Comparison of text editors explained

This article provides basic comparisons for notable text editors. More feature details for text editors are available from the Category of text editor features and from the individual products' articles. This article may not be up-to-date or necessarily all-inclusive.

Feature comparisons are made between stable versions of software, not the upcoming versions or beta releases – and are exclusive of any add-ons, extensions or external programs (unless specified in footnotes).

Overview

Name! rowspan="2"

Developer	Initial release	Latest release		Programming language	Cost (US$)	License	GUI	TUI or CLI
data-sort-type="number"		Version	Date
nowrap	Acme	Rob Pike	1993	Plan 9 and Inferno		C
nowrap	AkelPad	Alexey Kuznetsov Alexander Shengalts	2003			C
nowrap	Alphatk	Vince Darley	1999
nowrap	Atom	GitHub	2014			HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++
nowrap	BBEdit	Rich Siegel	1992			Objective-C, Objective-C++
nowrap	Bluefish	Bluefish Development Team	1999			C
nowrap	Brackets	Adobe Systems	2012			HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++
nowrap	Coda	Panic	2007			Objective-C
nowrap	ConTEXT	ConTEXT Project Ltd	1999			Object Pascal (Delphi)
nowrap	Crimson Editor	Ingyu Kang	1999			C++
nowrap	CudaText	UVViewSoft	2015			Object Pascal (Lazarus)
nowrap	ed	Ken Thompson	1970	unchanged from original		C
nowrap	Editra	Cody Precord	2007	0.7.20	2013-01-05	Python
nowrap	EmEditor	Emurasoft, Inc.	1997	21.3.0	2021-11-24	C++
nowrap	epsilon	Lugaru Software	1984	14.00^[1]	2020-10-20	C
nowrap	FeatherPad	Pedram Pourang	2016			C++, Qt
nowrap	gedit	GNU Project	2000			C
nowrap	Geany	Enrico Tröger	2005			C, GTK+
nowrap	GNU Emacs	Richard Stallman	1984			C, Emacs Lisp
nowrap	GNU nano	Chris Allegretta	1999			C
nowrap	IA Writer	Information Architects	2010.09.22	5.6	2020-12-07	Objective-C (iOS), Objective-C (macOS), C# (Windows), Java (Android)
nowrap	JED	John E. Davis	1992			C, S-Lang
nowrap	jEdit	Slava Pestov	1998			Java
nowrap	JOE	Joseph Allen	1988			C
nowrap	JOVE	Johnathon Payne	1983			C
nowrap	Kate	KDE Project	2000-12			C++
nowrap	KEDIT	Mansfield Software Group, Inc.	1983	1.6.1	2016-12-05	C
nowrap	Komodo Edit	Activestate	2007			Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby
nowrap	Komodo IDE	Activestate	2001			Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby
nowrap	KWrite	KDE Project	2000			C++
nowrap	LE	Alexander V. Lukyanov	1997			C++
nowrap	Leo	Edward K. Ream	1996			Python
nowrap	Light Table	Chris Granger	2012			ClojureScript
nowrap	mcedit	Miguel de Icaza	1994			C, Python, PHP, Javascript, Perl, Tcl, Ruby
nowrap	Metapad	Alexander Davidson	1999			C
nowrap	mg	Dave Conroy	1986	current	2020-07-22	C
nowrap	MinEd	Thomas Wolff	1992	2022.27	2022-12-23	C
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor	Microsoft	1991	2.0.026
nowrap	ne	Sebastiano Vigna Todd Lewis Daniele Filaretti	1993			C
nowrap	NEdit	Mark Edel	1991			C
nowrap	Notepad	Microsoft	1985	11.2302.16.0		MASM (originally)
nowrap	Notepad++	Don Ho	2003-11-25			C++
nowrap	nvi	Keith Bostic	1994			C
nowrap	Pico	University of Washington	1992	4.64		C
nowrap	PimNote	Pimtel	2023	1.2.0^[2]	2023-04-22	C#
nowrap	PolyEdit	PolySoft Solutions	1998	5.4	20100407
nowrap	PSPad	Jan Fiala	2002			Object Pascal (Delphi)
nowrap	RJ TextEd	Rickard Johansson	2004			Object Pascal (Delphi)
nowrap	Sam	Rob Pike	1980s (early)	stable		C
nowrap	SciTE	Neil Hodgson	1999			C++
nowrap	SlickEdit	SlickEdit, Inc.	1988	28.0.1	2024-01-21	C, Slick-C
nowrap	Smultron	Peter Borg	2004			Objective-C
nowrap	SubEthaEdit	TheCodingMonkeys	2003
nowrap	Sublime Text		2008
nowrap	TED Notepad	Juraj Simlovic	2001			C
nowrap	Textadept	Mitchell	2007			C, Lua
nowrap	TextEdit	Apple Inc.	2001
nowrap	TextMate	MacroMates	2004-10-10			Objective-C++
nowrap	TextPad	Helios Software Solutions	1992
nowrap	TextWrangler	Bare Bones Software	2003	5.5.2	2016-09-20
nowrap	The SemWare Editor	Sammy Mitchell	1985-11			C, SAL
nowrap	UltraEdit	IDM Computer Solutions	1994	25.0	2018-03-12	C++
nowrap	VEDIT	Ted Green, Greenview Data	1980	6.24.2	2015-01-12	Assembly, C
nowrap	vi	Bill Joy	1976	3.7		C		or CDDL
nowrap	Vim	Bram Moolenaar	1991			C, Vim script
nowrap	Visual Studio Code	Microsoft	2015			JavaScript, TypeScript
nowrap	XEmacs	Lucid Inc.	1991			C, Emacs Lisp
nowrap	XNEdit	Olaf Wintermann	2018	1.5.2	2023-10-05	C

Operating system support

This section lists the operating systems that different editors can run on. Some editors run on additional operating systems that are not listed.

Cross-platform

Text editor support for various operating systems

nowrap		Microsoft Windows	macOS	Linux	BSD	Unix	OpenVMS
nowrap	Acme
nowrap	AkelPad
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom
nowrap	Arachnophilia
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	epsilon		^[3]
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit
nowrap	GNU Emacs
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit
nowrap	JOE
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	Kate
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Light Table
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	mg
nowrap	MinEd
nowrap	GNU nano
nowrap	ne
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	Sublime Text
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	Textadept
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler
nowrap	The SemWare Editor
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	Ulysses (text editor)
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim
nowrap	Visual Studio Code
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit

Natural language (localization)

Available languages for the

	Languages supported
nowrap	Acme	English
nowrap	AkelPad	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish
nowrap	Alphatk	English
nowrap		English
nowrap	BBEdit	English
nowrap	Brackets	English, German, French, Polish(Outdated), Korean, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish(Outdated)
nowrap	Coda	English, German, French, Spanish
nowrap	ConTEXT	English, German, French, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish
nowrap	Crimson Editor	English
nowrap	CudaText	Main: English. Addons: Japanese, French, Polish, Korean, Hungarian (2018), Greek, German (2017), and 9 others
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	EmEditor	English, German, French, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish
nowrap	epsilon	English
nowrap	Geany	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
nowrap	gedit	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
nowrap	GNU Emacs	English
nowrap	JED	English
nowrap	jEdit	English
nowrap	JOE^[4]	English, German, French
nowrap	JOVE	English
nowrap	Kate^[5]	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	KEDIT	English
nowrap	Komodo Edit	English
nowrap	KWrite	English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	Metapad^[6]	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	mined	English
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	Nano	English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese
nowrap	NEdit	English
nowrap	Notepad	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
nowrap	Notepad++	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
nowrap	nvi	English
nowrap	Pico	English, Italian
nowrap	PolyEdit	English
nowrap	PSPad	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	RJ TextEd	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	Sam	English
nowrap	SciTE^[7]	English, German, French (Outdated (1.72)), Polish, Japanese (Outdated (1.62)), Italian, Dutch (Outdated (1.67)), Portuguese (Outdated (1.63)), Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	SlickEdit	English
nowrap	Smultron	English, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	SubEthaEdit	English
nowrap	TED Notepad	English
nowrap	TextEdit	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
nowrap	TextMate	English
nowrap	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))
nowrap	TextWrangler	English
nowrap	The SemWare Editor	English
nowrap	UltraEdit	English, German, French, Korean, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese
nowrap	VEDIT	English
nowrap	vi	English
nowrap	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
nowrap	Visual Studio Code	English, Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish
nowrap	XEmacs	English
nowrap	XNEdit	English

Document interface

Text editor support for common document interfaces

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

Notes

• Multiple instances: multiple instances of the program can be opened simultaneously for editing multiple files. Applies both for single document interface (SDI) and multiple document interface (MDI) programs. Also applies for program that has a user interface that looks like multiple instances of the same program (such as some versions of Microsoft Word).
• Single document window splitting: window can be split to simultaneously view different areas of a file.
• MDI: Overlappable windows: each opened document gets its own fully movable window inside the editor environment.
• MDI: Tabbed document interface: multiple documents can be viewed as tabs in a single window.
• MDI: Window splitting: splitting application window to show multiple documents (non-overlapping windows).

Basic features

Text editor support for basic editing features

	Spell checking	Regex-based find & replace	Encoding conversion	Newline conversion	Multiple undo/redo	Rectangular block selection	Virtual space support
nowrap	Acme	external
nowrap	AkelPad	Plugin
nowrap	Alphatk
	Atom						Plugin
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets	Plugin		Plugin
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor	Instant/live (like Firefox)
nowrap	CudaText
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	Geany	Plugin						^[8]
nowrap	gedit		Plugin				^[9]
nowrap	GNU Emacs	Plugin						^[10]
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit	Plugin						^[11]
nowrap	JOE	Plugin
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	Kate
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Light Table	Plugin^[12]
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	mg		^[13]
nowrap	MinEd
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	Nano
	Spell checking	Regex-based find & replace	Encoding conversion	Newline conversion	Multiple undo/redo	Rectangular block selection	Virtual Space Support
nowrap	ne
nowrap	NEdit	Plugin^[14]
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++	^[15]
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam	external
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit							^[16]
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit						^[17]
nowrap	Sublime Text							^[18]
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler
nowrap	The SemWare Editor
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim							^[19]
	Visual Studio Code	Plugin						^[20]
nowrap	XEmacs	Plugin
nowrap	XNedit	Plugin
	Spell checking	Regex-based find & replace	Encoding conversion	Newline conversion	Multiple undo/redo	Rectangular block selection	Virtual Space Support

Programming features

Text editor support for programming features (see source code editor)

	Syntax highlighting	Function list	Symbol database (ctags or equiv.)	Brace matching	Auto indentation	Auto completion	Code folding	Text folding	Compiler integration
nowrap	Acme		external	external						external
nowrap	AkelPad	Plugin	Plugin	Plugin	Plugin		Plugin	Plugin		Plugin
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom									Plugin
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets									Plugin
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText				Plugin		Plugin			Plugin
nowrap	ed									external
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor		Plugin	Plugin			Plugin
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit		Plugin	Plugin			Plugin		Plugin
nowrap	GNU Emacs
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit		Plugin	Plugin						Plugin
nowrap	JOE
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	Kate		Plugin	Plugin						Plugin
nowrap	KEDIT			Macro
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Light Table
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	mined
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	Nano
	Syntax highlighting	Function list	Symbol database (ctags or equiv.)	Bracket matching	Auto indentation	Auto completion	Code folding	Text folding	Compiler integration
nowrap	ne
nowrap	NEdit		Plugin				Plugin
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++			^[21] ^[22]
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad			Plugin
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam									external
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate			Plugin
nowrap	TextPad			Plugin
nowrap	TextWrangler									Plugin
nowrap	The SemWare Editor			Plugin^[23]
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT						<
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim		Plugin^[24]
nowrap	Visual Studio Code
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit		Plugin				Plugin
	Syntax highlighting	Function list	Symbol database (ctags or equiv.)	Bracket matching	Auto indentation	Auto completion	Code folding	Text folding	Compiler integration

Notes

• Syntax highlighting: Displays text in different colors and fonts according to the category of terms.
• Function list: Lists all functions from current file in a window or sidebar and allows user to jump directly to the definition of that function for example by double-clicking on the function name in the list. More or less realtime (does not require creating a symbol database, see below).
• Symbol database: Database of functions, variable and type definitions, macro definitions etc. in all the files belonging to the software being developed. The database can be created by the editor itself or by an external program such as ctags. The database can be used to instantly locate the definition even if it is in another file.
• Bracket matching: Find matching parenthesis or bracket, taking into account nesting.
• Auto indentation: May refer to just simple indenting to the same level as the line above, or intelligent indenting that is language specific, e.g., ensuring a given indent style.
• Compiler integration: Allows running compilers/linkers/debuggers from within editor, capturing the compiler output and stepping through errors, automatically moving cursor to corresponding location in the source file.

Extra features

Text editor support for other programming features

	Text shell integration	Graphical shell integration	Macro language	Collaborative editing	Large file support	Long line support	Multi-line regex support	Search in files
nowrap	Acme			Extensible
nowrap	AkelPad								Plugin
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom	^[25]		Plugin^[26]		~27MB		^[27]
nowrap	BBEdit					^[28]
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets			Extensible
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText			Plugin					Plugin
nowrap	ed				via mkfifo
nowrap	Editra					2GB
nowrap	EmEditor					16TB
nowrap	Geany			Plugin
nowrap	gedit				Plugin				Plugin^[29]
nowrap	GNU Emacs					^[30] ^[31] ^[32] ^[33]
nowrap	JED					^[34]			Plugins
nowrap	jEdit					(heap)
nowrap	JOE								^[35]
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	Kate			Plugin		^[36]			Plugin
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit			^[37]
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite						^[38]
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Light Table
nowrap	Metapad					^[39]
nowrap	mined
nowrap	EDIT (MS-DOS)					(64~300KB)
nowrap	EDIT (DR-DOS)					2GB, for as long as there is disk swap space for two temporary files
nowrap	Nano
	Text shell integration	Graphical shell integration	Macro language	Collaborative editing	Large file support	Long line support	Multi-line regex support	Search in files
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++				^[40]	2GB^[41]	^[42]
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad					^[43]		with plugin
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam								external
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit					2TB
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad					^[44]
nowrap	TextWrangler					^[45]
nowrap	The SemWare Editor				Only in special DOS multi-user version	2GB
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT
nowrap	vi					~65MB
nowrap	Vim				with plugin^[46]
nowrap	Visual Studio Code				with plugin^[47]
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit
	Text shell integration	Graphical shell integration	Macro language	Collaborative editing	Large file support	Long line support	Multi-line regex support	Search in files

Large file support:

	= Larger than 4 GiB (LFS)	2GB	= Larger than 1 GB, not limited by memory
	= Limited by available memory	(64 KB)	= Some limit less than available memory (give max size if known)

In general, most text editors do not support large text files. Some restrict themselves to available in-core RAM while others use sophisticated virtual memory management techniques and paging algorithms.^[48]

Search in files:Perform search (and possibly replace) in multiple files on disk, for example on a sub-directory and recursively all the directories below it.Similar to grep.

Key bindings

Support for custom key bindings.

Text editor support for key bindings.

	Dynamically customizable	IBM CUA	macOS	Vi	Emacs	Pico	WordStar	WordPerfect	Brief
nowrap	Acme
nowrap	AkelPad
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom
nowrap	BBEdit^[49] ^[50]
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets				Plugin	Plugin
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	epsilon
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit
nowrap	GNU Emacs						^[51]	^[52]	^[53]
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit
nowrap	JOE^[54]
nowrap	JOVE							^[55]
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Light Table				Plugin	Plugin
nowrap	Kate				^[56]
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	mg
nowrap	mined
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	Nano
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico					^[57]
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler^[58]
nowrap	The SemWare Editor
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT				^[59]
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim		Plugin^[60]	Plugin^[61]		Plugin	Plugin^[62]	Plugin^[63]		Plugin^[64]
nowrap	Visual Studio Code				Plugin^[65]	Plugin^[66]				Plugin^[67]
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit
	Dynamically customizable	IBM CUA	macOS	Vi	Emacs	Pico	WordStar	WordPerfect	Brief

Notes, bugs

• Vim: custom maps of Ctrl-1 .. Ctrl-9, Ctrl-0 cannot be set, nor is Control-Shift-<char> distinguished from Ctrl-<char>.^{[68] [69]}
• Notepad++: custom shortcuts of Shift-<char> cannot be set, they need an added modifier such as Ctrl or Alt. i.e. SCI_LINESCROLLUP cannot be bound to "Shift-I"as the "Add"button is greyed out.
• Emacs and Pico: pico uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc.

Protocol support

Support for editing files over a network or the Internet.

Text editor support for remote file editing over network protocols

	FTP	HTTP	SSH	WebDAV
nowrap	Acme
nowrap	AkelPad
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets	Plugin
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT	^[70]
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit
nowrap	GNU Emacs
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit	plugin^[71]	^[72]	plugin	plugin.
nowrap	JOE
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Kate
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo IDE	FTP, FTPS, SFTP
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	mined
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	Nano
	FTP	HTTP	SSH	WebDAV
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++	Plugin for FTP, FTPS, FTPES, SFTP		Plugin
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd	FTP, SFTP
nowrap	Sam
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	TED Notepad	^[73]
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler	FTP, SFTP^[74]
nowrap	The SemWare Editor
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim	^[75]
nowrap	Visual Studio Code	Plugin^[76]	Plugin (limited?)	Plugin	Plugin
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit
	FTP	HTTP	SSH	WebDAV

Unicode and other character encodings

To support specified character encoding, the editor must be able to load, save, view and edit text in the specific encoding and not destroy any characters. For UTF-8 and UTF-16, this requires internal 16-bit character support.

Partial support is indicated if: 1) the editor can only convert the character encoding to internal (8-bit) format for editing.2) If some encodings are supported only in some platforms.3) If the editor can only display specific character set (such as OEM) by loading corresponding font, but does not support keyboard entry for that character set.

Text editor support for some of the most common character encodings

	ASCII	ISO-8859	DOS (OEM)	EBCDIC	UTF-8	UTF-16
nowrap	Acme
nowrap	AkelPad
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit
nowrap	GNU Emacs
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit
nowrap	JOE
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Kate
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	mined
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	Nano
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler
nowrap	The SemWare Editor				Plugin
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim
nowrap	Visual Studio Code				^[77]
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit

Right-to-left and bidirectional text

Support for Right-To-Left (RTL) texts is necessary for editing some languages like Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Yiddish and the mixture of left to right (LTR) and RTL known as bi-directional (BiDi) support.

Depending on the algorithm used in the programs it might only render the bidirectional text correctly but may not be able to edit them. (e.g. Notepad++ 5.1.3 shows bidirectional texts correctly but cannot edit it and user should change the text direction to RTL to be able to edit RTL texts correctly.)

Right to left (RTL) & bidirectional (bidi) support

	Right-to-left (RTL)	Bi-directional (Bidi)
nowrap	Acme
nowrap	AkelPad
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit
nowrap	GNU Emacs
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit
nowrap	JOE
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Kate
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	mined
nowrap	Nano
	RTL	Bidi
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler
nowrap	The SemWare Editor
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim		through terminal support
nowrap	Visual Studio Code
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit
	RTL	Bidi

Newline support

Support for newline characters in line endings

	Windows (CR/LF)	Unix-like systems (including macOS)^[78] (LF)	Classic Mac OS (CR)
nowrap	Acme
nowrap	AkelPad
nowrap	Alphatk
nowrap	Atom
nowrap	BBEdit
nowrap	Bluefish
nowrap	Brackets
nowrap	Coda
nowrap	ConTEXT
nowrap	Crimson Editor
nowrap	CudaText
nowrap	ed
nowrap	Editra
nowrap	EmEditor
nowrap	Geany
nowrap	gedit
nowrap	GNU Emacs
nowrap	JED
nowrap	jEdit
nowrap	JOE^[79]
nowrap	JOVE
nowrap	Kate
nowrap	KEDIT
nowrap	Komodo Edit
nowrap	Komodo IDE
nowrap	KWrite
nowrap	LE
nowrap	Metapad
nowrap	MS-DOS Editor
nowrap	mined
nowrap	Nano
nowrap	NEdit
nowrap	Notepad
nowrap	Notepad++
nowrap	nvi
nowrap	Pico
nowrap	PolyEdit
nowrap	PSPad
nowrap	RJ TextEd
nowrap	Sam
nowrap	SciTE
nowrap	SlickEdit
nowrap	Smultron
nowrap	SubEthaEdit
nowrap	Sublime Text
nowrap	TED Notepad
nowrap	TextEdit
nowrap	TextMate
nowrap	TextPad
nowrap	TextWrangler
nowrap	The SemWare Editor
nowrap	UltraEdit
nowrap	VEDIT
nowrap	vi
nowrap	Vim
nowrap	Visual Studio Code
nowrap	XEmacs
nowrap	XNEdit
	Windows (CR/LF)	Unix-like systems (including macOS) (LF)	Classic Mac OS (CR)

See also

• Editor war
• Comparison of
  • word processors
  • integrated development environments
  • HTML editors
  • TeX editors
  • hex editors
  • notetaking software
  • wiki software
• Lists of
  • text editors
  • wiki software
  • personal information managers
  • outliners for
    • desktops
    • mobile devices
    • web-based

Notes and References

1. Web site: Epsilon 14 Update Information . 2020-10-22 . Lugaru Software, Ltd..
2. Pimtel. Pimnote.
3. Web site: New Features in Epsilon 13. www.lugaru.com.
4. Web site: JOE - Joe's own editor. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /po. 23 October 2015.
5. Web site: KDE Localization - Apps » stable » kate.po. l10n.kde.org.
6. Web site: Metapad language plugins. liquidninja.com.
7. Web site: Localised SciTE. scintilla.org.
8. Web site: Geany .
9. Web site: Gedit/Plugins/ColumnMode - GNOME Wiki!. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120111004835/http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins/ColumnMode. 2012-01-11.
10. Web site: Virtual space for rectangular selections (at least) . . 13 March 2023.
11. Web site: Selecting Text .
12. Web site: GitHub - rschroll/lt-spelling: Spell check plugin for Light Table.. April 29, 2015. GitHub.
13. Web site: Super User's BSD Cross Reference: /OpenBSD/usr.bin/mg/re_search.c. bxr.su.
14. NEdit supports spell checking via a plugin
15. http://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/notepad-6.3.3-release.html Notepad++ 6.3.3
16. https://wiki.c2.com/?SlickEdit
17. SubEthaEdit supports advanced block editing, including multi-line typing and non-contiguous block selections.
18. Web site: Virtual space . 28 March 2012 .
19. Web site: Indent with virtual spaces in Vim? . reddit.com. 28 January 2021 .
20. Web site: Virtual Space is not implemented. · Issue #13960 · microsoft/Vscode . .
21. Web site: GitHub - ffes/npptags: Universal Ctags plug-in for Notepad++.. March 7, 2019. GitHub.
22. Web site: NotePad++ Plugin. Allows to connect to SQL Servers, execute SQL commands and views results: vladk1973/npp.connections. June 21, 2019. GitHub.
23. Web site: TSE-Pro Files. www.semware.com.
24. Vim has a popular TagList plugin that provides a function list.
25. Web site: Feature Request: Integrated Shell/Terminal Access · Issue #14490 · atom/atom. GitHub.
26. Web site: atom-macros. Atom. 8 June 2022 .
27. Web site: Multi-line find and replace in project · Issue #398 · atom/find-and-replace. GitHub.
28. "Handling large files presents no intrinsic problems for BBEdit, though some specific operations may be limited when dealing with files over 2GB in size." BBEdit FAQs .
29. Web site: Gedit File Search Plugin. oliver.github.io.
30. Web site: GNU Emacs 23.2 NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. .
31. Web site: Buffers. A buffer's size cannot be larger than some maximum, which is defined by the largest buffer position representable by Emacs integers. This is because Emacs tracks buffer positions using that data type. For typical 64-bit machines, this maximum buffer size is 2^ - 2 bytes, or about 2 EiB. For typical 32-bit machines, the maximum is usually 2^ - 2 bytes, or about 512 MiB. Buffer sizes are also limited by the amount of memory in the system..
32. Web site: Does Emacs have problems with large files? .
33. Web site: GNU emacs manual - Narrowing .
34. Web site: The JED Editor. 2009-12-08. https://web.archive.org/web/20120105154439/http://www.fi.infn.it/info/jed/jed.pdf. 2012-01-05. dead.
35. Web site: JOE - Joe's Own Editor. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /docs/man.md. 23 October 2015. The search covers all loaded buffers..
36. kwrite-devel, Large Files open slowly due to futile Syntax-Highlighting
37. Web site: Macros. docs.activestate.com.
38. Lines longer than ~700 characters frequently cause crashes. KatePart documentation (which is also the KWrite documentation, see here)
39. metapad FAQ, Loading Large Files
40. Web site: Notepad++ - How to Remotely work on the Same File in Real Time. https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/iz-SVru1cKo. 2021-12-12 . live. www.youtube.com.
41. Web site: Text limit. January 16, 2019. Community.
42. Web site: Configurable through settings.
43. Web site: PSPad forum / Bug report / Hlášení chyb / cannot open large file. forum.pspad.com.
44. Web site: Edit large mbox files - MozillaZine Knowledge Base. kb.mozillazine.org.
45. "TextWrangler is a RAM-based editor, and it uses system memory to hold open files. TextWrangler also represents open documents as Unicode, which uses two bytes for each character. Combined with an internal Mac OS X limitation, this means that you can open files up to 384 megabytes in size." TextWrangler FAQs .
46. Web site: GitHub - FredKSchott/CoVim: Collaborative Editing for Vim.. November 13, 2019. GitHub.
47. Web site: Live Share - Visual Studio Marketplace. marketplace.visualstudio.com.
48. Comparison of Windows Text Editors for Large Files: Text editors for large files
49. Web site: Bare Bones Software BBEdit Comparison Chart. www.barebones.com.
50. Web site: Bare Bones Software Features. www.barebones.com.
51. pico uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc. See Pico: A Unix text editor retrieved 20120109.
52. GNU Emacs can have Wordstar emulation, with the command M-x wordstar-mode, as found from ws-mode.el retrieved 20170314. See also the "Emulation" section of the previous GNU Emacs manual. The WordStar mode, however, has been obsolete since GNU Emacs 24.5.
53. Web site: AC.27 Emulation . GNU Emacs manual . 2021-12-06 .
54. Web site: JOE - Joe's Own Editor. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /docs/man.md. 23 October 2015. JOE also emulates several other editors. JSTAR is a close imitation of WordStar [...]. JPICO is a close imitation of the Pine mailing system's PICO editor [...]. JMACS is a GNU-EMACS imitation. [...] Key binding tables are defined. You can define as many as you like [...]..
55. Web site: Usenet. www.megalextoria.com.
56. Kate supports an optional VI Input Mode .
57. pico (and nano) uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc. See Pico: A Unix text editor retrieved 20120109.
58. Web site: Bare Bones Software TextWrangler Features. www.barebones.com. 2009-06-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20170811014917/http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/features.html. 2017-08-11. dead.
59. Vedit: Old Unix and QNX versions could emulate Vi 100%. Windows version doesn't come with vi emulation.
60. Web site: GitHub - fabi1cazenave/cua-mode.vim: Make CTRL-ZXCV behave like in Notepad.. February 26, 2019. GitHub.
61. Web site: GitHub - likaci/ViFinder: Vim like Keybinding FileManager for OS X.. October 13, 2019. GitHub.
62. Web site: GitHub - LnL7/vim-pico: Vim configuration files for Pico.. September 2, 2014. GitHub.
63. Web site: Vim distribution optimized for writing. Sep 16, 2021. GitHub.
64. Web site: brief.vim - Brief editor key binding emulation in Vim : vim online. www.vim.org.
65. Web site: Vim - Visual Studio Marketplace. marketplace.visualstudio.com.
66. Web site: Emacs - Visual Studio Marketplace. marketplace.visualstudio.com.
67. Web site: Brief Editor Keymap Emulation - Visual Studio Marketplace. marketplace.visualstudio.com.
68. Web site: Vim - General - unable to map ctrl-1. vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com. 2017-11-30. 2017-12-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20171201044447/http://vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com/unable-to-map-ctrl-1-td1186261.html. dead.
69. Web site: Vim - General - How to map (say) Ctrl-Shift-B. vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com. 2017-11-30. 2017-12-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20171201044609/http://vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com/How-to-map-say-Ctrl-Shift-B-td1183582.html. dead.
70. http://www.context.cx Text Editor Features
71. jEdit FTP and SFTP are supported via the FTP plugin.
72. jEdit: "HTTP is supported natively"
73. Web site: TED Notepad. jsimlo.sk.
74. Web site: Bare Bones Software TextWrangler Tour. www.barebones.com. 2019-11-16. 2019-11-29. https://web.archive.org/web/20191129002115/http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/featuresutility.html. dead.
75. Vim Supported via netrw plugin distributed in the standard Vim installation.
76. Web site: Remote Workspace - Visual Studio Marketplace. marketplace.visualstudio.com. 2019-05-09. 2019-05-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20190510121323/https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mkloubert.vscode-remote-workspace. dead.
77. Web site: Support EBCDIC encodings · Issue #49891 · microsoft/vscode. GitHub.
78. Web site: Did Mac OS Lion switch to using line feeds (LF '\n') for line breaks instead of carriage returns (CR '\r')?. Super User.
79. Web site: JOE - Joe's Own Editor. JOE - Joe's own editor / Mercurial / [2e4f45] /docs/man.md. 23 October 2015. character sets must use LF (0x0A) or CR-LF (0x0D - 0x0A) as line terminators [...]. [...] character sets which use CR terminated lines (MACs) will not yet work..