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WindowsProductivityText Editor

What are the best simple text editors for Windows?

33
Options 
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122
User 
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The Best 1 of 33 OptionsWhy?

33 Options ConsideredPricePlatformsLicense
Excellent
Notepad++
WindowsGPL
Sublime Text
Windows; macOS; LinuxProprietary
Atom
Windows, Mac, LinuxMIT
Visual Studio Code
Windows; macOS; LinuxMIT
Vim
Linux, macOS, WindowsGPL
See Full List
Excellent

Notepad++

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thermoplastics
Top Pro

Light and fast

•••
Notepad++ is a very light program that starts almost instantly. Making for a great text editor for users that want something that will start the second the open it.
Laszlo Szolnoki
Top Pro

Supports plugins

•••
There are several useful plugins available. And you can write your own.
Chloe Montanez
thermoplastics
Top Pro

Portable

•••
You can get a portable version of N++ and put it on a flash drive or your Dropbox account and have your editor, configured the way you like, at any computer that you are on.
Chloe Montanez
Alex
WorthyLodurr
Top Pro

Handles special characters

•••
Find & Replace works with special characters too.
Chloe Montanez
Seth Petersen
PracticalAtai
Top Pro

Handles massive files

•••
Always opens a file gracefully regardless of size, e.g. 10s of MBs. Great for browsing logs, dumps, etc.
Chloe Montanez
Frank Kinser
Top Pro

Great all around text editing

•••
DecorousKarpos
Top Pro

Regex replace in selection, active tab, or all tabs

•••
In Notepad++, the user can utilise regular expressions to quickly modify text across multiple files.
DecorousKarpos
Top Pro

Free under GPL

•••
Notepad++ is licensed under GPL, which means it is free/open source software that you can use freely.
WorthyLodurr
Top Pro

Good for programming

•••
There are preset language preferences for major programming languages.
JJ
Top Pro

Multi-line editing

•••
While it is disabled by default, when enabled, it is possible to edit more than one line at a time. This is helpful in many situations.
DecorousKarpos
Top Pro

Extendable via plugins

•••
A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained.
JJ
Top Pro

Persistent documents, even after exiting the application

•••
If you close notepad++ (npp), your documents remain even if you haven't saved.
JJ
Top Pro

User defined language syntax support

•••
You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) .
JJ
Top Pro

User defined language syntax support

•••
You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) .
JJ
Top Pro

Split screen

•••
The user can open and edit files in multiple screens within the editor window.
JJ
Top Pro

Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages

•••
Notepad++ has built-in support for syntax highlighting for a wide selection of programming languages.
Laura Kyle
Sultan Kautsar
Top Pro

Saves battery

•••
With a very small file size, Users can open Notepad ++ very quickly. If used for long periods, the battery will be slowly reduced.
Thomas Singer
Top Pro

Configurable shortcuts

•••
Alex
Herb Martin
thermoplastics
Top Con

Dated UI

•••
Very old fashioned user interface. With a modern GUI, Notepad++ could be way more popular.
Alex
Herb Martin
CreativeAchelois
Top Con

No theme/customization support of the UI

•••
Alex
Herb Martin
Thomas Singer
Top Con

No easy way to change font

•••
Chloe Montanez
thermoplastics
Top Con

Annoying update notifications upon start up

•••
Annoying update notifications tend to pop-up on start up after not having used the app or machine for a few days.
See 16 more Pros & ConsSee 20 more Pros & Cons
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32 Other Options Considered

Sublime Text

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Laura Kyle
Raul Lopez
Top Pro

Fast and responsive

•••
Starts almost immediately. Doesn't feel bloated even though it has a lot of functionality. Package control is not installed but is essential for customization and adding key features (sidebar enhancements).
Wernight
Top Pro

Clean UI

•••
Wernight
Top Pro

Multi-cursor editing

•••
Wernight
Top Pro

Many plugins to extend functionalities

•••
IndependentCymopoleia
Top Pro

Lightweight

•••
Adam Hardy
Top Pro

Can load massive files > 10GB

•••
and shows nice progress bar
yuri
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 c...
An_dz
CooperativePhaenon
Top Con

Updates are not so frequent

•••
Even though SublimeText is not buggy updates are not very frequent.
Endi Sukaj
Jason Poole
Top Con

Not a full IDE

•••
It does not necessarily function on a project level.
Jason Poole
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.
Chloe Montanez
oli g.
Top Con

Proprietary

•••
Code is protected and copyrighted.
See 9 more Pros & ConsSee 9 more Pros & Cons

Atom

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Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Extendable

•••
Due to its modular design, almost any aspect of the editor can be changed. Even seemingly core packages, like those taking care of search and replace functionality, can be forked on GitHub, and changed and replaced in the editor. The documentation for creating new plugins is also great, making it...
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Free and open source

•••
Atom is free, open source, and written in C++, LESS, and CoffeeScript.
Endi Sukaj
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...
Wernight
Top Pro

Multi-cursor editing

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Built-in package management

•••
Atom was built from the ground up with the community in mind. Package management is therefore a first class feature.
Laura Kyle
Top Pro

Great syntax highlighting

•••
Nathan R
Top Pro

Extensive list of packages

•••
Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. Packages are written in CoffeeScript.
Nathan R
Top Pro

Multiplatform

•••
Atom can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Nathan R
Top Pro

Themes

•••
You can theme and customize Atom to your liking.
Nathan R
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.
Laura Kyle
DeliberateHarmonia
Top Pro

Awesome UI

•••
Endi Sukaj
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.
meikl
Top Con

Very slow startup time

•••
Atom is very slow to startup, which is a big disadvantage if you are accustomed to using it to make quick changes on your files.
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Has difficulty with large text files

•••
Tends to crash or hang with large >(10MB) text files, making it less useful as a general text editor.
See 12 more Pros & ConsSee 12 more Pros & Cons

Visual Studio Code

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Alan Tsai
Top Pro

Embedded Git control

•••
Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
Alan Tsai
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.
Alan Tsai
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.
Alan Tsai
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.
Endi Sukaj
TactfulAmaethon
Top Pro

Fast, good extension support

•••
Jason Poole
Top Pro

Huge community behind it

•••
The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.
Jason Poole
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.
Jason Poole
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.
Jason Poole
Top Pro

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

•••
Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.
Alan Tsai
Top Pro

Integrated debugging 

•••
VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.
Alan Tsai
Top Pro

JavaScript IntelliSense support

•••
JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.
Inguna Gudareva
Frank
Top Con

Very heavy to be a simple text editor

•••
It is better suited to edit source files in a project than simple text.
Alex
meikl
Top Con

Embedded Git isn't powerful enough

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

Slow launch time

•••
Than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text.
Endi Sukaj
Jason Poole
Top Con

Needs some customization in order to work as an IDE

•••
See 13 more Pros & ConsSee 13 more Pros & Cons

Vim

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Paolo
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.
HealthyMixcoatl
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.
HealthyMixcoatl
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, l...
HealthyMixcoatl
Top Pro

Free and open-source software

•••
Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.
HealthyMixcoatl
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.
Paolo
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 conn...
InfluentialIsimud
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 y...
InfluentialIsimud
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.
InfluentialIsimud
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.
InfluentialIsimud
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.
InfluentialIsimud
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 c...
InfluentialIsimud
Top Pro

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

•••
InfluentialIsimud
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.
InfluentialIsimud
Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

•••
InfluentialIsimud
Top Pro

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

•••
InfluentialIsimud
Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

•••
InfluentialIsimud
Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

•••
If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient.
Joshua Reed
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 capabilit...
Joshua Reed
Top Pro

Vimtutor

•••
Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.
Joshua Reed
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.
InfluentialIsimud
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 y...
InfluentialIsimud
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.
Paolo
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.
Paolo
Top Con

Lacks many modern programming features out of the box

•••
Syntax checking, autocompletion, file management, plugin/update management, etc., all require plugins and extensive configuration to get working. Further to this, you'll probably have to compile native binaries yourself and ensure your system has the proper development libs to do so.
See 22 more Pros & ConsSee 22 more Pros & Cons

Cudatext

Add Video or Image
schlaumeier
Top Pro

No installer or dependencies required

•••
Cudatext is very easy to install. Just extraxt the zip file and you are done.
JM80
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Command palette

•••
Supports a fuzzy finder for commands similar to Sublime Text or Atom. This helps a lot to discover and remember commands to make good use of them.
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Supports some nifty text editor functions

•••
Supports code folding, multi cursor, ftp file access via plugin, etc
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Plugin manager build in

•••
schlaumeier
Top Pro

Syntax highlighting for many languages ( > 160)

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?
See 4 more ProsSee 4 more Pros

Notepad2-mod

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gilch
Top Pro

Can replace Windows Notepad

•••
HonestHermes
Top Pro

Simple and fast

•••
gilch
Top Pro

Code folding

•••
gilch
Top Pro

Syntax highlighting

•••
Supports more languages than the original Notepad2.
Know any negative aspects of this option?
See 3 more ProsSee 3 more Pros

micro

Add Video or Image
gilch
Top Pro

Runs in terminal

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?

Kate

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QOwnNotes

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PioneeringTitias
Top Pro

Markdown support

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?

SciTE

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Gedit

Add Video or Image
thermoplastics
Top Pro

Great UX

•••
The UI is lean and minimal. Everything feels quite fast and it is easy to add custom shortcuts for doing things like compiling, deploying or testing.
Know any negative aspects of this option?

Textadept

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LIVEditor

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vi

Add Video or Image
gilch
Top Pro

Runs in terminal

•••
gilch
Top Con

Single undo

•••
Some versions have upgraded this (and you may have to enable it), but the standard is from a time of very limited RAM.

Programmer's Notepad

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anne speck
Top Pro

Automatic Line ending conversion

•••
Copy and paste from/to Unix/Linux without problems with line endings. (Also supports Mac line endings.)
anne speck
Top Pro

Have multiple files open simultaneously.

•••
anne speck
Top Pro

Highlighting for several languages

•••
Options include Plain Text, Assembler, C/C++ family, HTML, LaTeX, Bash, Poweshell, and SQL
anne speck
Top Pro

No Microsoft Cruft

•••
Work on files in a native Windows app without Microsoft defining your fonts every other character.
Endi Sukaj
TRH
Top Con

Supports too few languages

•••
Does not have a lot of modern language support.
Endi Sukaj
TRH
Top Con

No unicode support

•••
Does not support Unicode
See 4 more Pros & ConsSee 4 more Pros & Cons

Ynote Classic

Add Video or Image

Notepad2

Add Video or Image
gilch
Top Pro

Can replace Windows Notepad

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?

Crimson Editor

Ryan
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Project/Folder/Output pane

•••
It can create a project that will be stored in a prj file, which is a text file that can be edited and used across systems. The folder pane navigation is limited to each disk drive. The output pane can be used to capture compilers or other exe's output, and also shows search output while search...
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Open last working files on start

•••
Can open with all last worked documents - remembers all file positions.
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Free software

•••
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Regular expressions support

•••
Find and replace (multifile) allowed with support for regular expressions also.
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Macro editing

•••
Repetitive lines or words can be recorded as a macro, kept and recalled when needed, since it is permanently stored (up to 11 macros).
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Spell check

•••
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Return to last edit

•••
Return to last edit option is very good during coding, where we can lose track of where we were.
Belle
Siva Kumar
Top Pro

Column mode

•••
The column mode editing trick, which we could do in MS Office (with ALT + mouse key), is also available.
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Very lightweight

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Can make a project and configure hot keys to call system commands to make it an IDE

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

The text window can be split into two or four parts

•••
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Custom syntax along with many known syntax and multi level key highlighting

•••
Siva Kumar
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Supports tabs

•••
Supports any number of tabs
Endi Sukaj
Siva Kumar
Top Con

Doesn't support dragging and dropping text

•••
Endi Sukaj
Siva Kumar
Top Con

Further development not happening with the Emerald Community

•••
Endi Sukaj
Siva Kumar
Top Con

Bookmarks are not permanent

•••
Bookmarks are lost when a file is closed - just like any other editor.
See 14 more Pros & ConsSee 14 more Pros & Cons

ne

Add Video or Image
gilch
Top Pro

Runs in terminal

•••
Know any negative aspects of this option?

SynWrite

Add Video or Image

122 Community Recommendations

Wernight
oli g.
Jason Poole
Rakesh Nair
Daniel Menelkir
gilch
Thomas Singer
Joshua Reed
Сергей Кожаринов
Prafful Panwar
schlaumeier
+87
Request recommendations from the community
igeek
igeek
Contributor for a month
9
Total 
Recs.
480
Total 
Karma
Notepad++
Recommended a month ago
The exterior is rather plain, but it hides a powerful, customizable code editor with many great and very useful features that supports a multitude of programming languages.
1See full
ExuberantShulsaga
ExuberantShulsaga
Contributor for a month
1
Total 
Recs.
0
Total 
Karma
Notepad++
Recommended a month ago
Great tool. Very intuitive. Used a lot for XML programming, formating and validations.
See full
DecorousKarpos
DecorousKarpos
Contributor for 4 months
1
Total 
Recs.
300
Total 
Karma
Notepad++
Recommended 4 months ago
Moderate. I like the plugins though needed on occasion. Generally powerful
Pro
 Light and fast
Pro
 Handles special characters
Pro
 Supports plugins
Pro
 Extendable via plugins
Pro
 Free under GPL
Pro
 Regex replace in selection, active tab, or all tabs
See full
schlaumeier
schlaumeier
Contributor for a year
248
Total 
Recs.
17K
Total 
Karma
Cudatext
Recommended a month ago
A quite capable text editor for test, code and markdown. No isntallation is required and the plugin manager is included. It's a nice editor for windows and easy to handle.
Pro
 No installer or dependencies required
Pro
 Plugin manager build in
Pro
 Supports some nifty text editor functions
Pro
 Command palette
1See full
Currently displaying 4 out of 122 total recommendations.
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