List of text editors

The following is a list of text editors. For a list of outliners, see that article's external links.

Graphical and text user interface

The following editors can either be used with a graphical user interface or a text user interface.

Name	Description	Free Software
Extensible Versatile Editor (EVE)	Default under OpenVMS	?
Aquamacs Emacs	A distribution of GNU Emacs heavily modified to behave like a Mac program.	Yes
Cream	A configuration of Vim.	Yes
Elvis	A vi/ex clone with additional commands and features	Yes
GNU Emacs/XEmacs	two long-existing forks of the popular Emacs programmer's editor. Emacs and vi are the dominant text editors on Unix-like operating systems, and have inspired the editor wars.	Yes
Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE)	Programmer's Editor for OpenVMS implemented using TPU.	Yes
Textadept	A modular, cross-platform editor written in C and Lua, using Scintilla[1]	Yes
vile (vi like Emacs)	A vi work-alike which retains the vi command-set while adding new features: multiple windows and buffers, infinite undo, colorization, scriptable expansion capabilities, etc.	Yes
vim	vim is a clone based on the ideas of the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface	Yes
Yi editor		Yes

Graphical user interface

Name	Description	License
EditPad	The main tool is EditPad Pro, there is also an EditPad Lite by Just Great Software, many features and extensions, strong on Regexes.	Proprietary
E (E.EXE)	default under IBM OS/2 versions 2-4	Proprietary
gedit	default under GNOME[2]	Free software
Leafpad	default under LXDE[3] and Xfce[4]	Free software
Mousepad	previously the default under Xfce[5]	Free software
Notepad	default under Microsoft Windows	Proprietary
SimpleText	default under Classic Mac OS from version 7.5[6]	Proprietary
TeachText	default under Classic Mac OS versions prior to 7.5[7]	Proprietary
TextEdit	default under Mac OS X,[8] NeXTSTEP, and GNUstep	Free software
XEDIT	default under VM/CMS	Proprietary
Acme	A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike	Free software
AkelPad	Еditor for plain text. It is designed to be a small and fast. Many plugins.	Free software
Atom	A modular, general-purpose editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of Chromium and Node.js	Free software
Arachnophilia		Free software
Bluefish	Web development editor	Free software
Brackets	A modular, web-oriented editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of the Chromium Embedded Framework	Free software
ConTEXT		Free software
Crimson Editor		Freeware
Geany	fast and lightweight editor / IDE, uses GTK+	Free software
Gobby	a free software collaborative real-time editor available on Windows and Unix-like platforms.	Free software
J	Text editor written in Java, part of the ArmedBear Common Lisp (ABCL) project	Free software
jEdit	free cross-platform programmer's editor written in Java, GPL licensed	Free software
JOVE	Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs	Free software
JuffEd	lightweight text editor written in Qt4	Free software
Kate	basic text editor for the KDE desktop	Free software
Kile	User friendly TeX/LaTeX editor	Free software
Kod	Mac OS-X only, TextMate-like	Free software
KWrite	default editor on KDE	Free software
Lapis	an experimental text editor allowing multiple simultaneous edits of text in a multiple selection from a few examples provided by the user.	Free software
Leo	a text editor that features outlines with clones as its central tool of organization and navigation	Free software
Light Table	a text editor and IDE with real-time, inline expression evaluation. Intended mainly for dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and JavaScript, and for web development	Free software
mcedit	text editor provided with Midnight Commander	Free software
Metapad	Windows Notepad replacement, GPL licensed	Free software
MicroEMACS		Free software
NEdit – "Nirvana Editor"		Free software
Notepad++	a tabbed text editor	Free software
Notepad2		Free software
Pe	a text editor for BeOS	Free software
Programmer's Notepad		Free software
RText		Free software
Sam		Free software
SciTE		Free software
TeXnicCenter		Free software
TeXShop	TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer	Free software
TextMate		Free software
The Hessling Editor		Free software
UniRed	Windows text editor supporting many encodings	Free software
X11 Xedit		Free software
Yudit		Free software
BBEdit Lite		Freeware
Eddie	editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and Mac OS X.	Freeware
HxD for huge text files		Freeware
Komodo Edit		Free software
LEd – LaTeX Editor		Freeware
NoteTab Light		Freeware
Programmer's File Editor (PFE)		Freeware
PSPad	editor for Microsoft Windows with various programming environments	Freeware
RJ TextEd		Freeware
Q10	Full screen text editor (Windows)	Freeware
TED Notepad		Freeware
TextWrangler		Freeware
HTML Kit		Freeware
Alphatk		Proprietary
BBEdit		Proprietary
CodeWright		Proprietary
GoldED (text editor of Cubic IDE)		Proprietary
CygnusEd (CED)		Proprietary
E Text Editor		Proprietary
Edit++	source code editor with image and HTML previewing capabilities	Proprietary
EditPlus	editor with syntax highlighting and FTP	Proprietary
EmEditor		Proprietary
Epsilon		Proprietary
GWD Text Editor		Proprietary
iA Writer		Proprietary
Inlage LaTeX Editor		Proprietary
Kedit	editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM XEDIT	Proprietary
NoteTab		Proprietary
Peppermint	an editor with a CoffeeScript/JavaScript API	Proprietary
PolyEdit		Proprietary
skEdit	(formerly called skHTML)	Proprietary
SlickEdit		Proprietary
Smultron	a Mac OS X text editor	Proprietary
Source Insight		Proprietary
SubEthaEdit (formerly called Hydra)		Proprietary
Sublime Text		Proprietary
Tex-Edit Plus		Proprietary
TextPad and Wildedit		Proprietary
The SemWare Editor (TSE) (formerly called QEdit)		Proprietary
SynWrite	A free text and source code editor	Freeware
Tincta / Tincta Pro (Mac OS X)		Proprietary
TopStyle		Proprietary
UltraEdit		Proprietary
Ulysses		Proprietary
VEDIT		Proprietary
WinEdt		Proprietary
Zed	Designed to reduce cognitive load using a minimal UI and advanced file handling. Built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and available as either an addon to Chrome or a standalone Node.js-based program[9]	Free software

Text user interface

System default

Command	Description	License
E	is the text editor in PC DOS 7 and PC DOS 2000.	Proprietary
ed	is the default line editor on Unix since the birth of Unix. Either ed or a compatible editor is available on all systems labeled as Unix (not by default on every one)	Free software
ED	is the default editor on CP/M, MP/M, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86.	Free software
EDIT	is the default on MS-DOS 5.0 and higher and is included with all 32-bit versions of Windows that do not rely on a separate copy of DOS. Up to including MS-DOS 6.22, it only supported files up to 64 KB.	Proprietary
EDIT	is the text editor in DR DOS 6.0, Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher. Supports large files for as long as swap space is available. Version 7 and higher optionally supports a pseudo-graphics user interface named NewUI.	Proprietary
EDIX	is the text editor in Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM, Concurrent PC DOS, Concurrent DOS 386, FlexOS 286, FlexOS 386, 4680 OS, 4690 OS, S5-DOS/MT.	Proprietary
EDITOR	is the text editor in DR DOS 3.31 through DR DOS 5.0, and the predecessor of EDIT.	Proprietary
EDLIN	is a command-line based line editor introduced with 86-DOS, and the default on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT.	Proprietary
ee	stands for Easy Editor, is part of the base system of FreeBSD, along with vi.[10]	Free software
nvi	(installed as vi by default in BSD operating systems and some Linux distributions) – A free replacement for the original vi which maintains compatibility while adding some new features.	Free software
vi	is the default for Unix systems and must be included in all POSIX compliant systems[11] – One of the earliest screen-based editors, it is based on ex.	Free software

Others

Command	Description	License
Diakonos	a customizable, usable console-based text editor.	Free software
Emacs	A screen-based editor with an embedded computer language, Emacs Lisp. Early versions were implemented in TECO, see below.	Free software
JED		Free software
JOE	A modern screen-based editor with a sort of enhanced-WordStar style to the interface, but can also emulate Pico.	Free software
LE		Free software
mcedit	Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems.	Free software
MinEd	Text editor with user-friendly interface, mouse and menu control, and extensive Unicode and CJK support; for Unix/Linux and Windows/DOS.	Free software
Nano	A clone of Pico GPL licensed.	Free software
ne	a minimal, modern replacement for vi.	Free software
SETEDIT	a clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs	Free software
Suplemon	A Sublime Text -like multi cursor text editor written in Python.	Free software
Zile		Free software
Pico		Freeware
The SemWare Editor	(TSE for DOS) (formerly called QEdit)	Proprietary

vi clones

busybox vi	The smallest in code size of the vi clones, with a minimum of commands and features	Free software
Elvis	The first vi clone and the default vi in Minix.	Free software
nvi	A new implementation and currently the standard vi in BSD distributions.	Free software
STEVIE	STEVIE (ST Editor for VI Enthusiasts) for the Atari ST, the starting point for vim and xvi.	Free software
vile	derived from an early version of Microemacs in an attempt to bring the Emacs multi-window/multi-buffer editing paradigm to vi users. First published 1991 with infinite undo, UTF-8 compatibility, multi-window/multi-buffer operation, a macro expansion language, syntax highlighting, file read and write hooks, and more.	Free software
vim	an extended version of the vi editor, with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program source code	Free software

No user interface (editor libraries/toolkits)

Name	Description	License
Scintilla (editing component)	is used as the core of several text editors.	Free software
Text Processing Utility (TPU)	language and runtime package, developed by DEC, used to implement the Language-Sensitive Editor and Extensible Versatile Editor, Eve.	Proprietary

ASCII and ANSI art

Editors that are specifically designed for the creation of ASCII and ANSI text art.

• ACiDDraw – Designed for editing ASCII text art. Supports ANSI color (ANSI X3.64).
• JavE – ASCII editor, portable to any platform running a Java GUI.
• PabloDraw – ANSI/ASCII editor allowing multiple users to edit via TCP/IP network connections.
• TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor for DOS and PCBoard file format support.

ASCII font editors

• FIGlet – For creating ASCII art text.
• TheDraw – ANSI/ASCII text editor with built-in editor and manager of ASCII fonts.

Historical

Visual and full-screen editors

• Brief – A very popular programmer's editor for DOS and OS/2.
• Edit application – A programmer's editor for Classic Mac OS.
• EDIT – A menu-based editor introduced to supersede EDLIN in MS-DOS version 5.0 and up and available in most Microsoft Windows
• EDT – A character based editor used on DEC PDP-11s and VAXen.
• O26 – written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series machines in the mid-1960s
• Red – A VAX/VMS editor, written in Forth variant STOIC.
• se – An early screen-based editor for Unix.
• SED – Cross-platform editor from the 1980s, ran on TOPS-10, TOPS-20 and VMS.
• STET (the 'STructured Editing Tool') – may have been the first folding editor; its first version was written in 1977.
• TeachText
• TECO – One of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language. While usually described as a line editor, it included screen editing capabilities at least as early as 1965.

Line editors

• Colossal Typewriter – An early editor thought to be written for the PDP-1
• ed – (1) Unix's early line editor, (2) CP/M's line editor.
• EDLIN – A line editor delivered with MS-DOS.
• ex – An EXtended version of Unix's ed, later evolved into the visual editor vi.
• GEDIT (aka George 3 EDITor) is a TECO-like editor including a programming language for the GEC 4000 series computers. GEDIT was originally written by David Toll of Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and then adopted by GEC Computers for OS4000.
• sed – A non-interactive programmable stream editor available in Unix.
• TECO – One of the most advanced character-based editors, which included a programming language.
• TEDIT – GEC 4000 series editor based on the Cambridge Titan EDIT
• QED

Notes

1. "Textadept". Retrieved 2014-08-14.
2. "What is gedit?"
3. "Leafpad"
5. Xfce#Leafpad
9. "Why Zed?". Retrieved 2014-08-14.
11. "The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7"

See also

• Comparison of text editors
• List of word processors
• Editor war
• Source code editor