List of text editors with links and description. This list is intended to be limited to free-libre/open-source editors.
Caution: this page has not been kept up to date.
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Emacsen
Vi & vi clones
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Other resources:
Notes:
GNU Emacs
[Windows 95/98/NT/2K/XP/Vista, GNU/Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, AIX
4.3.3+, Solaris, Mac OS X, SunOS, MS-DOS, Ultrix, more and source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
Windows console,
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
The Emacs. Emacs—"the extensible, customizable,
self-documenting, real-time display editor"—has long been a prominent
text editor, and GNU Emacs is the oldest and most popular version of Emacs around
today. Written by Richard M. Stallman, the author (along with Guy Steele
et al.) of the original EMACS
for the ITS. GNU
Emacs is mature and featured. Like all emacsen, it has a steep learning
curve. It's also the largest of the emacsen: a Windows32 install of v23.1
weighs in at 134 MB.
XEmacs
[Windows 95/98/NT/2K/XP/Vista, Cygwin, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
Solaris, AIX, Irix, HP/UX, many more and source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
The fork of the Emacs. Splitting from GNU
Emacs back in the early-1990s, XEmacs is the second most popular
version. There are numerous differences between the two, but it's hard
to summarize. The XEmacs project has a very dated (c. 2001)
page on the
subject. For many users, the difference in GUI might be the most
noticeable. Which is better might be a matter of preference. It is a bit
smaller, a Windows32 install of v21.4.21 is 54.9 MB.
SXEmacs
[Unix, Unix-like]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
The fork of the fork of the Emacs. Split off from
XEmacs on New Year's Eve, 2004. Led by Steve Youngs, he cited several reasons
for the fork, including instability, wanting to make radical changes, wanting
a project free from politics, wanting to make it easier for developers
to contribute, and a desire for more control over the project. The main
webpage lists features that SXEmacs has that are absent from XEmacs.
JED
[Windows, Unix, MS-DOS, Cygwin, OpenVMS, OS/2, BeOS, QNX]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
Windows console,
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
Powerful editor built on the S-Lang library. Emulates Emacs by default,
but also has emulation modes for EDT, Wordstar, Borland, and Brief editors.
Relatively lightweight. Has pretty good drop-down menus in both GUI and
CLI modes, taking the edge of the learning curve. Very portable.
JASSPA MicroEmacs (and NanoEmacs)
[Windows 3.11/95/98/NT/2K/XP, GNU/Linux, Solaris, AIX 4.x/5.x, Cygwin, Mac
OS X 10.3.x, Darwin 7.8.x, OpenBSD 3.4, FreeBSD 5.2, more and source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI (MicroEmacs),
GNU/Linux GUI (MicroEmacs),
GNU/Linux console (MicroEmacs),
Windows GUI (NanoEmacs),
Windows console (NanoEmacs),
GNU/Linux GUI (NanoEmacs),
GNU/Linux console (NanoEmacs).}
A smaller emacsen developed by JASSPA. Based on Daniel Lawrence's MicroEMACS,
a freeware editor derived from Dave Conroy's original MicroEMACS; however,
in 2002 Lawrence gave permission to license JASSPA MicroEmacs under the
GNU GPL. JASSPA also has
a minimal build of MicroEmacs available which is called NanoEmacs (see
some of my notes on that editor). As for size,
the shipped Windows32 MicroEmacs executable is 448 KB but relies on 5.1
MB of macro files. NanoEmacs doesn't rely on the macros, and is 190 KB to
300 KB depending on which options are built into it.
Zile
[GNU/Linux, Unix, source]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
Zile is a small ("about 130Kb") clone of the Emacs text editor. It was
adopted by the GNU Project. Designed to be as close to Emacs as possible
while still maintaining a small RAM footprint and executable.
Kjell Wooding's mg
[GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Darwin, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD]
Tillanosoft's mg
[Windows CE]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
Originally called MicroGnuEmacs, mg is one of the many small, lightweight
Emacs clones that came into being as a result of GNU Emacs' high system
requirements. Based on MicroEMACS, but aimed to more closely resemble
GNU Emacs. Included by default in OpenBSD. Today there are a few versions
available.
Aquamacs
[Mac OS X]
{Screenshots:
Mac OS X GUI.}
A modified version of GNU Emacs specialized to integrate with Mac OS X.
Climacs
[Unix]
A version of Emacs based on Common-Lisp (as opposed to Elisp).
Freemacs
[DOS]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console.}
An Emacs clone written for DOS. It is quite small: the executable is
only 21 KB. Freemacs uses MINT as its extension language, much like GNU
Emacs uses Lisp or JED uses S-Lang. The editor is included in the
FreeDOS project, but has not had a
new version in many years. Can be run under Windows 9x/NT, but it will
likely feel laggy.
JOVE
[Unix-like, Windows, DOS]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
JOVE is an Emacs-like text editor inspired by Gosling Emacs, but smaller.
Written by Jonathan Payne back in the 1980s while in high school. Its
popularity waned after the 1990s, but it was updated as recently as 2006.
The link goes to the FTP site; there is no website. After the 1990s,
only the source code has been available.
EmACT
[Windows 3.x/95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista, GNU/Linux, Unix, MS-DOS, OS/2]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
Originating as a mid-1980s derivative of Dave Conroy's MicroEMACS, and still
maintained today. Aims to be a clone of GNU Emacs.
QEmacs
[Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
A small (49–150 KB) but powerful Unix Emacs editor. Last updated in
2003.
Tint Emacs
[Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Darwin]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
An Emacs clone which uses Tint as its extension language.
Ersatz Emacs (direct source download)
[Unix]
First, some history: In his famous
paper on EMACS, Richard Stallman lamented that the proliferation of
EMACS imitations which were not extensible meant that many users did not
even know that extensibility was a important part of the design of the
original EMACS. Thus, Stallman urged that all nonextensible imitations
of EMACS be called `Ersatz EMACS'. Ersatz Emacs adopted the
title fully. Ersatz Emacs is a very minimal emacsen which strives to use as
little system resources as possible, as well as being simple enough for the
casual programmer to understand, while still being functional enough for
most text editing needs. Based on the public domain release of MicroEmacs
3.6, as posted to mod.sources.
Edwin
[Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, OpenBSD]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
Edwin is part of the MIT/GNU Scheme software. Edwin is very similar to GNU
Emacs, except that its extension language is Scheme.
Hemlock
[GNU/Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD, Solaris (SPARC)]
An extensible Emacs-like editor embedded in CMUCL, a free Common Lisp
implementation.
Fe
[Unix]
A small folding editor with an Emacs-like user interface.
JEmacs
[Java-supporting]*
A reimplementation of Emacs written in Java, Scheme, and Elisp. Many
features, such as searching, are not yet implemented. Last updated 2005.
Freyja
[MS-DOS]
An old Emacs-like editor for MS-DOS, last updated 1996.
AAEMACS
[Windows, MS-DOS]
A DOS version of Emacs. Can be made to run under Windows (not Vista) but it
takes some work and only runs full-screen.
Carbon Emacs
[Mac OS X]
A distribution of GNU Emacs meant to be friendly with Mac OS X.
Bright's MicroEmacs (direct download)
[Windows, GNU/Linux, DOS]*
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
Software developer Walter Bright's modified version of Dave Conroy's public
domain MicroEmacs editor. Also in the public domain, with source.
Vim
[Windows, Unix, OS/2, Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic, MS-DOS, Amiga, QNX, Cygwin,
OpenVMS, RISC OS, MorphOS, more and source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
Windows console,
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
Originally a clone of vi, Vim went on to add numerous extensions and
new features. Probably the most popular vi-clone today—on most
modern GNU/Linux distros, vi symlinks to vim. Some
purists maintain that Vim is not a vi-clone, being too different. Vim,
like vi, has an infamously steep learning curve, but there is
Cream, a version of Vim
configured for ease-of-use.
nvi
[Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
A reimplementation of the vi editor, arising out of a legal dispute between
AT&T and the University of California, Berkeley. Closer to the original
vi than Vim, though still has features that vi lacked, such as infinite undo
and horizontal scrolling. The default version of vi on all BSDs,
e.g., FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.
Elvis
[Windows, Unix, DOS, OS/2]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
Windows console,
GNU/Linux GUI.}
One of the earlier vi clones, Elvis was the most widely used version of vi
on GNU/Linux until it was eclipsed by Vim. Elvis is the default version of
vi on Slackware and KateOS, as well as many of the older GNU/Linux distros.
Still updated and a powerful vi clone.
vile
[Windows 9x/NT, Unix, DOS, OS/2]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
Windows console,
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
Not technically a vi clone, vile stands for VI Like Emacs. vile has the
"finger-feel" of vi but also has the buffering and windowing features of
Emacs—thus the editor tries to combine what the author sees as the
best aspects of both editors (this is also known as heresy). A powerful
editor with many interesting features.
Traditional Vi
[Unix]
For decades, the original vi editor was proprietary code. This was one of
the reasons numerous vi-clones were written. In 2002, however, the ancient
Unix code was released under the 4-clause BSD license. The above site offers
the original version of vi (and ex), updated to work on modern versions of
Unix.
Xvi
[Unix, MS-DOS, OS/2, QNX, Atari ST]
A portable clone of vi derived from STEVIE (see below). According to the
website, xvi is the smallest vi clone measured in program size and memory
use.
Levee
[GNU/Linux, Unix, source]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
A small (37KB) vi-clone originating in the early 1980s and undergoing
numerous re-writes in the decade following.
Virus
[GNU/Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, source]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
A small vi-clone derived from
BusyBox's version of vi.
ruvi
[Windows, Unix]
A Vim-clone written in pure Ruby. Easily extended and well unit tested.
PVIC
[MS-DOS, Mac OS 9, source]
A portable (K&R C) public domain vi-clone derived from STEVIE 3.69B (see
below). The DOS version has a precompiled executable, but it doesn't work on
Windows XP.
STEVIE (direct download)
[MS-DOS]
An old vi-clone that was popular on MS-DOS, back in the day.
Vigor
[Unix]
A version of nvi modified to include a helpful paper-clip assistant.
Inspired by this
UserFriendly strip.
jVi
[Java-supporting]
Vim ported from C to Java. Has features not found in Vim.
nano
[Windows 9x/NT, GNU/Linux, Solaris, DOS, BeOS, source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console,
GNU/Linux console.}
nano is a clone of Pico, the editor that comes with the proprietary Pine
package. It has been a part of the GNU Project since 2001. In addition to
Pico's features, nano has extended its functionality, including new features
such as syntax highlighting. Like Pico, nano is designed to be very
easy-to-use with a minimal learning curve; the most common commands are (by
default) always visible at the bottom of the screen.
Joe's Own Editor
[Unix, Cygwin]
{Screenshots:
Windows/Cygwin console,
GNU/Linux console.}
Described by the author as a blend of both GNU Emacs and WordStar without
using code from either program. Can display common commands in a similar
manner to nano by pressing Ctrl-K H. Has the ability to emulate
Emacs, Pico, or WordStar. It was the default text editor on some early
GNU/Linux distros and is still commonly installed by default.
Notepad++
[Windows]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A GUI editor based the Scintilla editor component, Notepad++ is designed
primarily for editing source code. Notepad++ has proved itself quite
popular, netting over 10 million downloads from SourceForge.net. It's also
possible to use Notepad++ as a Windows Notepad replacement.
jEdit
[Java-supporting—Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, Unix, VMS]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A text editor for programmers written in Java. Has a notable community, and
numerous extensions available in several supported extension languages. It
has the disadvantages one would expect from a Java program: a slow start up
and a large RAM footprint.
Kate
[GNU/Linux, Unix, Unix-like]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI (Kate),
GNU/Linux GUI (KEdit).}
A KDE text editor. Ships with KDE, so Kate
is quite common on GNU/Linux systems.
gedit
[GNU/Linux, Unix, Unix-like]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A general-purpose GUI text editor written as part of the GNOME Project. The
default editor under GNOME and thus common on GNU/Linux. Includes many
features designed for editing source code.
Bluefish
[GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Unix-like]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
Targeted toward programmers, especially web developers. A powerful GUI
editor.
Programmer's Notepad
[Windows]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
Programmer's Notepad is a GUI text editor based on the Scintilla editor
component. As the name implies, the editor is targeted at programmers.
Similar to Notepad++.
SciTE
[Windows, GNU/Linux, source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A GUI text editor based on the Scintilla editor component. Written by Neil
Hodgson, the author of Scintilla. Comparatively simple interface.
THE
[Windows 9x/Me/NT/2K/XP, Unix, QNX, OS/2, DOS, Amiga, AIX,
source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console,
GNU/Linux console.}
An editor modeled after the popular VM/CMS editor XEDIT. First version
released in 1990, the latest in 2006. Portable.
Notepad2
[Windows]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
Designed to be similar to Microsoft Notepad, Notepad2 is another editor
based on the Scintilla editor component. However, unlike others such as
Notepad++ or Programmer's Notepad, Notepad2 tries to remain small and
lightweight, with many features like tabs simply considered outside the
editor's scope. Works as a replacement for Windows Notepad.
mined
[Cygwin, GNU/Linux, Unix, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DOS]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
Originally an editor for the MINIX operating system, it has since been
ported to other systems. A modeless editor with full Unicode support; mined
was the first editor to support Unicode within a plain-text terminal.
ne
[GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Cygwin, Unix, BeOS]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
ne (not to be confused with NanoEmacs, above, whose executable is also
ne) is designed as a portable POSIX text editor that uses common
keyboard shortcuts that are familiar with most computer users (e.g.,
Ctrl-C is copy, Ctrl-Q is quit). ne aims to be both
intuitive to use and powerful.
NEdit
[GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, Cygwin, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, SunOS]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A GUI text editor which uses Motif/Lesstif. Popular on many Unices. Uses
common keyboard shortcuts.
GNU ed
[Unix, source]
GnuWin32
ed
[Windows]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console,
GNU/Linux console.}
The standard Unix text editor. A line-orientated text editor
designed with teletypes, Spartan memory, and slow modems in mind. Today ed
is considered rather outdated; the program has hardly undergone any change
since 1970 (this is considered by some to be a good quality). The GNU
Project maintains a version today. On some minimal systems (such as an
install CD) or during a system crash, more sophisticated editors like vi
might not be available, and ed might be the only option. For this reason,
it's good to have a minimal working knowledge of ed. It's not uncommon to
(normally in jest) claim that ed is the ideal text editor, and that
everything else is bloated. Some old-school Unix types are rumored to still
prefer ed. Ed was the basis of ex, the editor vi was derived from, and is
thus an ancestor of vi. Also available is xed (direct source
download), a version of ed for the X window system.
TECO
[Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, DOS, OS/2]*
An editor so old its name originally stood for Tape Editor and COrrector,
TECO was developed in c. 1963 at MIT and later
modified by just about everybody. TECO is as much a programming language as
an editor; TECO is in fact Turing-complete. This programming language was
(is) infamously hard to read and was probably the first
"write-only" language. To quote a well-known
letter: "It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more
closely resembles transmission line noise than readable text. One of the
more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a
command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible typing
error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your program, or even
worse -- introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a once working
subroutine." However, TECO is still an incredibly powerful editor for
those who can deal with the dated interface and nigh-unreadable command
language. TECO was also a direct ancestor of EMACS, as EMACS was originally
implemented as a set of TECO macros. Another implementation called videoteco is also
available.
CUTE
[GNU/Linux, Unix]
A Scintilla-based editor making use of Qt. Extendable in Python. Aims to be
"user-friendly source code editor with a common graphical user
interface".
Cooledit
[Unix]
A text editor for the X Window System. A full-featured editor with a Python
interpretor for macro programming. Includes a graphical C/C++ debugger.
Acme SAC
[Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux]*
plan9port (including acme)
[GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS]
acme was written for the Plan 9 from Bell Labs operating system. It has a
rather distinctive user interface which relies rather heavily on the
mouse.
Sam (direct download)
[Windows]*
Plan 9 utilities ported to Windows (including sam)
[Windows]*
plan9port (including sam)
[GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS]
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
GNU/Linux GUI.}
Sam was a text editor written at Bell Labs originally for Unix, but
eventually ported to Plan 9 as well. Sam was popular with many famous
programmers, such as Ken Thompson. Sam has two windows, one to edit text and
the other to perform ed-style commands (see above for ed). Compare with
acme, the other text editor to ship with Plan 9.
e3
[Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, BeOS 5PE, QNX, AtheOS, DOS, ELKS]
e3 is a very small text editor written in assembly (with a C version called
e3c also available). Despite being written in assembly, the editor is
supported by numerous operating systems. And, despite being very small, it
supports emulating of WordStar, Emacs, Pico, NEdit and vi. The website, on
the other hand, is a bit lacking.
SETEDIT
[Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2000/XP, DOS, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD,
OpenBSD, Darwin, Solaris, QNX]*
{Screenshot:
Windows console.}
A console/terminal text editor designed for programmers. Has similarities to
WordStar and Borland editors. Despite being a console program, it has mouse
support, menus, and overlapping windows. Under Windows, the DOS version runs
full-screen, but there's a w32 binary available to replace the DOS binary
which runs within a console window.
GNU Moe
[GNU/Linux, Unix, source]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
A powerful console text editor which has a user-friendly modeless interface.
The design rationalizes keyboard commands—the Alt key is used for
harmless commands, e.g., cursor movements and scrolling; the Ctrl key
is used for `dangerous' commands, e.g., copy/paste/delete
and exiting; the most frequent commands are function keys, e.g., F1
is help and F10 is options. The interface is supposed to be easy enough to
be without a learning curve.
ee
[GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Cygwin, Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console (ee),
GNU/Linux console (aee),
GNU/Linux GUI (aee).}
ee is a text editor best known for shipping with FreeBSD. The editor is
designed for ease of use. A related editor called aee is available at the
link as well. Normally run from within a console, but an X version of aee is
available.
Diakonos
[GNU/Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, Cygwin, Unix]
A console text editor written in Ruby. Diakonos bills itself as "a
linux editor for the masses". An older version of the web page stated
that the editor was designed with the intention of "being easier to
configure and use than emacs, more powerful than pico and nano, and not as
cryptic as vi or ex". Diakonos uses familiar keybindings, e.g.,
Ctrl-c is copy, Ctrl-v is paste, Ctrl-o is open,
Ctrl-s is save, etc.
Leafpad
[GNU/Linux, *BSD, Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A GTK+ based editor which emphasizes simplicity. The editor is meant to have
very little weight, so only essential features are implemented. Leafpad can
compile easily with few libraries. Once compiled, it starts up quickly and
is easy to use.
Scribes
[Unix (GNOME)]
A GNOME text editor focused on streamlining one's work flow. Common tasks
and repetitive operations are automated; distractions are eliminated.
Scribes is meant to be fluid, easy, and fun, while ensuring the safety of
one's documents.
Code Browser
[Windows, GNU/Linux]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A folding text editor with a focus on hierarchical structure. The folding
feature is rather unique; sections of a file can be put into
`folders
which one enters into and leaves; opposed to normal
folding which just hides the text and expands it again.
FTE
[Windows, DOS, GNU/Linux, OS/2, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Cygwin,
Unix]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console,
GNU/Linux GUI,
GNU/Linux console.}
A text editor designed for developers, aiming to be powerful yet easy to
use.
e93
[Unix]
A portable programmer's text editor started in 1993 (thus the name). e93
closely follows the model of editors on the Macintosh and NeXT
platforms.
Yudit
[Windows, Unix-like]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A Unicode text editor. Designed as a multilingual text editor, supporting
transliterated keyboard input and handwriting recognition. Works for quite a
few languages.
aoeui
[GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Cygwin]
A lightweight, unobtrusive, keyboard layout-optimized editor. aoeui is
designed for the Dvorak keyboard, but it has a QWERTY variant called asdfg
which supports the same command set.
Edt
[GNU/Linux, Solaris, Unix]
A simple text editor for rapid text manipulation. Modeled after the
EDT/EVE/TPU editors for DEC VMS.
PyPE
[Windows, Unix, source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A text editor written in Python and with a focus on Python programmers;
however, the editor is well equipped for other programming languages as
well.
Minimal Profit
[Windows, Unix]*
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A programmer's GUI text editor with small memory/disk requirements. (Note:
While I was able to run the installer, I could not get the Windows binary to
function on my Windows XP machine.)
Wily
[Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A text editor very much related to acme, borrowing much of the feel and
key-chord interface.
TDE
[Windows, GNU/Linux, MS-DOS]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console.}
A simple text editor of the IBM PC breed.
LE
[Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
A console/terminal text editor resembling Norton Editor, though more
featured. Features rectangular select/copy/paste, as well as more common
source/text editor features.
DAV
[GNU/Linux, Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
Originating out of the author's hatred of vi, DAV is a ncurses-based
console/terminal text editor which aims to be efficient in memory and CPU
usage, to have a useful feature set, and to be intuitive and easy to
use.
CE
[GNU/Linux, Solaris, NeXTSTEP, AIX, Unix]
Editor with a rather exclusive focus on ease-of-use. Users are meant to be
comfortable with the editor within minutes. Back in the early 1990s CE was
very popular, especially at Michigan State University.
Ved
[Windows, Mac OS X, OS/2, BeOS, Unix]
A small and quick screen editor. Powerful, easy to learn, portable.
TEA
[Windows, Unix-like]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
GNU/Linux GUI.}
A Qt-based text editor. Full set of features, including some interesting
ones, such as a built in image viewer and an open at cursor feature most
handy when working with (X)HTML. Comes with a manual—it's one of the
more interesting text editor manuals out there.
J
[Java-supporting]*
J is a programmer's text editor with plenty of features and themes. Written
in Java.
wyoEditor
[Windows, Mac OS X, Unix]*
Designed to be cross-platform with a well-designed and consistent look and
feel. Uses wxScintilla, based on Scintilla.
Beaver
[GNU/Linux, Unix]
Intended as a lightweight editor that still has plenty of features.
RText
[Java-supporting]*
Originally intended as a Windows Notepad clone, RText has grown into a far
more featured editor designed primarily for programmers.
Moleskine
[Unix (GNOME)]
A source code editor for the GNOME desktop. Based on Scintilla.
SSEX
[Unix]
A multi-file development-orientated text editor for Unix systems, based on
the Qt GUI toolkit.
Text Trix
[Java-supporting]
A general purpose text editor with tabs and tab-grouping.
Peppy
[Windows, Unix, Mac OS X]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A text editor written in Python meant to be XEmacs-like (eventually).
Emphasizes source code editing, but can be used to edit anything
lots of things some stuff. Not a minimalist editor or a do-all
editor like Emacs, Peppy is somewhere in between.
Eddi
[Windows, GNU/Linux, Unix]
Written "by a person who did not like emacs", Eddi is meant to
be powerful and easy to use. Can be run under Windows with some
difficulty.
Jext
[Java-supporting]*
A Java text editor with plenty of features. Supports plugins written in
Python or Java.
Xcoral
[GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX, Mac OS X, Unix]
A multi-window mouse-based editor for the X Window System. Has a built in
browser for C functions, C++ and Java classes, methods and files. The editor
is extendable using Smac.
Editra
[Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, Unix]*
A general, extensible, cross-platform text editor focusing on creating an
easy-to-use interface with features that aid in code development.
Katoob
[*BSD, Unix]
A light weight text editor based on GTK+. Focus on the Arabic language.
Adie
[Windows, GNU/Linux]*
A fast editor written with the FOX Toolkit. Also works as a file viewer.
Freddy
[Windows, GNU/Linux]
A programmer's editor written in Qt. Extendable and configurable.
A.T.Edit
[Windows, Unix]
A text editor written in Tcl/Tk. Fairly simple.
ECe
[GNU/Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD, Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
A clone of the ncurses-based editor that ships with Midnight Commander. A
simple text editor which doesn't require memorization of many keyboard
shortcuts. Has enhancements over the editor it clones.
Yzis
[Unix]
A text editor inspired by Vim. Yzis puts all editing functionality in a C++
library independent of the user interface. Frontends to this library have
been written for Qt and ncurses. A KDE 4 frontend is currently in the works,
and a GTK frontend was started but unmaintained.
Katy
[Unix (KDE)]
A KDE text editor inspired by UltraEdit, a proprietary Windows text
editor.
QMWEdit
[GNU/Linux, Unix]
A simple editor for C/C++ projects.
PlEd
[Java-supporting]
A programmer's editor written in Java and intended to make heavy use of
plugins.
Led
[GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, source]
A small editor primarily intended as a programmer's editor.
tpad
[Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD]
An enhanced clone of Windows Notepad written entirely in Tcl/Tk. tpad is
meant to be "as similar as possibile [sic] to Notepad",
though it implements a few features not found in Notepad.
AEditor
[Windows, Mac OS X, Unix]
A programmer's text editor written in Ruby which relies on the FOX Toolkit.
Has syntax highlighting for Ruby and C++. Fairly customizable.
JERED
[Unix]
{Screenshots:
GNU/Linux console.}
An easy-to-use text editor with C/C++ syntax color highlighting. Help always
visible and the editor is configurable. The UI can be viewed in English, French, Finnish,
Spanish, or Russian.
VietPad
[Unix]
A console/terminal editor written in Java/.NET with a focus on editing
Vietnamese text files in Unicode formats.
UniRed
[Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP]*
A Unicode plain text editor which supports syntax highlighting, regular
expressions, and spell-checking via ispell. Localized to 23 languages.
rospell
[GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, Cygwin]
A Qt-based UTF-8 text editor for programmers and general use. Includes
spell-checkers for several languages, including a 1.5 million word Romanian
spell-checker that is developed as part of the project, thus the editor's
name.
Tickle Text
[Windows ("iffy"), GNU/Linux, Mac OS X]
A fast, lightweight editor written in Tcl/Tk.
ML
[Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris]
A text editor designed for editing Tcl/Tk source files, but capable of
editing any text file.
Gtkedit
[Unix]
A simple editor written using the GTK+ toolkit. Aims to be light, useful and
simple. Modeled on Windows Notepad. Gtkedit is a good GUI editor for older
machines (like Pentium 166 MHz old) where other GUI editors might be slow to
open and laggy to use.
EDI
[GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Unix]
A simple console text editor with syntax highlighting for Fortran and C.
Most functions available via the function keys, with key bindings shown at
the bottom of the screen; WordStar-style key bindings also available.
NaBN
[GNU/Linux]
A small graphical text editor.
DEE
[Unix]
A simple source code editor with syntax highlighting and a file browser
panel.
LucED
[GNU/Linux, Cygwin, Unix]
A simple and minimalistic editor scriptable in Lua with a user-interface
similar to NEdit.
Red
[Unix]
A small full-screen Unix text editor. Documentation written in Russian.
PadPaper Editor
[Unix]
A simple GUI text editor without many advanced features.
Editkit (direct source download)
[Unix]
A small piece of software written in C, extending editX. Has Emacs and
WordStar key bindings. Console and X frontends provided. Because the
binaries are small and the console version only needs termcap, it works well
in small environments (e.g. install CDs, rescue disks).
QTide
[GNU/Linux]
A Qt-based text editor.
Bookwrite
[Windows, Unix]*
An editor designed to help writers. Its main feature is fullscreen mode,
which has zero visible interface—the idea is if only the text is
available, and nothing else, the writer will be free from distractions and
be able to better concentrate on the text.
medit
[Windows, Unix]*
A GUI programming text editor. Supports plugins written in C or Python, as
well as configurable tools written in Python, Lua, or shell script.
Syn
[Windows (32 bit)]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A text editor geared toward development. It has a few IDE-like features, such as
support for project files, starting up a compiler, etc. Written in
Delphi. Supports Active Scripting.
ZED
[GNU/Linux, HP/UX, SunOS, AIX, Unix]
A compact, configurable and powerful text editor. Author Sandro Serafini
states "if you cannot stand VI, this is the editor for you." Has
a pretty good feature set.
ZionEdit
[Windows]*
A GUI editor based on the Scintilla editor component and the WxWidgets
toolkit. Configurable.
StrongED
[RISC OS]
A programmer's text editor for RISC OS. It has most of the features one
expects from programmer's text editors—syntax highlighting, folding,
wrapping, undo/redo, auto indentation.
Zap
[RISC OS]
A RISC OS text editor for programmers. It "has a large number of
features designed to facilitate programming (particularly source code), as
well as full text editing facilities. It is also highly configurable and
extensible."
Yi
[Haskell-supporting—Windows 2000/XP/Vista, GNU/Linux (x86 &
x86_64), Solaris (x86 & sparc), Mac OS X (ppc & x86), source]
An editor written and extensible in Haskell. The long-term goal of the
project is to be the editor of choice for Haskell programmers. Yi is able to
emulate Emacs and Vim by default.
YetAnotherEditor
[GNU/Linux]
YetAnotherEditor (or YAED) is a small-footprint editor which is similar to
nano, with extra features for programmers. CVS appears to be the only way to
get it, as of this writing.
Xint
[Windows 2000/XP]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A GPL licensed Notepad replacement with quite a few features, including
support for Twofish encryption.
xedit
[Unix (X window system)]
{Screenshots:
Windows/Cygwin GUI.}
The above link goes to the man page, but the editor comes with the X window
system and is thus installed on nearly every Unix and Unix-like system. The
text editor is simple, but has keyboard shortcuts reminiscent of Emacs. Not
a very pretty editor.
Transnote
[Windows]*
A Notepad replacement with transparency and Rich Text support.
Tk Notepad
[Windows 95/98/NT, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X]
A text editor similar to Notepad written in Tcl/Tk.
TkEdit
[Unix (X window system)]
An editor for the X window system written in Tcl/Tk. Macros supported in
Tcl.
Tinn-R
[Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP]*
Initially a small ASCII file editor meant to be a replacement for Windows
Notepad, Tinn-R eventually became a more complete editor.
TextRoom
[Windows, GNU/Linux]*
A full-screen text editor for writers. Like other editors of this breed, the
editor seeks to eliminate distractions and let writers focus on the
writing.
Text 1.0
[PalmOS]
A text editor for handheld devices running PalmOS, released under the
GPL.
tejpWriter
[PalmOS]
A GPL text editor for PalmOS, compiled with OnBoardC.
Syuhitu
[Solaris]
A text editor for Solaris with a simple user interface and aiming for
ease-of-use. The webpage makes no mention of compatibility with other
Unices, though it appears CDE and Motif are required. The license is in
Japanese, and the unofficial English version reads like text translated by
Babelfish, but it appears to be a permissive license that requires
developers to specify changes from the original.
SLED
[Unix]
A simple no-frills text editor for Unix, designed by the author as a text
editor to write e-mails. Ignores control characters.
SeX
[Unix (X window system)]
A simple text editor for the X window system. No longer developed, and
described by its author as "quite dead".
QE
[Unix]
A PE2-like editor for Unix. PE2 was a text editor for PC-DOS, and Q follows
P, thus QE. The editor has not been updated since 2001. The README file
provided with the source tarball was probably in Chinese, though it was hard
to tell, as by the time I had downloaded and unpacked the tarball it was
nothing but gibberish. (The source does come with some English
documentation.) The official English webpage is a dead
link and I'm not sure what relationship the Geocities page has, but the Chinese page is
up.
n-squared
[Windows]*
A Notepad-like editor.
Mystix
[Windows]*
A programmer's text editor based on the SynEdit component.
ML Text Editor
[Tcl/Tk supporting]
A text editor for writing Tcl/Tk code, written in Tcl/Tk.
MadEdit
[Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD]*
A text/hex cross-platform text editor.
Kile
[Unix (KDE)]
A text editor specializing in TeX/LaTeX editing.
KAKE PAD
[Perl-supporting]
A text editor written in Perl with the Perl Tk module. Has features aimed at
Perl programmers. Supports plugins.
Hybrid Editor XE
[Windows, GNU/Linux, MS-DOS, OS/2, AIX, source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI,
Windows console.}
A text editor that emulates SPF, a mainframe editor by IBM.
GreenPad
[Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2k/XP/2003/Vista]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A Notepad replacement with some additional features. Available in Japanese
or English. Licensed under the NYSL, a Japanese license; however, the
unofficial English translation makes it clear that the license is
permissive. On my XP machine, Greenpad was unstable.
Gobby
[Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X]*
A collaborative editor with multi-user chat.
Glimmer
[Unix (GNOME)]
A text editor with syntax highlighting and other features. Last updated in
2002.
FED
[Windows, GNU/Linux, MS-DOS]*
{Screenshots:
Windows GUI.}
A folding text editor, released under the GPL. Has syntax highlighting and
common keybindings. Built-in screensaver and Tetris.
FaME
[Windows 95/98/Me/NT4]
A text editor. Website is in German.
erwin
[GNU/Linux]
erwin is a really simple HTML editor.
Emerald Editor
[Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, *BSD]
A text editor build on / inspired by Crimson Editor. Still under
development, I believe.
Ed, the Tcl Code Editor
[Tcl/Tk-supporting]
A text editor written in Tcl, run from within a Tcl console.
ED
[Windows, source]*
{Screenshots:
Windows console.}
A clone of the EDT editor, an editor which came with VAX VMS. A Windows
executable is provided, but there's also source code for "almost any
platform".
Apex Text
[Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X]*
A general purpose text editor which supports syntax highlighting,
configuration, and localization.
Alpha
[Mac OS X, MacOS 9]
A text editor for the Macintosh scriptable in Tcl.
AkelPad
[Windows]*
A Notepad-like editor for plain text, designed to be small and fast.
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