This article compares notable text editors. It may not be up-to-date or all-inclusive. Comparisons are between stable versions (not upcoming or beta releases) and are exclusive of any add-ons, extensions or external programs unless otherwise noted.

Other features can be listed via the Category of text editor features.

General attributes

Name Developer Initial release Latest release Programming language Cost (US$) License GUI TUI or CLI Version Date Acme Rob Pike 1993 Plan 9 and Inferno C Alphatk Vince Darley 1999 Atom GitHub 2014 HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++ BBEdit Rich Siegel 1992 Objective-C, Objective-C++ Bluefish Bluefish Development Team 1999 C Brackets Adobe Systems 2012 HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++ Coda Panic 2007 Objective-C ConTEXT ConTEXT Project Ltd 1999 Object Pascal (Delphi) Crimson Editor Ingyu Kang 1999 C++ ed Ken Thompson 1970 unchanged from original C Editra Cody Precord 2007 0.7.20 2013-01-05 Python EmEditor Emurasoft, Inc. 1997 21.3.0 2021-11-24 C++ epsilon Lugaru Software 1984 14.00 2020-10-20 C FeatherPad Pedram Pourang 2016 C++, Qt FocusWriter Graeme Gott 2008 C++, Qt gedit GNU Project 2000 C Geany Enrico Tröger 2005 C, GTK+ GNU Emacs Richard Stallman 1984 C, Emacs Lisp GNU nano Chris Allegretta 1999 C IA Writer Information Architects 2010.09.22 7.2 2025-08-25 Objective-C (iOS), Objective-C (macOS), C# (Windows), Java (Android) JED John E. Davis 1992 C, S-Lang jEdit Slava Pestov 1998 Java JOE Joseph Allen 1988 C JOVE Johnathon Payne 1983 C Kate KDE Project 2000-12 C++ KEDIT Mansfield Software Group, Inc. 1983 1.6.1 2016-12-05 C Komodo Edit Activestate 2007 Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby Komodo IDE Activestate 2001 Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby KWrite KDE Project 2000 C++ LE Alexander V. Lukyanov 1997 C++ Leo Edward K. Ream 1996 Python Light Table Chris Granger 2012 ClojureScript mcedit Miguel de Icaza 1994 C, Python, PHP, Javascript, Perl, Tcl, Ruby Metapad Alexander Davidson 1999 C mg Dave Conroy 1986 current 2020-07-22 C MinEd Thomas Wolff 1992 2022.27 2022-12-23 C MS-DOS Editor Microsoft 1991 2.0.026 ne Sebastiano VignaTodd LewisDaniele Filaretti 1993 C NEdit Mark Edel 1991 C Notepad Microsoft 1985 11.2302.16.0 MASM (originally) Notepad++ Don Ho 2003-11-25 C++ nvi Keith Bostic 1994 C Pico University of Washington 1992 4.64 C PolyEdit PolySoft Solutions 1998 5.4 20100407 PSPad Jan Fiala 2002 Object Pascal (Delphi) RJ TextEd Rickard Johansson 2004 Object Pascal (Delphi) Sam Rob Pike 1980s (early) stable C SciTE Neil Hodgson 1999 C++ SlickEdit SlickEdit, Inc. 1988 28.0.1 2024-01-21 C, Slick-C Smultron Peter Borg 2004 Objective-C SubEthaEdit TheCodingMonkeys 2003 Sublime Text 2008 TED Notepad Juraj Simlovic 2001 C Textadept Mitchell 2007 C, Lua TextEdit Apple Inc. 2001 TextMate MacroMates 2004-10-10 Objective-C++ TextPad Helios Software Solutions 1992 TextWrangler Bare Bones Software 2003 5.5.2 2016-09-20 The SemWare Editor Sammy Mitchell 1985-11 C, SAL UltraEdit IDM Computer Solutions 1994 25.0 2018-03-12 C++ VEDIT Ted Green, Greenview Data 1980 6.24.2 2015-01-12 Assembly, C vi Bill Joy 1976 3.7 C or CDDL Vim Bram Moolenaar 1991 C, Vim script Visual Studio Code Microsoft 2015 JavaScript, TypeScript XEmacs Lucid Inc. 1991 C, Emacs Lisp XNEdit Olaf Wintermann 2018 1.5.2 2023-10-05 C

Operating system support

Windows macOS Linux BSD Unix OpenVMS Acme Alphatk Atom Arachnophilia BBEdit Bluefish Brackets Coda ConTEXT Crimson Editor ed Editra EmEditor epsilon Geany gedit GNU Emacs JED jEdit JOE JOVE Kate KEDIT Komodo Edit Komodo IDE KWrite LE Light Table Metapad mg MinEd GNU nano ne NEdit Notepad Notepad++ nvi Pico PSPad RJ TextEd Sam SciTE SlickEdit Smultron SubEthaEdit Sublime Text TED Notepad Textadept TextEdit TextMate TextPad TextWrangler The SemWare Editor UltraEdit Ulysses (text editor) vi Vim Visual Studio Code XEmacs XNEdit

Natural language (localization) Languages Acme English Alphatk English Atom English BBEdit English Brackets English, German, French, Polish(Outdated), Korean, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish(Outdated) Coda English, German, French, Spanish ConTEXT English, German, French, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish Crimson Editor English ed Editra English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish EmEditor English, German, French, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish epsilon English Geany English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi gedit English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi GNU Emacs English JED English jEdit English JOE English, German, French JOVE English Kate English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish KEDIT English Komodo Edit English KWrite English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish Metapad English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish mined English MS-DOS Editor English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish Nano English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese NEdit English Notepad English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi Notepad++ English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi nvi English Pico English, Italian PolyEdit English PSPad English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish RJ TextEd English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish Sam English SciTE English, German, French (Outdated (1.72)), Polish, Japanese (Outdated (1.62)), Italian, Dutch (Outdated (1.67)), Portuguese (Outdated (1.63)), Spanish, Swedish SlickEdit English Smultron English, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish SubEthaEdit English TED Notepad English TextEdit English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish TextMate English TextPad English, German, French, Polish (Outdated (4.7.3)), Japanese, Italian(Outdated (4.7.3)), Dutch (Outdated (4.7.3)), Spanish (Outdated (4.7.3)), Portuguese (Outdated (4.7.3)) TextWrangler English The SemWare Editor English UltraEdit English, German, French, Korean, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese VEDIT English vi English Vim Afrikaans, Catalan, Chinese(Simplified), Chinese(Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, English(UK), English(US), Esperanto, Finnish, French, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Norwegian(Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese(Brazil), Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese Visual Studio Code English, Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish XEmacs English XNEdit English

Document interface The following table identifies the following attributes of an editor that describe its user experience with respect to multiple documents: Multiple instances Whether multiple instances of the program can be open at the same time for editing multiple files (one in each instance). Applies both for single-document interface (SDI) and multiple-document interface (MDI). Also, applies for a program that has a user interface that looks like multiple instances of the same program (such as some versions of Word). Single document window splitting Whether a window can be split to simultaneously view different areas of a file. MDI overlappable windows Whether each open document gets its own fully movable window inside the editor environment. MDI tabbed document interface Whether multiple documents can be viewed as tabs in a single window. MDI window splitting Whether supports splitting the application window to show multiple documents (non-overlapping windows).

+ Text editor support for common document interfaces Multiple instances Single document window splitting MDI overlappable windows MDI tabbed document interface MDI window splitting Acme Alphatk Atom BBEdit Bluefish Brackets Coda ConTEXT Crimson Editor ed Editra EmEditor Geany Plugin gedit Plugin Plugin GNU Emacs JED jEdit JOE JOVE Kate KEDIT Komodo Edit Komodo IDE KWrite LE Light Table Metapad mined MS-DOS Editor Nano NEdit Notepad Notepad++ 2 windows nvi Pico PolyEdit PSPad RJ TextEd Sam SciTE SlickEdit Smultron SubEthaEdit TED Notepad TextEdit TextMate TextPad TextWrangler The SemWare Editor UltraEdit VEDIT vi Vim Visual Studio Code XEmacs XNEdit

Basic features

Spell checking Regex-based find & replace Encoding conversion Newline conversion Multiple undo/redo Rectangular block selection Virtual space support Acme external Alphatk Atom Plugin BBEdit Bluefish Brackets Plugin Plugin Coda ConTEXT Crimson Editor Instant/live (like Firefox) ed Editra EmEditor Geany Plugin gedit Plugin GNU Emacs Plugin JED jEdit Plugin JOE Plugin JOVE Kate KEDIT Komodo Edit Komodo IDE KWrite LE Light Table Plugin Metapad mg MinEd MS-DOS Editor Nano ne NEdit PluginNEdit supports spell checking via a plugin Notepad Notepad++ Notepad++ 6.3.3 and above support spell checking via the DSpellCheck plugin, which is included with the default package. nvi Pico PolyEdit PSPad RJ TextEd Sam external SciTE SlickEdit Smultron SubEthaEdit SubEthaEdit supports advanced block editing, including multi-line typing and non-contiguous block selections. Sublime Text TED Notepad TextEdit TextMate TextPad TextWrangler The SemWare Editor UltraEdit VEDIT vi Vim Visual Studio Code Plugin XEmacs Plugin XNedit Plugin

Programming features

Syntax highlighting Function list Symbol database Bracket matching Auto indentation Auto completion Code folding Text folding Compiler integration Acme external external external Alphatk Atom Plugin BBEdit Bluefish Brackets Plugin Coda ConTEXT Crimson Editor ed external Editra EmEditor Plugin Plugin Plugin Geany gedit Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin GNU Emacs JED jEdit Plugin Plugin Plugin JOE JOVE Kate Plugin Plugin Plugin KEDIT Macro Komodo Edit Komodo IDE KWrite LE Light Table Metapad mined MS-DOS Editor Nano ne NEdit Plugin Plugin Notepad Notepad++ nvi Pico PolyEdit PSPad Plugin RJ TextEd Sam external SciTE SlickEdit Smultron SubEthaEdit TED Notepad TextEdit TextMate Plugin TextPad Plugin TextWrangler Plugin The SemWare Editor Plugin UltraEdit VEDIT < vi Vim PluginVim has a popular TagList plugin that provides a function list. Visual Studio Code XEmacs XNEdit Plugin Plugin

Additional programming features