When comparing UltraEdit vs Crimson Editor, the Slant community recommends UltraEdit for most people. In the question“What are the best simple text editors for Windows?” UltraEdit is ranked 15th while Crimson Editor is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose UltraEdit is:
UltraEdit has small memory usage and allows for fast parsing/searching when handling large files.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Handles large files (>1GB) extremely well
UltraEdit has small memory usage and allows for fast parsing/searching when handling large files.
Pro Works perfectly with remote files
Supports several protocols for accessing remote files and working on them with the same ease as local files. Files can be integrated in the projects as normal files.
Pro Probably the most versatile general editor in existence.
If you need a general editor, UltraEdit is the way to go. If you were writing C/C++ all day, then this would be your editor. If you need to slog through large files then this is your go to editor. If you need to go through XML files, then this is your editor. If you need to sort data, then this your my editor.
Pro Fast, stable, easy to use
It loads with a short delay, but once loaded it's snappy and rock-solid. Anyone accustomed to using Windows text editors will feel at home in its interface, and those that prefer alternate keybindings can easily change them.
Pro Search and replace capabilities
From Ultraedit to Perl to Unix regex engines, the search and replace can accomplish just about anything.
Pro Responsive company
Whether for feature requests, technical support or license questions, IDM is always quick to respond.
Pro Nice hex display & edit
There's a handful of other features like this that make UltraEdit indispensable.
Pro Extremely customizable GUI editor
UltraEdit offer the best of both worlds. it has a full on GUI along with all the shortcut commands you need. There's no need for the user to suffer 80 char limitations of a terminal editor.
Pro Highly flexible
UltraEdit allows you to handle groups of files as a project.
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 searching in multiple files. You can just click on any line and it then opens the corresponding file in a new tab and shows you the needed line.
Pro Open last working files on start
Can open with all last worked documents - remembers all file positions.
Pro Free software
Pro Regular expressions support
Find and replace (multifile) allowed with support for regular expressions also.
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).
Pro Spell check
Pro Return to last edit
Return to last edit option is very good during coding, where we can lose track of where we were.
Pro Column mode
The column mode editing trick, which we could do in MS Office (with ALT + mouse key), is also available.
Pro Very lightweight
Pro Can make a project and configure hot keys to call system commands to make it an IDE
Pro The text window can be split into two or four parts
Pro Custom syntax along with many known syntax and multi level key highlighting
Pro Supports tabs
Supports any number of tabs
Cons
Con Proprietary
It's not free and a license costs $79.99.
Con The themes introduced in version 20 regressed certain aspects of syntax coloring
The themes simplified the syntax highlighting which lost the capacity to have as many colors as one wanted to define. Now it is limited to around 20 different colors. In general it's not a problem but in certain cases it broke coloring.
For some reason, the classic theme is the only one that is totally pleasant for readability well with syntax highlighting.
Con Doesn't support dragging and dropping text
Con Further development not happening with the Emerald Community
Con Bookmarks are not permanent
Bookmarks are lost when a file is closed - just like any other editor.