What are the best simple text editors for Windows?

Question

39

Options
Considered

394

User
Recs.

2 mins

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 38 OptionsWhy?

Best simple text editors for Windows	Price	Platforms	License
92 Notepad++	Free	Windows	GPL
87 Visual Studio Code	FREE	Windows, macOS, Linux	MIT
80 Sublime Text	70.00	Windows; macOS; Linux	Proprietary
-- micro	Free	Linux, MacOS, BSD, Windows	MIT
76 Atom	Free	Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux	MIT

See Full List

37 Other Options Considered

Visual Studio Code

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

Very heavy to be a simple text editor

It is better suited to edit source files in a project than simple text. See More

IntuitiveMnemosyne's Experience

Easy to use, customize; 1 simple solution for many tasks See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

Multi Language Support:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

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

Top Con

It takes quite some time to start up

For a text editor it's rather heavy, See More

Eric Waters's Experience

This is what I currently use, and it does everything I need it to. It opens quickly, keeps my projects organized, and thanks to plugins covers the Markup I use constantly, along with other very useful features - a code map, split workspace (although that could be a bit more configurable), Git control. Really great stuff. It might not be as powerful as Sublime or Atom, but it should be enough for most people. 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 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. 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

Is not an IDE, is a text editor

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

Slow launch time

Than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text. See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Con

Needs some customization in order to work as an IDE

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

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

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 Pro

Great performance

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

Fast, good extension support

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

It has gotten really good

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

Top Pro

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript. 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

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 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 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

Python support

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

The best text editor right now

Top Pro

Good support for new Emmet syntax

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

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

High fidelity C# plugin

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

See All

Sublime Text

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). See More

Top Con

Updates are not so frequent

Even though SublimeText is not buggy updates are not very frequent. See More

starcrescendo's Experience

Love Sublime Text. Tried Atom and the Microsoft editor and came back to this one. It's so lightweight and easy to use. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

License:Proprietary

Collaborative editing:No

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP (plug-in); SSH (plug-in)

See All Specs

Top Pro

Clean UI

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

KindheartedIzanami's Experience

Professional development See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Preposterously expensive

Don't get me wrong, it's great software, but the full version is preposterously expensive considering that it doesn't really do anything that Visual Studio Code or Atom do for free. See More

Top Pro

Multi-cursor editing

Top Con

Annoying whitespace management

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

Top Pro

Many plugins to extend functionalities

Top Con

Interruption while work

"Purchasing" messages box interrupts while saving file. 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

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

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 Con

Not a full IDE

It does not necessarily function on a project level. See More

Top Pro

Comfortable to work with

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

Top Con

Proprietary

Code is protected and copyrighted. 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 Pro

Can load massive files > 10GB

and shows nice progress bar 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 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 Pro

Consistent cross-platform

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

Top Pro

Regex commands

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

Top Pro

Portable settings

Settings are modular and can be shared. 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 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 Pro

Functionalities

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

Allows for Vim-style editing

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

See All

Atom

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 easier for developers to jump in and create plugins for Atom. 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

Dominic Clifton's Experience

very slow to start up, even on an SSD equipped 6 core CPU with 32GB ram. doesn't have a good UI at all, ultraedit is better. frequently crashes. See More

Specs

Platforms:Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

Collaborative editing:Plug-in

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP (plug-in); SSH (plug-in)

See All Specs

Top Pro

Free and open source

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

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. See More

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. See More

Top Con

Unintuitive UI

The UI doesn't promote discovery by interaction. No toolbars, etc. 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 Con

Crash and data loss

An example of a bug report about crashes getting closed automatically after some time, nobody cares. See More

Top Pro

Multi-cursor editing

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 sub-processes and leaks a considerable amount of memory. See More

Top Pro

Great syntax highlighting

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 More

Top Pro

Themes

You can theme and customize Atom to your liking. 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 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 Pro

Multiplatform

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

Top Pro

Could also be used as an IDE

Atom qualifies to be a good IDE because of the packages like linters, Atom browser and Hydrogen. See More

Top Pro

Command Palette support

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

Top Pro

Modern and extensible user interface

Atom has a modern user interface that can be configured to your own liking. Atom also has hundreds of themes in its theme repository that can be used to customize the program. See More

See All

CudaText

Top Pro

No installer or dependencies required

Cudatext is very easy to install. Just extraxt the zip file and you are done. See More

schlaumeier's Experience

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. See More

Specs

Platforms:macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Linux-arm

License:MPL 2.0

Bracket Matching:Yes

Price:Free

Top Pro

Syntax highlighting for many languages ( > 160)

Top Pro

Native cross-platform for macOS, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD

Top Pro

Quite lightweight, doesn't need much resources

Top Pro

Supports some nifty text editor functions

Supports code folding, multi-cursor, FTP file access via plugin, etc. See More

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. See More

Top Pro

Super easy colour theme changes

A GUI interface is available to change a Theme or create a new one based on an existing one. See More

Top Pro

Plugin manager built-in

Top Pro

Beginner friendly

Supports a normal menu and command palette to help discover functions and remember them. See More

Top Pro

Many programming languages supported for syntax highlighting

About ~180 programming languages supported at the time of writing either built-in or can be added easily with the addon manager. See More

Top Pro

Addon manager

Useful built-in addon manager. See More

Top Pro

Package for Linux ARM available

Top Pro

Minimap plugin available

Top Pro

Addons can be developed in Python

Top Pro

Written in Pascal on Lazarus

Top Pro

Easy to handle

Top Pro

Pplugin manager is included

See All

Vim

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

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

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows

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

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

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

Top Con

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

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

Top Con

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

This can be worked around 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. 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

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

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 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 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

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Works on Android

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

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

By default in Linux

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

See All

Kate

Top Pro

Syntax highlighting

Kate supports syntax highlighting for over 180 languages, from Assembler to Zsh. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; *nix

License:GPL

Collaborative editing:No

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP; HTTP; SSH; WebDAV

See All Specs

Top Pro

Fast and minimalistic

Kate is pretty fast and lightweight. This helps it with it's start up speed. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Kate is released under the GNU LGPL V2 license, therefore the whole source code is publicly availabe See More

Top Pro

Edit over FTP, SSH, or other protocols

Kate uses KDE's input and output libraries to read and write files, allowing seamless integration with FTP, SMB, SFTP, and many other protocols. See More

Top Pro

Project mode

Kate allows you to make projects to simplify the organisation of your code. This brings in additional organization of an IDE without the overhead. See More

See All

SciTE

Top Pro

Powerful syntax highlighting for numerous languages

Lexers providing folding and syntax highlighting are based on code, not on regular expressions. They support context, nesting, special rules, etc. See More

Top Con

Hard to config

The configuration is mainly a file-based config, which can be unintuitive and difficult to use for new users. See More

Mike's Experience

Being a single file executable called Sc1 which does not need any DLL or properties files it's the best 'simple windows text editor' for every USB-Stick. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; *nix

License:HPND

Supported remote file editing protocols:None

Top Pro

Free (except on Mac) and open source

SciTE is written in C++, with lot of contributors, both to the core and to the numerous lexers. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

With less than 2 MB of binary on Windows, SciTE starts instantly. Plus, if you don't need all the config, syntax files, blah, there's a 678k standalone .exe version. Nothing is going to beat that for lightweight and start-up times. Stick it in a folder that is already on your PATH. See More

Top Pro

Portable

SciTE works on Windows and Linux, and it also has a commercial port on MacOS. See More

See All

PSPad

Top Pro

Free

PSPad is completely free to download and use. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

License:Freeware

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP

Top Pro

Integrated FTP client

Top Pro

Code highlighting for many languages

PSPad supports code highlighting for several languages. See More

Top Pro

Simple and small

PSPad is simple, small, and lightweight. It's also quite fast. See More

Top Pro

Right click menu - open as hex

Default right click menu option allows users to right click files and open them in PSPad as HEX, no guestimating files, you right click, open as hex, and you can see those first few bytes that tell you what a file really is, plus ability to quickly scroll through. See More

Top Pro

Integrated HEX editor

See All

Textadept

Top Pro

Easily written plugins

You can write plugins pretty easily. Here is the API doc, quite compact. Here is a module which adds a support for ctags. See More

TranquilAmphiaraus's Experience

very fast. no distractions with plugins and themes. Good to use out of box. Very powerful if you have to dig deep and customize. Love it so far. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD

Top Pro

Scriptable

Has a built-in lua engine. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

It's available for Windows, Mac and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Has both GUI and TUI

Both text and GUI versions behave mostly the same, just the way notepad users would expect it to. Like shift+arrows - select, Ctrl+c - copy, Ctrl+o - open a file. See More

Top Pro

Small and portable

Has very few dependencies, and very small footprint. Can be copied to a new system in a moment, unpacked and be at your service. See More

See All

QOwnNotes

Top Pro

Markdown support

Specs

Platforms:Mac OSX; Windows; Linux

License:GPL

Preview:Live side-by-side

Scripting support:Yes

See All Specs

Codelobster

Top Pro

Very advanced editor

Top Con

You need to sign up to get a free serial number for the free version

In order to use the free version of Codelobster, you have to sign up and get a free account. This is done to help stopping piracy, but it's still pretty jarring when all you want to do is install a program. See More

Top Pro

Portable option available

Codelobster IDE offers a lightweight, portable option. See More

Top Con

Expensive

For the Pro version (which includes all the available plug-ins), the cost is $99.95. The lite version (without plugins) is $39.95. See More

Top Pro

Free version available

There is a free version available for download; it comes with a lot of features that you would find in an IDE. See More

See All

Notepad2

Top Pro

Can replace Windows Notepad

metapad

Add Video or Image

ne

Top Pro

Runs in terminal

Specs

Platforms:Linux, MacOS, BSD, UNIX-line, Windows (partial, via Cygwin)

License:GPL-3.0-or-later

Collaborative editing:No

Multi Language Support:No

See All Specs

I Recommend...

Built By the Slant team

Find the best product instantly.

Lustre recommends the best products at their lowest prices – right on Amazon.

4.7 star rating

Try it now - it's free

score 128 · Accepted Answer

Notepad++

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. See More

Top Con

Dated UI

Very old fashioned user interface. With a modern GUI, Notepad++ could be way more popular. See More

CourteousMeretseger's Experience

Looks like Windows XP, i even prefer Notepad over this Program See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

License:GPL

Collaborative editing:plug-in

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP; SSH (plug-in)

See All Specs

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. See More

Top Con

Windows-only

While it can run in Wine, it is native only to Windows. See More

LoyalBabaYaga's Experience

Because I have a really weak pc, this one was really good for me. See More

Top Pro

Free under GPL

Notepad++ is licensed under GPL, which means it is free/open source software that you can use freely. See More

Top Con

No theme/customization support of the UI

PerfectFulla's Experience

Why use a free program on a proprietary OS? See More

Top Pro

Handles massive files

Always opens a file gracefully regardless of size, e.g. 10s of MBs. Great for browsing logs, dumps, etc. See More

Top Con

No easy way to change font

HarmoniousAlLat's Experience

Wrong code folding See More

Top Pro

Handles special characters

Find & Replace works with special characters too. See More

Top Con

Can not open large files

igeek's Experience

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. See More

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. See More

Top Con

Outdated UI

Only the text area can be themed, and it doesn't have as many features as browser-based text areas. See More

lostinlodos's Experience

My only complaint is it’s windows only! Don’t misunderstand me though. It Does work on Linux via Wine. But... it refuses to load with any implementation on MacOS. That said; this is still the simplest scratch pad for programming AND file verification. Support for displaying representation of NPCs make tagless meta-less files not only loadable but decipherable. Such as sorting a broken jpeg from a j2k. Rather than choke like notepad (Microsoft) and preview (Apple), notepad++ throws up what garbage it can pull from the files no matter how damaged. This greatly enhances file recovery. Extensions allow quick (dirty) conversions between DMLs and DTDs. Eg html to xtml or wiki to BBC. Tag dictionaries help clean up the results from such dirty conversions. Works with any character code page. Being a regular user of older equipment notepad helps transition documents and files from old 8-bit computers to modern systems, by looking for identification at the start AND end of the files. Software that put identification at the end of the file, such as writer, is easily handled by NP++. I could go on for much longer but the pros of this program post cover much of it. See More

Top Pro

Great all around text editing

Top Con

Session backups not enabled by default

Unsaved tabs will be lost when Npp crashes, unless you first enable the session backup option. See More

PoisedTranquillitas's Experience

Simple, fast, quite complete out of the box See More

Top Pro

Supports plugins

There are several useful plugins available. And you can write your own. See More

Top Con

Limited new syntax support for new languages

It may be hard to find good plugins for relatively new languages. See More

DecorousKarpos's Experience

Moderate. I like the plugins though needed on occasion. Generally powerful See More

Top Pro

Split screen

The user can open and edit files in multiple screens within the editor window. See More

Top Con

User defined language doesn't support triple quote strings

It also doesn't support triple hashed comments. Both styles are overridden by their single character single line version. See More

ExuberantShulsaga's Experience

Great tool. Very intuitive. Used a lot for XML programming, formating and validations. See More

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. See More

Top Con

Settings confusingly scattered

Examples: try to change the tab size or used font. See More

Yanis's Experience

Great for a programmer like me. See More

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. See More

Top Con

Doesn't handle Windows scaling gracefully

Running Notepad++ is anything but Windows scaling 100% causes the toolbar icons to becomes pixelated and horrible to look at. See More

Top Pro

Good for programming

There are preset language preferences for major programming languages. See More

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 More

Top Pro

Extendable via plugins

A list of hundreds of plugins is maintained. See More

Top Pro

Dark Themes

Highly customizable with many dark themes. See More

Top Pro

Persistent documents, even after exiting the application

If you close notepad++ (npp), your documents remain even if you haven't saved. See More

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. See More

Top Pro

User defined language syntax support

You can define your own custom syntax highlighting rules (or add support for others) . See More

Top Pro

Configurable shortcuts

Top Pro

Best editor

Smallest size editor. See More

Top Pro

Supports Markdown

If you have the Plugin Manager installed you can search for MarkdownViewer++ and install it via that plugin. See More

Top Pro

Supports most existing character code sets

It doesn’t matter if you use windows code pages, Unicode, or some other random character set. It also can transfer and swap code pages. Unicode to ascii, to Mac, to Unicode. No issues. See More

Top Pro

Supports multi select

Highlight and modify multiple words, commands using control key. Disabled by default but great for selecting subsets out of markup/down and programming interfaces to split, copy, our cut to a new windows. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use and admin

Very easy to use and personalize. See More

Top Pro

Open and save temporary files (bloc notes)

Notepad++ allows to open temporary files (think bloc notes files) and keep a temporary save when you close it and you shutdown the computer. It is very convenient to write quick notes. See More

Top Pro

Find and replace

Utilizes a reliable find and replace tool. Ctrl+F and click replace. See More

See All

Built by Slant

Find the best product
instantly.

Stop wasting time searching endlessly. Lustre recommends the best products at their lowest prices – right on Amazon.

4.7 star rating

Add to Chrome - It's Free

Add to Edge - It's Free

Add to Firefox - It's Free

Add to Opera - It's Free

Add to Brave - It's Free

Add to Safari - It's Free

Try now - it's free

What are the best simple text editors for Windows?

The Best 1 of 38 OptionsWhy?

Notepad++

My Recommendation for Notepad++

My Recommendation for Notepad++

Light and fast

Dated UI

Portable

Windows-only

Free under GPL

No theme/customization support of the UI

Handles massive files

No easy way to change font

Handles special characters

Can not open large files

Syntax highlighting for a wide variety of languages

Outdated UI

Great all around text editing

Session backups not enabled by default

Supports plugins

Limited new syntax support for new languages

Split screen

User defined language doesn't support triple quote strings

Multi-line editing

Settings confusingly scattered

Regex replace in selection, active tab, or all tabs

Doesn't handle Windows scaling gracefully

Good for programming

Annoying update notifications upon start up

Extendable via plugins

Dark Themes

Persistent documents, even after exiting the application

Saves battery

User defined language syntax support

Configurable shortcuts

Best editor

Supports Markdown

Supports most existing character code sets

Supports multi select

Easy to use and admin

Open and save temporary files (bloc notes)

Find and replace

37 Other Options Considered

Visual Studio Code

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

Ready to use out of the box

Very heavy to be a simple text editor

Huge community behind it

It takes quite some time to start up

Extendable through plugins

Embedded Git isn't powerful enough

Embedded Git control

Is not an IDE, is a text editor

Updated frequently

Slow launch time

Libre/open source

Needs some customization in order to work as an IDE

Integrated debugging

Active development

JavaScript IntelliSense support

Great performance

TypeScript integration

Fast, good extension support

Custom snippets support

It has gotten really good

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Integrated terminal

ESLint integration

Integrated task runners

Fast and powerful

Python support

JS typechecking

The best text editor right now

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Inline definition picking and usages finding

Support RTL languages

High fidelity C# plugin

Sublime Text

My Recommendation for Sublime Text