| Name | Description | Free software |
| Aquamacs Emacs | A distribution of GNU Emacs heavily modified to behave like a Mac program. | |
| Cream | A configuration of Vim. | |
| Elvis | A vi/ex clone with additional commands and features. | |
| Extensible Versatile Editor | Default under OpenVMS. | |
| GNU Emacs/XEmacs | Two long-existing forks of the popular Emacs programmer's editor. Emacs and vi are the dominant text editors on Unix-like operating systems, and have inspired the editor wars. | |
| Language-Sensitive Editor | Programmer's Editor for OpenVMS implemented using TPU. | |
| Textadept | A modular, cross-platform editor written in C and Lua, using Scintilla. | |
| vile | A vi work-alike which retains the vi command-set while adding new features: multiple windows and buffers, infinite undo, colorization, scriptable expansion capabilities, etc. | |
| vim | A clone based on the ideas of the vi editor and designed for use both from a command line interface and in a graphical user interface. | |
| Name | Description | License |
| Acme | A User Interface for Programmers by Rob Pike. | |
| AkelPad | Еditor for plain text. It is designed to be a small and fast. Many plugins. | |
| Alphatk | | |
| Arachnophilia | | |
| Atom | A modular, general-purpose editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of Chromium and Node.js. | |
| BBEdit | | |
| BBEdit Lite | | |
| Bluefish | A web development editor. | |
| Brackets | A modular, web-oriented editor built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of the Chromium Embedded Framework. | |
| CodeWright | | |
| Crimson Editor | | |
| CudaText | Written in Object Pascal on Lazarus, thus cross platform native GUI. | |
| CygnusEd | | |
| E Text Editor | Default under IBM OS/2 versions 2-4. | |
| Eddie | An editor originally made for BeOS and later ported to Linux and macOS. | |
| EditPlus | An editor with syntax highlighting and FTP. | |
| EmEditor | | |
| Epsilon | | |
| FeatherPad | A lightweight editor based upon Qt. | |
| Geany | A fast and lightweight editor / IDE, uses GTK+. | |
| gedit | Default under GNOME. | |
| GoldED | | |
| GWD Text Editor | | |
| HTML Kit | | |
| HxD for huge text files. | | |
| iA Writer | | |
| jEdit | A free cross-platform programmer's editor written in Java, GPL licensed. | |
| JOVE | Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs | |
| JuffEd | A lightweight text editor written in Qt4. | |
| Kate | A basic text editor for the KDE desktop. | |
| Kedit | An editor with commands and Rexx macros similar to IBM XEDIT. | |
| Kile | A user friendly TeX/LaTeX editor. | |
| Komodo Edit | | |
| KWrite | A default editor on KDE. | |
| Lapis | An experimental text editor allowing multiple simultaneous edits of text in a multiple selection from a few examples provided by the user. | |
| Leafpad | Default under LXDE. and Xfce | |
| LEd – LaTeX Editor | | |
| Leo | A text editor that features outlines with clones as its central tool of organization and navigation. | |
| Light Table | A text editor and IDE with real-time, inline expression evaluation. Intended mainly for dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and JavaScript, and for web development. | |
| mcedit | A text editor provided with Midnight Commander. | |
| Metapad | Windows Notepad replacement, GPL licensed. | |
| MicroEMACS | | |
| Mousepad | Previously the default under Xfce. | |
| Multi-Edit | | |
| NEdit – "Nirvana Editor" | | |
| Notepad | Default under Microsoft Windows. | |
| Notepad2 | | |
| Notepad++ | A tabbed text editor. | |
| NoteTab | | |
| NoteTab Light | | |
| Pe | A text editor for BeOS. | |
| pluma | The default text editor of the MATE desktop environment for Linux. | |
| PolyEdit | | |
| Programmer's File Editor | | |
| PSPad | An editor for Microsoft Windows with various programming environments. | |
| Q10 | A full screen text editor. | |
| RJ TextEd | | |
| Sam | | |
| SciTE | | |
| SimpleText | Default under Classic Mac OS from version 7.5. | |
| SlickEdit | | |
| Smultron | A macOS text editor. | |
| Source Insight | | |
SubEthaEdit
| | |
Sublime Text
| | |
| TeachText | Default under Classic Mac OS versions prior to 7.5. | |
| TED Notepad | | |
| Tex-Edit Plus | | |
| TextPad and Wildedit | | |
| TeXnicCenter | | |
| TeXShop | TeX/LaTeX editor and previewer. | |
| TextEdit | Default under macOS, NeXTSTEP, and GNUstep. | |
| TextMate | | |
| TextWrangler | Mac-only editor by Bare Bones Software, sunsetted. Final version released 09/20/2016, replaced by free tier of . | |
| The Hessling Editor | | |
The SemWare Editor
. | | |
| TopStyle | | |
| UltraEdit | Text and source code editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, FTP etc. Handles multi-gigabyte files. | |
| Ulysses | | |
| VEDIT | | |
| Visual Studio Code | An extensible code editor with support for development operations like debugging, task running and version control. | |
| WinEdt | | |
| X11 Xedit | | |
| XEDIT | Default under VM/CMS. | |
| Yudit | | |
| Command | Description | License |
| E | is the text editor in PC DOS 6, PC DOS 7 and PC DOS 2000. | |
| ed | The default line editor on Unix since the birth of Unix. Either ed or a compatible editor is available on all systems labeled as Unix. | |
| ED | The default editor on CP/M, MP/M, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86. | |
| EDIT | The default on MS-DOS 5.0 and higher and is included with all 32-bit versions of Windows that do not rely on a separate copy of DOS. Up to including MS-DOS 6.22, it only supported files up to 64 KB. | |
| EDIT | The text editor in DR DOS 6.0, Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher. Supports large files for as long as swap space is available. Version 7 and higher optionally supports a pseudo-graphics user interface named NewUI. | |
| EDIX | The text editor in Concurrent DOS, Concurrent DOS XM, Concurrent PC DOS, Concurrent DOS 386, FlexOS 286, FlexOS 386, 4680 OS, 4690 OS, S5-DOS/MT. | |
| EDITOR | The text editor in DR DOS 3.31 through DR DOS 5.0, and the predecessor of EDIT. | |
| EDLIN | A command-line based line editor introduced with 86-DOS, and the default on MS-DOS prior to version 5 and is also available on MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows NT. | |
| ee | Stands for Easy Editor, is part of the base system of FreeBSD, along with vi. | |
| nvi | – A free replacement for the original vi which maintains compatibility while adding some new features. | |
| vi | The default for Unix systems and must be included in all POSIX compliant systems – One of the earliest screen-based editors, it is based on ex. | |
| Command | Description | License |
| ECCE | ECCE is a text editor designed by Dr Hamish Dewar at Edinburgh University. | |
| Emacs | A screen-based editor with an embedded computer language, Emacs Lisp. Early versions were implemented in TECO, see below. | |
| JED | Multi-mode, multi-window editor with drop-down menus, folding, ctags support, undo, UTF-8, key-macros, autosave, etc. Multi-emulation; default is emacs. Programmable in S-Lang. | |
| JOE | A modern screen-based editor with a sort of enhanced-WordStar style to the interface, but can also emulate Pico. | |
| LE | | |
| mcedit | Full featured terminal text editor for Unix-like systems. | |
| mg | Small and light, uses GNU/Emacs keybindings. Installed by default on OpenBSD. | |
| MinEd | Text editor with user-friendly interface, mouse and menu control, and extensive Unicode and CJK support; for Unix/Linux and Windows/DOS. | |
| Nano | A clone of Pico GPL licensed. | |
| ne | A minimal, modern replacement for vi. | |
| Pico | | |
| SETEDIT | A clone of the editor of Borland's Turbo* IDEs. | |
| The SemWare Editor |
| |
| Zile | | |
| busybox vi | A small vi clone with a minimum of commands and features. | |
| Elvis | The first vi clone and the default vi in Minix. | |
| nvi | A new implementation and currently the standard vi in BSD distributions. | |
| STEVIE | STEVIE for the Atari ST, the starting point for vim and xvi | |
| vile | Derived from an early version of Microemacs in an attempt to bring the Emacs multi-window/multi-buffer editing paradigm to vi users. First published 1991 with infinite undo, UTF-8 compatibility, multi-window/multi-buffer operation, a macro expansion language, syntax highlighting, file read and write hooks, and more. | |
| vim | An extended version of the vi editor, with many additional features designed to be helpful in editing program source code. | |
