ColdFusion Editors
ColdFusion can make creating website applications very easy, but your life will be made so much easier if you pick the right editor for editing your CFML code.
The landscape for CFML editing has changed quite a lot over time. Almost everything has moved to Visual Studio Code. In addition to this, a few online tools make it easy to test CFML without setting up a server at all.
VS Code (with Extensions)
VS Code has become the go-to editor for most CFML developers. However, VS Code on its own has no built-in support for CFML, so you'll need to install at least one extension to get features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and tag/function hints. The good news is there are a few solid options:
- Adobe ColdFusion Builder Extension for VS Code - Adobe's official extension provides a feature-rich CFML editor with code completion, streamlined code navigation, and support for CFM, CFC, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files. It also includes a security code analyzer to scan for vulnerabilities, server management, RDS support for remote file and database access, and performance monitoring integration. It's free and available directly from the VS Code marketplace. To get it, search for "Adobe ColdFusion Builder" or "CFML" from the Extensions tab of VS Code. Note that it requires Java 11 or above to be installed.
- CFML Editor (cfmleditor) - A community-maintained VS Code extension that many developers prefer for day-to-day work. It pulls documentation from CFDocs by default (with an option to use the full Lucee docs instead) and offers hover documentation, signature help, and component indexing. It's actively maintained on GitHub at
cfmleditor/cfmleditorand is a solid alternative if you find Adobe's extension heavier than you need. - KamasamaK vscode-cfml - Another well-regarded community extension. The now-abandoned ilich/vscode-coldfusion extension explicitly recommended this one as a successor, so it has inherited a good portion of the community's trust.
You can download VS Code from the VS Code website and then install your preferred extension from within VS Code itself. You do this via the Extensions tab, which allows you to search by extension name or what it does. For example, you can search for "Coldfusion Builder" to get Coldfusion Builder. Searching for "Coldfusion" or "CFML" will return a broad list of extensions related to Coldfusion and CFML.
Online Tools (Test CFML Without Installing Anything)
If you just want to experiment with CFML code without setting up a server, these browser-based tools are invaluable:
- TryCF.com - Lets you experiment and test CFML code directly in the browser without needing to set up or maintain a server. You can run code against either Lucee or Adobe ColdFusion, making it handy for comparing engine behaviour or sharing code snippets.
- CFFiddle.org - Adobe's own online CFML playground. Useful for quick tests and sharing snippets, and is linked from Adobe's official documentation.
What Happened to All the Dedicated ColdFusion Editors?
If you do any searching around for CFML editors, you'll likely come across references to tools that either no longer exist or have been superseded. For many years, developers had a choice of dedicated standalone editors built specifically for ColdFusion. Sadly, most of these have either been discontinued or transformed into VS Code extensions. Here's a quick rundown:
Adobe ColdFusion Builder (standalone) - The old Eclipse-based ColdFusion Builder IDE has been retired. Adobe's focus has fully shifted to the VS Code extension described above.
CFEclipse - CFEclipse is no longer actively maintained. It still exists on GitHub but the marketplace build is years old, has no active committers, and users report installation errors on recent versions of Eclipse. Don't bother unless you're maintaining a very old setup.
Brackets / CFBrackets - Brackets was a free open-source editor from Adobe that had a ColdFusion plugin called CFBrackets. Adobe discontinued Brackets in 2021, taking CFBrackets with it.
Dreamweaver - Technically still available as part of Adobe Creative Cloud, but ColdFusion support has been progressively reduced over the years and most developers have long since moved on.
Sublime Text - Still a fast, capable editor, and a CFML package (
sublimetext-cfml) is still available for it. With VS Code being free and extremely well-supported, however, most developers have migrated away from Sublime.
The Bottom Line
For most developers, the recommended setup is VS Code with a Coldfusion extension (or two). For quick testing or learning without any local setup, an online tool like TryCF.com might be the easiest starting point. The old Eclipse and standalone IDE era is basically over.