What are the main differences between Texmaker and TeXstudio?

Question

Although I've read these two posts:

• Texmaker vs TeXstudio (comparison)
• LaTeX Editors/IDEs

I would like to ask again specifically about Texmaker and TeXstudio, because they are quite well ranked in the "Big list", and one of them was born as a fork of the other one.

What are the main differences between them? What are the advantages and drawbacks of each of them with respect to the other one?

If you changed to one of them after using the other one, what made you change your mind?

I think these questions are specific and different enough to deserve their own post...

EDIT:

As it can be deduced from my question, I am mainly interested in knowing the experience of people that have used (or at least evaluated) both editors. I know I can read the "features" page in their respective websites, but that's not what I am looking for.

Answer 1

From http://texstudio.sourceforge.net

TeXstudio has been forked from Texmaker in 2009, because of the non-open development process of Texmaker and due to different philosophies concerning configurability and features. Originally it was called TeXmakerX because it started off as a small set of extensions to Texmaker with the hope that they would get integrated into Texmaker some day. While at some points you can still see that TeXstudio originates from Texmaker, significant changes in features and the code base have made it to a fully independent program.

This quote explains the main approach of forking Texmaker in the first place. The last sentence indicates that they became two fully independent programs. Only the GUI seems similar but the rest is hard to compare.

On performance: The time consumption will be difficult to measure, but you can do it your self by downloading and testing both. They are both free. The main aspect will be the look and feel while working and depends mainly on the layer 8. I like TeXstudio more, but this is completely opinion based.

You can compare the download size and the space occupied on the system and post your results here. As TeXstudio comes with more features (I hear), I guess it will be bigger.

In order to decide which one sounds best for you, you will have to read the Texmaker feature list, the TeXstudio feature list, the comparison list on Wikipedia, and the answers and comments in our editors big list. Or you come to chat and discuss single topics with other users.

Answer 2

Since the questioner asked explicitly for personal experiences, here is mine. I'm using Texmaker and I just learned about TeXstudio. At a first glance, TeXstudio provides all functionality that I'm used to in Texmaker.

My Problems with Texmaker

Texmaker has some performance issues which TeXstudio doesn't have at all.

More precisely, I have a large document with lots of sub documents. Whenever I change a \label, \chapter or \section, Texmaker responds very slowly. I can literally watch every single keystore with about 1s delay. In addition, it also freezes for many seconds if I comment or uncomment a block of \chapter and \input commands (e.g. if I just want to build just certain chapter/sections to speed up the LaTeX build).

What's even more disappointing is that I found posts from 2012 describing exactly the same performance problems, so there's probably little hope they'll fix that anytime soon:

http://latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=21033

My Problems with TeXstudio

The highlighting of invalid/unknown LaTeX command doesn't work well in TeXstudio. There are issues with various commands such as \apptocmd. In addition, it doesn't recognize any of my own macros, probably because I put them into a separate file macros.tex, so it can be reused by other LaTeX documents such as standalone documents for larger TikZ graphics.

It is possible to provide a manual list of known commands, but in my case this is simply too much trouble, so I disabled this highlighting. I also had to disable autocompletion, as that was too annoying with an incomplete list of commands:

• Options / Configure TeXstudio

  • Editor / Inline Checking / [ ] Syntax
  • Completion / [ ] Automatically start completer when typing LaTeX-Commands

Answer 3

I realize this is an older question, but in case anyone is still interested, I briefly will try to add my own thoughts on your question:

What are the main differences between them? What are the advantages and drawbacks of each of them with respect to the other one?

In my view, the main difference is a substantially higher degree of customizability of TeXstudio in comparison to Texmaker.

This one aspect captures, in my opinion, the most important difference between the two programs. And to me at least, this aspect was also the main factor in choosing one over the other.

I don't know anything about the forking circumstances of TeXstudio, i.e. whether the TeXstudio devs followed forking etiquette or not (as suggested above in a comment). But as far as the current program is concerned, for the customizability reason mentioned above, I much prefer working with TeXstudio ever since I found out it exists -- which actually took a while, since it seems that it's not nearly as famous as Texmaker.

I'll give two examples where customization differs -- two small things that always bothered me in Texmaker, and that just instantly disappeared when switching to TeXstudio:

• Disabling the sidebar/side panel. Both programs show, by default, a sidebar menu containing commonly used commands, e.g. an "italics" button, and so on. However, I prefer to maximize my available screen space, so would rather not see that menu. In Texmaker, this menu can't be removed (at least, last timed I checked). In TeXstudio on the other hand, you can show/hide it. Small detail, but to me it actually mattered.

• Fine-tuning autocomplete commands. In Texmaker, you can add your own commands to the list of autocomplete commands, and there's a list of existing commands that you can edit, i.e. remove commands from the list. But: for some reason, no idea why, there are a few commands that are always suggested, and sometimes in an order that really didn't work well for me (e.g. \citep is always suggested, before \cite). Never found a way to change at least the order in Texmaker, but immediately could change it in TeXstudio.

Other than the issue of customization, the two programs are very similar. TeXstudio has a slightly "brighter" looking standard UI, but I can't say I like it better than the texmaker UI.

In summary, I think your choice between Texmaker and TeXstudio should depend on whether you ever thought that Texmaker offers a too little options/is a bit short on customizability. If not, I'd say go with Texmaker, since it's still the 'standard' as far as I can tell. If, on the other hand, there have been some (minor or major) things that keep nagging you in Texmaker, I highly suggest to give TeXstudio a try.

Answer 4

I am a heavy LaTeX user for science papers and math. I started using TexMaker, 8 years ago I found this processor somewhat "raw" and switched to TexStudio, which use now I acknowledge in my writings. It is my work horse, its stable and friendly, and it has excellent aids for any kind of symbols, handles BibTeX superbly, I now update it daily with Mercurial. Each so often I have dropped by the TeXMaker site and gave it a try. But I find the symbol hints in TeXStudio better. Incidentally, I install TeXLive from CD each time there is a new version, and none of the two processors has any problem to recognize it.

PD: I work under Ubuntu Linux, currently 15.04, I have a MacBook Pro to (run it 99.9% of the time on Ubuntu) and TeXStudio runs great under OS X Yellowstone too.

Answer 5

I've used Texmaker for years until I discovered TeXstudio in my university's lab. At first, both looked and worked pretty much the same, but now I've switched to TeXstudio for these reasons:

1. Easy dictionary language switching: there's a dropdown at the bottom of the screen where you can instantly switch dictionary language, which is very useful for me, since I'm often writing documents in different languages. In Texmaker, this switch required going to Options > Configure and searching for a .dic file.
2. Addition of %TODO tags in file structure: in TeXstudio only, you can add %TODO blablabla to your document and it shows up in your file structure for easy navigation.

My colleagues also like the fact that, in TeXstudio, you can draw math symbols with your mouse and have them translated into LaTeX code.

One controversial point regarding both editors is code completion. I prefer TeXstudio's because it's less intrusive than Texmaker's, which made me break my code way too often. However, if you're a heavy user of the feature, you may find TeXstudio lacking in that department.

Answer 6

I would like to point out one very important difference between Texstudio and TexMaker. I have never been able to get Texmaker to work, all because it doesn't find my Texlive installation. Reconfiguring TexMaker to look for TexLive doesn't work, that is using the Options->Configure Texmaker menu feature and then, even manually, literally changing all the folders to where it can find the Texlive programs, doesn't work. For instance, try using the wrapfig package, it doesn't work, because Texmaker's Latex installation doesn't have it, whereas Texlive does, but you can't get Texmaker to use Texlive. That's very poor. I use Ubuntu 14.04 and have never been able to get Texmaker to work! Whereas Texstudio, found my Texlive right at start up. If you go to its configuration setup, it is correct, it finds my Texlive installation as it should.

I do not know what Texmaker is using as far as Latex installation, but it isn't what should be the standard Latex setup that you install like Texlive. Texmaker has gone off on a tangent into the nether-nether, I do believe.

If you want something that works, right from installation, use Texstudio. The only problem with Texstudio that I can see so far is that it has a very washed out color scheme, and so after many hours of work, the lack of contrast puts too much strain on the eyes, but that's just a personal issue.