What is the best alternative to&#x20;typora?

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

1330 409

score 46 · Answer 3

Zettlr

Top Pro

Focuses on writers

Top Con

Large, slow, can't open just a single .md file

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

Renders math in-place through KaTex

Top Pro

Almost perfect!

After testing more than 30 alternatives, paid and free, I can definitely say that this is the best option, still not perfect, there are some bugs like creating / editing tables and resizing images, but the PROS destroy the CONS, easy quotes, WYSIWYM , attachments tab (supports attaching and opening links to any file), table of contents, TAGs, easy hyperlink between files (same as citations), export to many formats (like Word, HTML5, PDF)... See More

46 2

score 643 · Answer 4

Emacs

Top Pro

Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. While true, I often find the mouse and menus handy for those lesser-used commands. An aide-memoir. See More

Top Con

Learning curve is long

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

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 Con

Sometimes the extensibility can distract you from your actual work

If I ever want to lose half a day, I'll start by tweaking my .spacemacs config file. See More

Top Pro

It's also an IDE

You can debug, compile, manage files, integrate with version control systems, etc. All through the various plugins that can be installed. See More

Top Con

Documentation is not beginner-friendly

Although lots of good built-in documentation _exists_, I have after four years of Emacs as my primary editor not figured out how to actually make use of it, and rely completely on Google / StackOverflow for help. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal or as a GUI application

You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface. See More

Top Con

Hard customization

For customization, you need to learn Lisp See More

Top Pro

Free

Licensed under GNU GPL. See More

Top Con

Keyboard combinations can be confusing for new users

For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange in the begging. However they can be changed easily. See More

Top Pro

Self documenting

Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t. See More

Top Con

A lot of jokes in this serious software

Top Pro

Great documentation

With 30+ years of use the Emacs documentation is very thorough. There are also a lot of tutorials and guides written by third parties. See More

Top Con

Using Emacs on a new machine without your .emacs file

Top Pro

Mini buffer

You can pass complicated arguments in the mini buffer. See More

Top Pro

Ubiquity

Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files. See More

Top Pro

Rectangular cut and paste

Emacs can select rectangularly. See More

Top Pro

Vi keybindings through Evil mode

Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe. See More

Top Pro

Lisp customizations

With lisp customization, any behavior of Emacs can be changed. Update with pre-release patch can be also applied without recompiling the whole Emacs. See More

Top Pro

Visual selection and text objects with Evil

Evil is an extensible vi layer for Emacs. It provides Vim features like Visual selection and text objects. See More

Top Pro

dabbrev-expand (Alt-/)

Dynamic word completion. See More

Top Pro

Provides org-mode

Advanced planning and publication which can start as a simple list. See More

Top Pro

Enormous range of functionalities (way beyond simple "text editing")

Through its programmability, a very broad range of functionalities can be integrated in emacs, turning it even into a "single point of contact" with the underlying operating system. See More

Top Pro

Support multi-line editing, multiple frame, powerful paren, crazy jumping style

Review the "Emacs Rocks" video. See More

Top Pro

Has been widely used for a long time

The first verion of Emacs was written in 1974 and GNU Emacs in 1984. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BSD, and others. See More

Top Pro

Integrates planning in your development process

You can jump straight from your org-mode files to programming tasks - and back - and build a seamless workflow. See More

Top Pro

Helm plugin adds even more power to Emacs

Powerful commands, search, and more with the Helm plugin. See More

Top Pro

GTK+ widgets support

Since version 25 you can run GTK widgets inside Emacs buffers. One of these is the WebKitGTK+, which allows the user to run a full-featured web browser inside Emacs with JavaScript and CSS support among other things. See More

Top Pro

Versatile

Emacs is great for everything. See More

Top Pro

Interactive Shells

Emacs has a number of shell variants: ansi-term, shell, and eshell. See More

Top Pro

Gnus

Managing several large mailing lists has never been easier using Gnus. The threading commands and the various ways of scoring articles means that I never miss important messages/authors, etc. A joy to use. See More

Top Pro

eshell is cross platform

You can use the underlying operating system shell as a terminal emulation in an Emacs buffer. Don't like the default shell for your configuration? You can change it to your liking. See More

Top Pro

Excelent tutorial to get you started

The tutorial you are presented with at startup shows you exactly what you need to get started and teaches you how to use the built-in help yourself later. See More

Top Pro

Excellent Lisp editing support

Built-in packages make editing Lisp source code feel natural. See More

Top Pro

use-package and org-mode

Missing some neural package that predicts actions Maybe in the next release ... See More

Specs

Platforms:Unix-like, Windows

License:GPL

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

643 147

score 3275 · Answer 5

Visual Studio Code

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Top Con

The autocomplete and code check is not as powerful as the one on WebStorm

Sometimes it doesn't tell you if you made a typo in a method name or if a method is not used and several other important features. See More

Top Pro

TypeScript integration

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript. 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

Embedded Git control

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

Top Con

Project search limits results

Because file search is so slow your results are limited in order to simulate a faster search. See More

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript. See More

Top Con

Very bad auto import

Top Pro

JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code. See More

Top Con

Generalized

VS Code is a general code/scripting IDE built to be lightweight and for people familiar with their language of choice, not directly comparable to Visual Studio in power or scope. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

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

Top Con

Memory hog

Allegedly, VS Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages from Windows despite 16 GB RAM. (While of course also running other things. The point is the comparison with some other IDEs/editors where running them alongside the same number of other applications doesn't cause Windows to run out of memory) 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 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

Top Pro

Ready to use out of the box

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

Top Con

Slow launch time

Than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text. 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 Con

Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags

Top Pro

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript. See More

Top Con

Have no good default js style analyzer

In WebStorm there is analyzer that checks for warnings and highlight this in yellow, here you cannot find or add it even with plugins. It is possible to have it as errors with linter but while you are actively changing file that's not very nice. See More

Top Pro

Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse. See More

Top Con

File search is extremely slow

It's absolutely not possible to use this tool with big projects given how long it takes to search for files. See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Con

.sass linting is terrible

Top Pro

ESLint integration

ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style. See More

Top Con

Is not an IDE, is a text editor

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

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

Top Pro

Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created. 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

It has gotten really good

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

Top Pro

JS typechecking

It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option. See More

Top Pro

Python support

Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension. See More

Top Pro

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Top Pro

High fidelity C# plugin

The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support. See More

Top Pro

Support RTL languages

It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it. See More

Top Pro

Inline definition picking and usages finding

These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

The note-card format is incredibly versatile, and great when you have lots of information. See More

3275 655

score 12 · Answer 6

Supernotes

Top Pro

Short-form note-cards

Top Con

Only web apps for now

The developers haven't released native apps yet. See More

Top Pro

Responsive platform

Works on all devices, from mobiles to laptops. See More

Top Pro

Full Markdown (with LaTeX equation) support

Great to be able to use all the features of Markdown, rather than a select few. See More

Specs

12 0

score 267 · Answer 7

Boostnote

Top Pro

Cross platform support

Supports Windows, macOS and Linux. See More

Top Con

Some of the features are not consistent

Top Pro

Markdown support

Top Con

Must use third-party service for sync-ing (Dropbox, etc.)

Boostnote does not have sync-ing capabilities and relies on third-party services to fulfil notes storage. There are additional steps involved to set this up. See More

Top Pro

Free

Top Con

Can't work in "real" offline mode

Top Pro

Open source

https://github.com/BoostIO/Boostnote See More

Top Con

Very poor syncing

Data loss may occur on syncing. See More

Top Pro

Great for developers

Boostnote is great for developers looking to take programming notes with code snippets and such. See More

Top Pro

Supports code snippets and syntax highlighting

Boostnote has the ability to store code snippets and comes with syntax highlighting out of the box, supporting many languages. See More

Top Pro

Works offline

Boostnote doesn't require an internet connection to work. You can write notes offline and sync later. See More

Top Pro

Global search, tag feature

Top Pro

Comes with many themes

Boostnote comes with many themes out of the box, most of which are popular themes and color schemes for code editors: e.g. 3024, base16, solarized, tomorrow. See More

Top Pro

vim/emacs key bindings available

Boostnote supports vim/emacs key bindings. If you're a developer familiar with either of them, navigation should be easy to pick up. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows/MacOS/Linux

267 31

score 108 · Answer 8

StackEdit

Top Pro

Works online and offline

StackEdit works within your browser. You need internet access to connect to the website, but once it's loaded, the site does not require an internet connection - you will be able to edit and save files locally. Additionally, you can use Fluid to turn it into a native desktop application. See More

Top Con

Saves files in browser's local storage

Local storage is limited and if the browser crashes the text can be lost. See More

Top Pro

Supports various Markdown flavors

Supports standard Markdown and Markdown Extra. See More

Top Con

Cannot be accessed while being offline

Even though the editor itself works offline, you need internet access to open the website and the editor. See More

Top Pro

Simple workflow

It is very easy to toggle between the preview and the editing windows. The black makes it a very focused writing environment. Of course it's possible to change that if needed. See More

Top Con

Lacks a good integrated spell checker

Uses the built-in browser spell checker which may not be as good as spell checkers other editors have. Depending on the browser, of course. See More

Top Pro

Great when in full-screen

Top Con

Publishing to GitHub requires giving write access to repos

In order to publish documents to GitHub, StackEdit requires writing access to your repos, something which many people may not be comfortable with. See More

Top Pro

No need to install additional software

StackEdit works directly from the browser, there's no need to install additional software as long as you have a web browser installed on your computer. See More

Top Pro

Real-time preview

The preview shows in a collapsible pane on the right hand side. See More

Top Pro

Instant publishing

StackEdit allows pushing a document directly to a list of publishing or file storage platforms or any SSH server. See More

Top Pro

Multiple export options

Can export to .txt, .html and .pdf. See More

Top Pro

Syncs via Dropbox and Drive

Files can be synchronized through Dropbox and Drive. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Linux, Windows

Export:Text, HTML, PDF

108 19

score 92 · Answer 9

Haroopad

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 software was initially developed in Korean for Korean users and later translated and ported to English. The translation to English has not been perfect and there may be some weird expressions and grammatical errors along the way. See More

Top Pro

Multiplatform support

Runs on Mac, Windows and Linux with 32-bit and 64-bit binary packages available. See More

Top Con

Documentation is in Korean

The official documentation is in Korean, so it may be a bit hard for non-Korean speakers to find their way around Haroopad. See More

Top Pro

Completely free

Haroopad is a free and open source Markdown Editor. See More

Top Con

Windows installer does not support easy admin installation

It can't request the necessary privileges to install to C:\Program Files. 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

Undo sometimes loses control about the selection

Select some text, select a formatting in the Markdown Syntax Helper view, undo. See More

Top Pro

Mathematical expressions support

Haroopad supports mathematical expressions through LaTeX and MathJax. See More

Top Con

Code pane is dark in default theme

Can be hard to read and a bit hard to find where to change it. See More

Top Pro

Supports MathJax

Mathematical equations can be exported to the browser by using MathJax, a JavaScript display engine with a lot of great features such as typography support and modular output. See More

Top Pro

Allows embedding content from a wide variety of sources

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

Top Pro

The Markdown flavor can be extended

Haroopad supports GitHub Markdown flavor out of the box. But the functionality can be extended to support additional Markdown features. See More

Top Pro

Vi key bindings

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

Top Pro

Dual License

GPL3 license is applied to the current version and will be applied in the future to meet the internal dual licensing scheme. Commercial use follows Apache license v2 (APLv2) for keeping the GPL license and non-commercial use under consideration. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Windows, Linux

License:GPLv3

Languages:Javascript

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

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

92 21

score 1977 · Answer 10

Vim

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

Top Con

High effort to customize

A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

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

Top Con

Difficult learning curve

You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers. 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 Con

Poor support for external tooling

Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling. 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 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

Top Pro

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

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

Top Con

Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms

This can be worked around somewhat if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal. But it still doesn't feel right when the rest of your system uses Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, and you have a system clipboard manager, and so forth. 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 my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Con

Requires Brain Mode Switching

When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else. 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 Con

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

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 Con

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing. 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 Con

Slow when opening files with very long lines

A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file. 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 Con

User must remember commands instead of point at them in a menu

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 Con

No smooth scrolling

Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files. 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 Con

Unintuitive mode switching

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 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

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 Con

Outdated UI

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 Con

Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left

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 Con

Extensibility isn't that great

While it has gotten better and some projects are slowly starting to build proper extension support, it still can't and by design never will achieve the extensibility of another editor like emacs. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient! See More

Top Pro

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can set up keymapping

Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

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

Top Pro

Works on Android

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". See More

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

Status Booster

Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows

License:GPL

Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box. See More

1977 390

score 1372 · Answer 11

Sublime Text

Top Pro

Comfortable to work with

Top Con

Paid

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

Top Pro

Functionality can be easily extended

Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command. See More

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

Top Pro

Lightweight

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

Top Con

No toolbar

Sublime Text is more focused on keyboard users, meaning it doesn't come with a tool bar. Even plugins can't toggle bookmarks using the mouse. See More

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

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 Con

Interruption while work

"Purchasing" messages box interrupts while saving file. See More

Top Pro

Consistent cross-platform

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

Top Con

Annoying whitespace management

All too often it does the wrong thing with indentation on otherwise blank lines. See More

Top Pro

Offers Command Palette

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

Top Con

Not a full IDE

It does not necessarily function on a project level See More

Top Pro

Fully customizable

Sublime Text allows for all sorts of customization to help users change almost everything in the editor: Key Bindings, Menus, Snippets, Macros, Completions, and many more. Essentially, just about everything in Sublime Text is customizable with simple JSON files. This system gives the user flexibility as settings can be specified on a per-file type and per-project basis. See More

Top Con

No printing of files

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

Top Pro

IDE features without the cruft

Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features. Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete. Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations). Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find and replace, and regular expression search. Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project. Snippets and Macros. A Python console for everything else. See More

Top Con

Slow development

While development has yet to stop on Sublime Text, it is significantly slower than its competitors Atom, VSCode, and others. 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

Inadequate language support

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

Top Pro

Distraction free editing mode

Distraction free editing takes over your screen and removes every UI element so you can focus on code. See More

Top Con

Often crashes due to poor quality plugins

Some plugins are quite buggy, meaning that installing many can become quite a problem regarding stability. See More

Top Pro

Easy to get started

All you need to do when starting up is to install a package manager and modify user configuration. 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

Top Pro

Has tons of plugins available

Top Pro

Very fast

Sublime is quick to start and never slows down. The UI is always responsive and you know what is happening in the background. See More

Top Pro

Regex commands

Regex commands help describe a certain amount of text. See More

Top Pro

Installable package manager

The package manager is a plugin and can be swapped with something else custom. See More

Top Pro

Permits instant file switching

Open Goto Anything by pressing Ctrl or Command + P and by using fuzzy search you can look for a file in your project. The file will load even without pressing enter, so you can make sure you've found the correct file without committing. See More

Top Pro

Haxe and OpenFL integration via plugin

Both of these programming interfaces are cross-platform, open source, and easy to use. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic Build System

Choose from many build systems or craft your own. See More

Top Pro

Multiple languages are supported

Top Pro

Customizable keymapping

From menus to commands, assign key maps to almost anything. See More

Top Pro

Projects support multiple folders and git repos

Top Pro

Allows for Vim-style editing

Vintage mode is Vim-style editing that's already built into the text editor. See More

Top Pro

Support for TextMate themes and window decoration themes

Sublime Text compatibility with Textmate bundles is good, but excludes commands, which are incompatible. In general, Sublime Text syntax definitions are compatible with Textmate language files (.tmLanguage extension). See More

Top Pro

Portable settings

Settings are modular and can be shared. See More

Top Pro

Highly Theme-able

Create your own theme with online editor. See More

Top Pro

Freemium

A Sublime license can be bought but it can still be used for free. However, a pop-up appears when you save multiple times. See More

Top Pro

Direct server upload

Provides command line shortcut for server upload. See More

Top Pro

Functionalities

With lot of functionalities, where other editor even not think to provide. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

License:Proprietary

The single pane formats your MD as you write it but retains the markup so you can see what's going on. See More

1372 314

score 22 · Answer 12

Caret

Top Pro

Single-pane hybrid interface

Top Con

Not free

No longer free, try and buy See More

Top Pro

Has a heading navigator

Hit ⌘ G to see document titles in a hierarchical view, type and use the arrows to navigate. See More

Top Con

The shortcuts don't toggle formatting

Pressing cmd+B, for example, will begin a bold segment of text, but pressing it again doesn't end that bold segment, it retroactively turns the boldness off. This interrupts writing flow tremendously. See More

Top Pro

Has a file manager

Hit ⌘ T to browse current folder, navigate the file system and manage your files and folders, type to search, right click to create / move / rename / delete items. 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

Top Pro

Supports context commands

Hit "Enter" to fix spelling, convert list to ordered/unordered/task, convert reference link to inline, jump to reference link definition, jump to footnote definition, visit links, etc. See More

Top Pro

Supports auto-completions

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

Top Pro

Offers inline preview for LaTeX math expressions

Renders LaTeX math expressions as soon as you have finished writing them. See More

Top Pro

Supports "select more" / "select less" commands

Hit ⌥ ↑ to extend the current selection to the next biggest element and ⌥ ↓ to shrink the selection. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Windows, Linux

With LT's inline evaluation, you don't have to re-compile your whole source file. Each time you want to see an output, all you have to do is hover your cursor over the line you'd like to evaluate and press ctrl+enter; LT will evaluate that line of code for you. See More

22 10

score 44 · Answer 13

Light Table

Top Pro

Inline evaluation

Top Pro

Your code runs live as you write it

The "Watches" feature lets you see your code running live as you type it. This means that you can debug your code live while writing it, which leads to considerably less programming errors. See More

Top Pro

Plugin manager available

LT has a plugin manager built directly inside of it. This plugin manager connects to LT's own registry of plugins, so whenever you want assistance while writing your HTML, JS, or even Python, just open up the plugin manager, search for it, and click the little install button beside it's name. Your plugin will then be installed. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

License:MIT

Price:Free /Opensource

Multi Language Support:Y; Language integrations (like inline eval) for Clojure, ClojureScript, Javascript, Python, HTML, and CSS

The free version is limited to 100 cards and 10 documents. Depending on how you use it, this might not be enough. See More

44 31

score 16 · Answer 14

Gingko

Top Con

Limited free version

Top Pro

You can customize colors

Top Pro

Allows focusing on one piece of information at a time

Since Gingko documents are "trees", they are always organized on the go. And since everything is written in cards, it is possible to focus on one chunk of content at a time. See More

Top Pro

Easy to overview

Despite the complexity of the tree structure, it's always clear where you are, and how to quickly add your thoughts. See More

Top Pro

Markdown support

All formatting is done via Markdown. See More

Top Pro

Non-linear

Non-linear notetaking allows you more flexibility, freedom and creativity. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web

Preview:Live Preview

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

16 2

score 304 · Answer 15

Joplin

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Top Con

Sync issue under Linux

The Linux client has a bug that requires the user to click the mouse frequently in order for sync to proceed. This bug has been open for a while. See More

Top Pro

Offline access

Top Con

Old school interface

Top Pro

Supports markdown

Top Con

Sync issues on Windows

No way to change account settings and sync easily corrupted. See More

Top Pro

Open source

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

Top Con

Weak tag searching

Joplin can currently only search for a single tag at a time. None of the boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are available for use in searches. This greatly diminishes the usefulness of tags in Joplin. See More

Top Pro

Encryption

Top Con

Can't create tags from the mobile app

Top Pro

Supports file attachments

Top Pro

Web Clipper

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

Top Pro

Supports tags for notes

Top Pro

Nextcloud support

Top Pro

Dropbox support

Can sync using Dropbox. See More

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

Timed alarm reminder for to-do lists

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

304 37

score 530 · Answer 16

Spacemacs

Top Pro

Combines the best parts of Vi and Emacs

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

Top Con

Can be quite glitchy at times

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 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 Con

Complex learning difficulty

You must be familiar with either Vim or Emacs. In addition, you should be familiar with the unique features of Spacemacs. The Layer concept of replacing Emacs settings is still difficult and abstract compared to modern editors. 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 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

Community-driven configuration

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

Top Con

High CPU and unresponsive at times

There are occasions when Spacemacs would suddenly consume a LOT of CPU and then other times would become completely unresponsive. This instability took place only 6 months or so ago. Restarting Spacemacs can fix it for a while but perhaps this issue is already fixed in newer versions. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

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

Top Con

Relative low 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. Still not as bad as other editors though, especially Electron based ones like VSCode or Atom. 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

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

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

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 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

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 Pro

Manage many code bases easily

Top Pro

Remote file editing

Files can be edited in Spacemacs remotely. See More

Top Pro

Great note-taking and agenda mode built-in

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

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

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

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

Great CFEngine support

Syntax highlighting and org-babel extensions. See More

Top Pro

Manage R files easily

Top Pro

Great Clojure support

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

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

License:GPLv3

Even the right-click menus on the web are the same as the app. See More

530 66

score 241 · Answer 17

Notion

Top Pro

Full-featured on desktop, mobile and web

Top Con

no true backup

true backup can only exist if it's automated and easily recoverable. else, it's just an outdated copy or useless scrambled data. See More

Top Pro

Unlike anything else

One of the most complete applications one can use to build a personal dashboard (or professional) and migrate all other services to it. No more calendar, task, notes, financials, lists, writing and wiki apps, just Notion. See More

Top Con

Designed with teams in mind, and less formatting than Evernote.

Evernote may be more individual-oriented and has more formatting and such options available, but whether that affects you is down to personal preference. Try both and see which you prefer. See More

Top Pro

Does a great job with both notes and to-dos

To-dos in Notion aren't just dot point lists. You can drag and drop them into columns just like Trello (Kanban style), you can have sub-tasks, and you can easily mark things off as completed so they are no longer in your way. Notes are also powerful, with proper formatting and ways to manage and search for them, which makes it a great Evernote alternative. See More

Top Con

No lightweight tables like Markdown

Every table is some sort of database with a default view and every row is a data set with attributes and it's own page. Simple tables as in Markdown are missing. See More

Top Pro

Awesome for wikis

You can easily start writing a bunch of web pages, share it with co-workers and choose whether to publicize or keep your contents private. It's also easy to hyperlink pages. See More

Top Con

not yet a new protocol, as it could be! (or could it?)

think of scuttlebutt or email. the best evernote alternative would be a "web 3.0" of sorts. something that would be just a simple file added to a computer and automatically replicated to other computers along with a website. and any company could easily pick up the concept and make their own hosting, including some awesome google drive/host of sorts. See More

Top Pro

Pages within pages within pages, to infinity

You can have a ridiculous amount of information within a single note. Look at how it works, you'll be surprised! See More

Top Con

Not always very intuitive

Column filters are not that intuitive to apply. See More

Top Pro

Blocks offer incredible flexibility

The basic unit of organization in Notion is the block, which can be a chunk of text, an image, a bullet point, or even a link to another page. Each page consists of these blocks, which can be easily reorganized, moved to other pages, converted into other content types, or generally manipulated in many useful ways. Because of blocks, restructuring information in Notion is way easier than in any other wiki or notebook app. See More

Top Pro

Flexible contents storage and organization

You can upload files and embed online stuff in any hierarchical structure using pages, toggle lists, etc. See More

Top Pro

Highly visual, with icons next to every new page and so on

This feature makes it very easy to find certain notes and such. And great for visual people as well. You could also add images as icons instead, if you like. See More

Top Pro

Quick and effective search

Just type in a word and you'll have results in no time at all. See More

Top Pro

Cross Platform

Works with Android, iOS, Windows, & Mac OSX See More

Top Pro

Amazing view flexibility

You can create different views for a page's content and easily toggle between kanban, table, etc. (As long as the content is able to allow different views.) See More

Top Pro

Less headaches when editing pages

Lets you restore your page to a past edit. Also works with sub-pages and databases. Though it is worth mentioning that it's a paid feature. See More

Top Pro

Great spreadsheet functionality

You can use calculation/formula, links, attachment, inter-referencing of data from other pages or tables, embed documents and images in the table cells. See More

Top Pro

Attach files in tables

You can attach files in table cells, which is a feature missing in most spreadsheet-like applications. See More

Top Pro

Renders Markdown Syntax

Add code blocks, Headers, bullet point, numbered lists, or To-Do boxes by typing using Markdown Syntax (instead of klunkily moving the mouse to formatting boxes) See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web

Collaborative:Yes

Local hosting:No

If donations are set up, users have the ability to choose if and how much they want to spend on a book. It's limited to $100 per donation. See More

241 39

score 7 · Answer 18

Gitbook

Top Pro

Ability to accept donations for books

Top Con

Wire transfers are US only

Ability to automatically deposit revenue in your bank account is limited to United States. PayPal deposits work internationally. See More

Top Pro

(planned) Ability to automatically distribute books to online retailers

Gitbook plans to soon release a feature that allows easily distributing your books to Amazon, Apple's App Store, Google Play, Kobo Store. See More

Top Con

Donations are buggy

The form for donations automatically changes to a credit card information form as soon as any amount of money is entered in the form field for donation amount. In addition to the process being jarring, it also does not allow you to finish entering the amount and there's no way to change the amount after the form has changed. Also, the site says they limit donations to $100 USD, but higher amounts can be entered with no indication that they wouldn't go through. See More

Top Pro

Includes good analytics

Top Pro

All authors keep rights to their books

Top Pro

Includes promotion tools

Top Pro

Versioning with Git

Version control is based on GIT scm. See More

Top Pro

Free support for custom domain names