create screenshots of snippets with colorful backgrounds.
- Integrations with VS Code, Alfred, and Raycast.
Overall a great free solution.
Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, and Linux
Snipbox
If you're looking for a self-hosted code manager where you have full control over the platform, then Snipbox could be your best bet.
It is an open-source solution built for developers with a simple, attractive UI.
Some good features are:
- You can host it anywhere (Self-Hosted)
- It also supports plain text and markdown preview
- Lightweight and Simple UI
- Built with VueJS, Rails, and PostgreSQL
Lepton
Since GitHub Gist is web-based, lepton is a free, open-source desktop solution to access Gist snippets and handle them through your Windows, Linux, or macOS.
- Quick access dashboard.
- Desktop Application.
- Lightweight and Customizable
- Theme support
- Tags Management
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article. You learned about the benefits of code snippets and how it could help increase your productivity.
I presented you with snippet apps that can be helpful for you. Not only that, but you also looked into the features of each of these tools.
FAQs
How do you write a snippet?
A snippet is a small piece of code used to accomplish a specific task. To write a snippet, you must first determine what task you would like it to perform. Then, once you have determined the task, you will need to write the code that will accomplish that task.
Are there any A.I. Coding assistants apps?
Yes, some A.I. assistants help you write code based on your statement. Example: Github Copilot and Codiga which can also analyze code, and monitor a quality score of your code.
What are the best tools to analyze your code quality?
Static code analysis is an essential part of the software development process. Tools like Codiga help to identify potential bugs, security vulnerabilities, and other issues in the codebase. You explore the list of the 5 best static code analyzers to find out which one works for your use case.