What are the best Markdown editors for Linux?

Makes it very slow - unusable for some. See More

Top Pro

Multi-platform

Top Con

Based on Electron

StudiousNefertum's Experience

Great tool in Windows but fails to install in Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) and support fails to fix the issue. See More

Top Pro

LaTeX

via MathJax. See More

Top Con

Linux install

Fails to install in Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) and support fails to fix the issue. See More

SincereAnnaPerenna's Experience

Baing an electron app, size and performance are far from desirable. See More

Top Pro

Real-time editor inside Preview

Markdown formatting updates as you type. No need for a separate preview window. See More

Top Con

The immediate rendering of markdown is hard on the eyes

Having markdown immediately render causes text to jump into formatted text, which is distracting and hard on the eyes. See More

Yanis's Experience

Simple yet efficient, use it ! See More

Top Pro

PDF export available

Export to PDF (and docs) available through Pandoc. See More

Top Con

Not intuitive keyboard shortcuts

Michael Lutsiuk's Experience

Very good UX See More

Top Pro

Live preview

Typora immediately renders what's typed on the screen in Markdown format. This helps users to have a better understanding of how their document is being formatted. See More

Top Con

In beta

Typora is still in beta and may be prone to changes or bugs. See More

Top Pro

Integrated diagrams

Popular javascript libraries to build diagrams (sequence, flowchart, Gantt) are there ready at your fingertips. See More

Top Con

No tags search

Top Pro

Internal tree view integration

Top Con

No search across files

Top Pro

Speed

Top Pro

Custom Themes (via .CSS)

Users can add their own CSS file to change background color and style. See More

Top Pro

Headers Outline Slide-menu

See headers by pressing Ctrl-Shift-O. See More

Top Pro

Support for tables

It supports tables for Markdown Extra. And also provides a GUI to make it easy to insert and edit them. See More

Top Pro

Inline images

It won't display image like ![alt](http://image-url), but shows the image content inside the editor. See More

Top Pro

Hybrid interface

The editor and preview dual-pane setup typical of desktop Markdown editors are gone; instead, a singular interface makes for a WYSIWYG experience. This streamlines the workflow and encourages direct manipulation. See More

Top Pro

Free during beta

Most feature rich markdown preview among editors: import PDF right inside document, using @import *you can run python, it's like having *IPython/Jupyter, full math support, full latex (even entire document) support. Tikz, Viz, GnuPlot, UML, .... See More

score 35 · Answer 2

Atom

Top Pro

Great full featured support for Markdown preview (using Markdown-Preview-Enhanced)

Top Con

Slow

Atom is not a native application. As such, performance is subpar and the lag is especially noticeable on larger projects. It also opens a surprising amount of subprocesses and leaks a considerable amount of memory. See More

Specs

Platforms:Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

Export:HTML

Preview:Live side-by-side

Markdown preview can be accessed by going Packages > Markdown > Toggle Preview. See More

Top Pro

Live split-screen preview

Top Con

Not a lightweight editor

Top Pro

Easy access to lots of packages that extend functionality

Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. There are over 150 markdown related packages available for Atom. Additionally, packages are written in CoffeeScript so anyone that knows CoffeeScript can write packages for Atom to extend functionality. See More

Top Con

No text UI

Top Pro

Instant file switching

By pressing Ctrl/Command + T a search box will appear that will allow you to use fuzzy search to look for a file in your project. It's great for when you have to work with plenty of files. See More

Top Con

High memory usage

Atom has a relatively high memory usage, especially when compared to some other text editors not based on Electron. For those who develop on the go, this also tends to mean shorter battery life. See More

Top Pro

Colour and UI themes

Top Con

Not a dedicated markdown editor

Top Pro

Command Palette

The Command Palette allows fuzzy searching all available functions, settings, snippets, etc. See More

Top Con

No LTR within RTL support

For example, you begin the text line with RTL then add some LTR. It can not follow properly. However, RTL within LTR works. See More

Top Pro

Extensive list of packages

Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. Packages are written in CoffeeScript. See More

Top Con

Cannot open empty editor

It has a known bug which has not been dealt with so far. It opens up the files from the previous session, despite checking in Settings otherwise. This issue is now closed, but as the comments show, it still doesn't work. Slows than even more. Furthermore, sometimes it starts with a file browser pane opened, randomly. It makes an immature impression, unexpected from the developers of Github. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Atom will highlight folders, files, and lines that have any uncommitted edits made. It also integrates really well with GitHub. See More

Top Con

Atom can often crash with bad non-core package installed

Top Pro

Multiplatform

Atom can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Atom is free, open source, and written in C++, LESS, and CoffeeScript. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and edit

Multiple cursors and column selection allow for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also allows for selecting vertically. See More

Top Pro

Beginner friendly

One of the goals of Atom is to be a text editor for both experienced and beginner programmers. You can add keyboard shortcuts, change themes, install plugins, and change core settings by clicking through a GUI, or by manually editing config files the old-fashioned way. It has the added advantage of being built using the same engine that powers Google Chrome, so actions like opening and closing tabs feel familiar, even to new or non-programmers. See More

Top Pro

Great mixed RTL/LTR implementation

Correctly displays mixed RTL(right-to-left)/LTR(left-to-right) within the same document. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management allows easily extending functionality

Atom was built from the ground up with the community in mind, and package management is a first class feature. See More

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered. See More

score 28 · Answer 3

Visual Studio Code

Top Pro

Ready to use out of the box

Top Con

Memory hog

Allegedly, Visual Studio Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages. This is mainly due to the Electron base. See More

Lewis Crichton's Experience

Visual Studio Code is an easy recommendation. Not only does it work with Markdown, it can work with other languages and any language that it doesn't support most likely has a plugin for it. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT, Proprietary (official builds)

Extension language:JavaScript

It detects a markdown (.md) file and offers a preview option in the top-right corner. See More

Top Pro

Easy Markdown Preview

Top Con

A "me too" offering from MS, far behind other well established editors that it attempts to clone

Other IDEs specific to a language often offer better tools for deep programming. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

Visual Studio Code comes with Markdown preview by default. And it seems to support GitHub Flavoured Markdown or GFM, at some level. This is only for those who would use the editor more than just editing Markdown documents but still, it can edit Markdown out of the box with no gotchas. See More

Top Pro

Cross-Platform

Visual Studio Code is available for Windows, Mac and your favorite brew of Linux. See More

Top Con

Embedded Git isn't powerful enough

You can do nothing but to track changes, stage them and commit. No history, visualization, rebasing or cherry-picking – these things are left to git console or external git client. See More

Top Pro

Active development

It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes. See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Pro

Integrated terminal

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows. See More

Top Pro

Updated frequently

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well. See More

Top Pro

Fast and powerful

Visual Studio Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. See More

Top Pro

Extendable through plugins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plugins available to extend its functionality. See More

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality. See More

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows. See More

Top Pro

Extensive library of plugins

Extensive library of plugins for everything from themes to programming language-specific tools to enhanced git interaction to nifty little feature add-ons that make life easier. See More

Top Pro

It has gotten really good

All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need. See More

Top Pro

Custom snippets support

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable. See More

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while. See More

score 20 · Answer 4

Vim

Top Pro

Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support

Top Con

Poor feature discoverability

Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well. See More

Elias Van Ootegem's Experience

Whatever you need to edit, vim has got you covered. Yes, there's a learning curve, but once it's muscle memory, there's no editor that comes close in terms of power, and editing speed. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License:Vim License

Extension language:Vim

Price:0

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware. See More

Top Con

Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box

A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts. For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY. See More

ToughMictlanpachecatl's Experience

Once you go Vim, you never go back. Although, you might want to give the superior Neovim a try. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs. See More

Bruno Vernay's Experience

Good to use with AllMark go server https://allmark.io/ See More

Top Pro

Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making most of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal over SSH

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH. See More

Top Pro

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes. See More

Top Pro

Everything is mnemonic

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example. See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection. See More

Top Pro

Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too. See More

Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient. See More

Top Pro

Excellent performance

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag. See More

Top Pro

Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand. See More

Top Pro

Amazing extensibility

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more. See More

Top Pro

Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view. See More

Top Pro

Can never outgrow it

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh. See More

Top Pro

Productivity enhancing modal paradigm

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm. See More

Top Pro

Has multiple distinct editing modes

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

Top Pro

Flexible feature-set

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way. See More

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Has been supported for a long time and will be supported for many years to come

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type. See More

Top Pro

Asynchronous I/O support

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze. See More

Top Pro

Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland

Top Pro

Useful undo features

Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again. See More

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". See More

Top Pro

Vimtutor

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete. See More

Top Pro

Works on Android

Emacs modes are pretty much equivalent to plugins for other text editors. Among the thousands of Emacs modes available there's also a Markdown mode which has features such as syntax highlighting, text folding, etc... See More

score 8 · Answer 5

Emacs

Top Pro

Markdown mode available

Top Con

Takes time and effort to learn and be proficient using Emacs

While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts. See More

Specs

Platforms:Unix-like, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License:GPL-3.0-or-later

Extension language:Emacs Lisp, C(Emacs modules)

Wher it used to be seen as a behemoth in the current day and age it is not bigger than atom or Sublime text. It is free and reasonably fast,. Certainly on a newer pc, even a celeron See More

Top Pro

It existst on almost any platform imaginable

Top Pro

Versatile

Emacs is great for everything. See More

Top Pro

Total customizability

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza). See More

Top Pro

Almost endless customization

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect. A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza). See More

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. See More

score 12 · Answer 6

Joplin

Top Pro

Cross-platform

CuriousIxpiyacoc's Experience

Open Source, seamless cloud sync support, apps for various OS and mobile, expandable by plugins, active development community See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

License:MIT

Export:Yes

Sync:File System, OneDrive, Next Cloud, WebDav, DropBox, JoplinCloud, s3 (Beta)

installed in Ubuntu 19 with no issues. Works perfectly so far. See More

Top Pro

Supports markdown

CoherentYucahu's Experience

Top Pro

Open source

Peace of mind that there is no malicious piece of software in the app. See More

ConscientiousAlpheus's Experience

Joplin installed quickly but didn't finish install until I found. and launched, the Joplin.AppImage file (which installed in my ~..joplin directory). First impressions are otherwise very favorable. Hated to, but had to give up Ghost because it kept hanging. See More

Top Pro

Encryption

Top Pro

Web Clipper

Browser extension saves full pages, clean content, or screen selections to new notes. See More

Top Pro

Nextcloud support

Top Pro

Supports tags for notes

Top Pro

Active user forum with support from app creators

Support, troubleshooting, and new feature requests are easy to make at the user forum and you can contact the app creator directly. See More

Top Pro

Optional CLI interface

Provides a CLI interface for terminal lovers. See More

Top Pro

Supports multiple languages

English, French, and Spanish, Italian, German, Czech and many others. See More

Top Pro

Offline access

It is beautiful, fast, simple and has many features iA Writer, for example, do not have. See More

score 13 · Answer 7

Zettlr

Top Pro

Best markdown writing system for academics

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

License:GPL v3

Technology:Electron, TypeScript

Top Pro

citation support

while it supports many syntax (chart, easy image insert, etc.) found in other editors, the great citation support made it possible to write real articles. Citation from Zotero and Mendeley can be inserted easily which is a huge plus See More

Top Pro

Focuses on writers

While many Markdown editors don't offer specific support for a certain type of workflow, or offer features for scientific workflows only, Zettlr offers features that help the writing process of journalists or researchers in the arts and humanities. It's a lot more text-focused than most editors. See More

Top Pro

Best user interface

MathJax is a display engine that helps render mathematics properly. See More

score 18 · Answer 8

Remarkable

Top Pro

MathJax support

Top Con

No automatic updates

You have to go to the site to see if there are updates. If it was integrated into FlatHub, it would be updated. See More

Specs

Export:HTML; PDF

The codebase is very lightweight and clearly structured, as opposed to all-in-one blob, with a clear few external library dependencies. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Does not support github markdown flavor

Top Pro

Live split preview with synchronized scrolling

HTML output can be previewed in real time on the right as Markdown is written on the left. See More

Top Con

Buggy

Various crashes, not working as expected, bad design. See More

Top Pro

Free

Remarkable is free to use. See More

Top Con

Lacks file-system browsing

Remarkable can only handle one open file at a time. There's no way to quickly switch or navigate between a collection of files. See More

Top Pro

Live preview markdown editor

This follow the original Markdown syntax by John Gruber. See More

Top Pro

HTML output is prettified

HTML prettification is the process of formatting the markup in an easy to comprehend way. It means that the code has clean indentation and it's not mashed together to save space. See More

Top Pro

Preview includes syntax highlighting

The syntax is highlighted in the Preview pane. The programming language in use is guessed. The code block has to indented 4 spaces (or a tab) for the syntax highlighting to work. See More

Top Pro

Handles large files well

Top Pro

Reasonably customizable

It's possible to toggle all toolbars and panes, switch preview pane side, switch to a dark theme, increase and decrease font size. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard shortcuts for efficiency

Top Pro

Can create clickable to-do lists

The syntax -[] renders a clickable checkbox. See More

Top Pro

Recognizes links automatically

No syntax is required for the app to recognize links. See More

Top Pro

PDF output includes TOC

Remarkable will generate a table of contents when exporting to PDF. See More

For people used ti vi/vim, Haroopad can be set up to be used with vi keybindings. See More

score 8 · Answer 9

Haroopad

Top Pro

Vi key bindings

Top Con

Suspended development

Not currently in active development. See More

Bruno Vernay's Experience

Project looks dead? See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Windows, Linux

License:GPLv3

Export:HTML; EPub; ReStructured Text; PDF; RTF

Content from YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, Slideshare, Flickr, Instagram, Soundcloud, Wikipedia and Pastebin can be embedded in the document. See More

Top Pro

Allows embedding content from a wide variety of sources

Top Con

Not Open Source

The source code is not available. See More

Top Pro

Various publishing and export options

Haroopad can publish to Wordpress, Evernote, Tumblr and MediaWiki and export to EPub, ReStructured Text, RTF and PDF. See More

Top Con

The markdown is non-standard

Instead of the usual stuff for underline, they use ++stuff++, which is hard to get used to, especially when using other editors that do it right. And there is no option to fix this in preferences. See More

Top Pro

Very customizable

Haroopad has multiple available themes to choose from and new ones can be easily built with CSS. See More

Top Con

English translation is iffy

The translation from Chinese to English is somewhat poor. Both the interface and documentation can be often hard to understand because of that. See More

Top Pro

Supports various Markdown flavors

Top Con

Documentation is in Korean

Top Pro

Customizable

Haroopad has multiple themes to choose from and allows styling via CSS. See More

Top Con

Code pane can be difficult to read in default theme

The code pane in the dark default theme can be difficult to read clearly. See More

Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control. See More

score 12 · Answer 10

Sublime Text 3

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Proprietary

Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:Proprietary

Extension language:Python

When you start using Sublime Text, it doesn't drown you in keyboard shortcuts or non-intuitive use-concepts. However, high-level functionality can still be easily accessed when the need for it arises. See More

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

Top Con

Paid

Although paying for something good is far from a Con, having the competition this editor has and still having to pay for it is definitely a Con. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and editing

Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also permits selecting vertically. ctrl + shift + l will place a cursor on every highlighted line. See More

Top Con

No printing of files

Sublime Texts offers no way of printing the files it edits. See More

Top Pro

Consistent cross-platform

Sublime Text looks consistently the same across Windows, OS X, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Inadequate language support

Sublime Text offers poor support for Far-East languages in Linux. See More

Top Con

Loading big files on Windows is slow

Here's a rough comparison: a 70 MB file takes about 2 seconds to load in Notepad++, whereas the same file in ST3 takes over 10 seconds to load. See More

The core functionality is handled apart from the UI, meaning that Neovim can be embedded into any other GUI system, such as Atom. See More

score 4 · Answer 11

Neovim

Top Pro

UI Agnostic

cosmo's Experience

Neovim is, by far, the best editing experience known to man. Install any of the many markdown plugins available, and you'll be flying through your work in no time! See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android

License:Apache

Extension language:Any

This avoids the user having to make any installations. See More

Top Pro

Built-in terminal emulator

Top Pro

Comes with some good configurations out of the box

Some typical configurations most of VIM users make are default in Neovim. See More

Top Pro

Terminal mode is very convenient for testing code in a split window

Top Pro

Opens a 3Gig Text File in a few seconds

Not many editors can open such a large text file so quickly. See More

Top Pro

Async plugin execution

Top Pro

Active development community

Top Pro

Modern code base

As a refactor over Vim, Neovim has greatly improved its code base. For example, some functionality is handled by libuv, the same code base that powers Node.js. See More

Top Pro

Powerful plugin model

Vim plugins have always been useful, but tied to specific languages. Neovim's architecture provides better separation between plugins and the core product, so that plugins are completely flexible and can be written in any language. See More

Top Pro

Better integration with external tools

The core text editor is "headless", meaning it's detached from the user-interface so other programs can hook into it. This enables better integration with IDEs and browsers, where "Vim mode" has typically been a poor substitute because it was a partial rewrite or a partial port at best. One of the advantages of Vim has always been ubiquity and Neovim makes it even more ubiquitous. See More

Top Pro

Still Vim but with upgraded features and some issues fixed

NeoVim was a complete rewrite of Vim, with new features added and underlying issues resolved thanks to the Vim code base. The keybindings and configuration are the same as Vim, so the switch can be pretty simple. See More

Minimalist interface, full screen writing and "Hemingway Mode" (which disables backspace to enforce writing rather than editing). See More

score 10 · Answer 12

GhostWriter

Top Pro

Distraction-free

Top Pro

Hemingway Mode

Prevents the use of backspace key to encourage forward momentum. See More

Top Pro

Suitable for writing

Fast startup, resource light and encourages you to only write by Hemingway mode. See More

Top Pro

Integration with Pandoc

Pandoc integration enables it to output various different formats. See More

Top Pro

HTML preview

Pop-up rendered HTML preview window. See More

Top Pro

Very fast

Native application wit Qt interface, very snappy. See More

Top Pro

Themeable

Has a theme editor which allows for the creation of custom themes. See More

Top Pro

HUD

There are various HUD windows which can show things such as document statistics and a Markdown cheat sheet. See More

MathJax is a display engine that helps render mathematics properly. See More

score 11 · Answer 13

ReText

Top Pro

MathJax support

Top Con

Lacks synchronized scrolling

The editing and preview panes don't scroll together. They have to be manually adjusted to align. See More

Specs

License:GPLv2+

Export:HTML; PDF; ODT; Google Docs

The syntax is highlighted in the Preview pane. The programming language in use is guessed. The code block has to be indented 4 spaces (or a tab) for the syntax highlighting to work. See More

Top Pro

Preview incldues syntax highlighting

Top Pro

Package available for Fedora

Easy installation and auto-updates. See More

Top Pro

Can export to Google Docs

In addition to Text Open Document (ODT), FocusWriter allow to save as Office Open XML (docx), Righ Text Format (RTF) and text file (TXT). See More

score 3 · Answer 14

FocusWriter

Top Pro

Cross platform including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X

Top Con

No syntax highlighting

Top Pro

Can save as ODT, RTF, DOCX and TXT

Top Pro

Word Count

Top Pro

Open Source and free with (or without) donation

Spacemacs combines the Emacs platform (with the full power of the Emacs plugin ecosystem) and the Vi keybindings (via EViL), all in the same box. See More

score 4 · Answer 15

Spacemacs

Top Pro

Combines the best parts of Vi and Emacs

Top Con

Slow startup time

Although configuration is heavily loaded, the starting time of Spacemacs is usually between two and five seconds. Emacs can be run as a daemon though which reduces the client's startup time to a few milliseconds. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD

License:GPL-3.0-or-later

Top Pro

Mnemonic and consistent keybindings

Space-lead key bindings are organized in mnemonic namespaces. For instance, buffer actions are under SPC b, file actions are under SPC f, project actions are under SPC p, search actions are under SPC s, and so on. Keybindings are consistent across the whole distribution thanks to a set of conventions. See More

Top Con

Functionality layers of complicated configuration

To configure Spacemacs, settings for Emacs/Evil/Spacemacs may need editing. It's not always clear which need to be changed or how to change settings globally: sometimes hooks are needed, other times Spacemacs provides options. See More

Top Pro

Gradual learning curve

Evil package is a first class citizen and Spacemacs embraces it from day one. Evil package allows Vim users to be productive very quickly while still allowing regular Emacs users to use Spacemacs. See More

Top Con

Glitchy

Spacemacs combines many packages from many different authors that were never designed to work together. Sometimes they interact in unexpected ways, and things randomly break as one package interferes with another's features. This combined with delayed auto-loading of packages in unpredictable order, different modes for different file types, frequent package updates, and necessary customization by selection of layers and packages, can make these glitches hard to reproduce. It takes a lot of emacs know-how to fix these problems. Fortunately there is a very active community willing to help with these problems, but it might take a while. See More

Top Pro

Simple but powerful configuration architecture

At the heart of Spacemacs, the configuration layers group packages configuration into semantic units that can be toggled on and off. The architecture is simple but powerful, allowing the user to easily manage configuration dependencies between hundreds of packages. See More

Top Pro

Great support from the community

The community surrounding Spacemacs is very active and there is a welcoming gitter chat for users to ask questions. See More

Top Pro

Tons of plugins

Top Pro

Vim keybindings

Top Pro

Really nice latex support

LaTeX allows for auto-completion, syncing, and more. See More

Top Pro

Above average documentation quality

Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layer and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format. See More

Top Pro

Manage R files easily

Top Pro

Works well with Common Lisp

Top Pro

Daemon support

Has great daemon support, which can mitigate the issue of slow startup. See More

Top Pro

Easily extended with community plugins

Top Pro

Community-driven configuration

Spacemacs is the biggest community-driven Emacs starter-kit. See More

Top Pro

Uses SPACE bar as leader means reduced risk of injury

Spacemacs got its name from the fact that it is uses the space bar as a default leader key. The key was chosen because it is easy to press and to hopefully lower the risk of RSI. See More

Top Pro

Excellent support for Elixir programming language

Elixir layer which uses the Alchemist package is the best way to edit Elixir code out there. See More

Top Pro

Great Clojure support

Top Pro

Great CFEngine support

Syntax highlighting and org-babel extensions. See More

Top Pro

Great note-taking and agenda "app" built-in

Allows for great organization applications that can be saved in future-proof format, plain text, can be integrated with LaTeX, markdown, HTML, Literate Programming and be committed to source control. See More

Top Pro

LaTeX support

LaTeX allows for auto-completion, syncing, and more. See More

Top Pro

Can work in terminal mode

Sometimes you only have terminal access, over ssh or something. See More

Top Pro

Manage many code bases easily

Top Pro

Offers a number of practical features

Spacemacs has some great features for taking notes, tracking to-do lists, and tracking time. See More

Top Pro

Remote file editing

Files can be edited in Spacemacs remotely. See More

Top Pro

Fast-paced development

New functionalities and fixes are added to Spacemacs every day, while release cycles are short. See More

Top Pro

Lowers the risk of RSI by using the spacebar as leader

Spacemacs got its name from the fact that it is uses the space bar as a default leader key. The key was chosen because it is easy to press and to hopefully lower the risk of RSI. See More

Top Pro

Can be controlled fully with the keyboard

There's no need to reach for the mouse again since Spacemacs can be fully controlled with keyboard. See More

Top Pro

Completely configured out of the box

Stuff like version control, file management, good default theme are all configured out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. See More

UberWriter does away with interface clutter and allows focusing on writing. The only items on the interface are line and character counters and fullscreen and focus mode toggles. Focus mode highlights only the last sentence. See More

score 11 · Answer 16

UberWriter

Top Pro

Clean writing experience

Top Con

Not updated to work with current release of Ubuntu

The last release of the PPA on Launchpad is for Ubuntu 15.04. The main Launchpad version is also behind. See More

Bruno Vernay's Experience

Project looks dead, no updates for years. See More

Specs

Export:HTML; PDF; RTF

Preview:inline

Top Pro

Inline Markdown preview

Text is formatted inline as it's written. See More

Top Con

Short on advanced functionality

UberWriter is intentionally very basic. As such there's very little advanced functionality. No customization options, no keyboard shortcuts, no search, etc. See More

Top Pro

Excellent output options through PanDoc

The best of the markdown editors in terms of the quality output that can be obtained. Better than Typora in this respect - more output choices. See More

Top Pro

Available as FlatPack

Easy and modern, secure install on multiple distros. See More

Top Pro

Drag and drop inserts

Drag and dropping links and images into the editor will insert them with proper syntax. See More

The UI is perfect See More

score 3 · Answer 17

Mark Text

Top Pro

Open Source

VivaciousNinkasi's Experience

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

License:MIT

Top Pro

WYSIWYG

Keeps everything simple making it approachable and easy to use. See More

score 6 · Answer 18

Caret

Top Pro

Simple

Top Con

It costs $25

It's lovely, but just to edit markdown that's a bit too much to pay. See More

CaringChronos's Experience

I love Caret, because it is easy to use. The one time fee of € 25 for lifetime is not too much, in my opinion. I use Caret on my Linux machine (Antergos 64 bit). See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Windows, Linux

Top Pro

Supports auto-completions

Auto-completion for paths of links and images, keywords in fenced code blocks, emoji, etc. See More

Top Pro

Supports multiple cursors / selections

Make ten changes at the same time, not one change ten times - lets you edit multiple lines at once, perform quick and selective find and replace, etc. See More

Mark My Words has a side-by-side preview and just 5 buttons at the top. See More

score 3 · Answer 19

Mark My Words

Top Pro

Minimalistic interface

Top Con

Some basic functionality is missing

The editor can't save text as a new file, lacks a file browser, no search, etc. See More

Specs

Export:HTML; PDF