A text editor may sound boring to some, but it’s the lifeblood of so many organizations around the world. From development teams to publishers, text and code editors are intertwined with almost everyone’s workflows. Many of us bounce in and out of them all day long. Whether you’re writing PHP, or simply taking notes for a project, there are plenty of great tools to make this task a little easier. Today we’ll outline the absolute best text editor solutions.
Quick Navigation
1. Atom
Atom is a free and open-source text and source code editor for macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows with support for plug-ins written in JavaScript, and embedded Git Control, developed by GitHub. Atom is a desktop application built using web technologies.
Size: 87–180 MB
License: MIT License (free software)
Initial release: 26 February 2014;
[button link=”https://atom.io/”]Download[/button]
2. Notepad++
Notepad++ is a text and source code editor for use with Microsoft Windows. It supports tabbed editing, which allows working with multiple open files in a single window. The project’s name comes from the C increment operator. Notepad++ is distributed as free software.
Size: 3–5MB
License: GPL-3.0-or-later
Initial release: 24 November 2003;
[button link=”https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/”]Download[/button]
3. Sublime Text
Sublime Text is a shareware cross-platform source code editor with a Python application programming interface. It natively supports many programming languages and markup languages, and functions can be added by users with plugins, typically community-built and maintained under free-software licenses.
Size: 18–25MB
License: Proprietary
Initial release: January 18, 2008;
[button link=”https://www.sublimetext.com/”]Download[/button]
4. Brackets
Brackets is a discontinued source code editor with a primary focus on web development. Created by Adobe Systems, it is free and open-source software licensed under the MIT License, and is currently maintained on GitHub by Adobe and other open-source developers. It is written in JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
Size: ~75MB
Initial release: 4 November 2014;
Developer: Adobe
[button link=”http://brackets.io/”]Download[/button]
5. UltraEdit
UltraEdit is a commercial text editor for Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X created in 1994 by the founder of IDM Computer Solutions Inc., Ian D. Mead.
Size: 90–110MB
License: Trialware
Developer(s): IDM Computer Solutions, Inc
[button link=”https://www.ultraedit.com/downloads/ultraedit-download/”]Download[/button]
6. Komodo Edit
Komodo Edit is a free and open source text editor for dynamic programming languages. It was introduced in January 2007 to complement ActiveState’s commercial Komodo IDE. As of version 4.3, Komodo Edit is built atop the Open Komodo project. Komodo IDE is no longer supported and maintained by developers for python.
Size: ~74.6 MB
License: Mozilla Public License 1.1
Initial release: November 2007;
Developer: ActiveState
[button link=”https://www.activestate.com/products/komodo-edit/”]Download[/button]
7. BBEdit
BBEdit is a proprietary text editor made by Bare Bones Software, originally developed for Macintosh System Software 6, and currently supporting macOS.
Size: ~19.6 MB
License: Proprietary
Initial release: April 12, 1992;
Operating system: macOS
Developer: Bare Bones Software
[button link=”https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/download.html”]Download[/button]
8. Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is a source-code editor made by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS. Features include support for debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, code refactoring, and embedded Git.
Size: Windows: 40.8–68.3 MB; Linux: 46.5–66.6 MB; macOS: 67.5 MB
License: Proprietary
Initial release: April 12, 1992;
Developer(s): Microsoft
[button link=”https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/download.html”]Download[/button]
9. NetBeans
NetBeans is an integrated development environment for Java. NetBeans allows applications to be developed from a set of modular software components called modules. NetBeans runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Solaris.
Size: ~410MB
License: Apache License 2.0 (previously CDDL or GPLv2 with classpath exception)
Developer(s): Apache Software Foundation; Oracle Corporation
[button link=”https://netbeans.apache.org/download/index.html”]Download[/button]
10. Vim
Vim is a clone, with additions, of Bill Joy’s vi text editor program for Unix. Vim’s author, Bram Moolenaar, based it on the source code for a port of the Stevie editor to the Amiga and released a version to the public in 1991.
Size: 7-15MB
License: Free software (Vim License), charityware
Initial release: 2 November 1991;
[button link=”https://www.vim.org/download.php”]Download[/button]
