GNU Emacs Alternatives

GNU Emacs is described as 'Extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core n interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing. The features of GNU Emacs include:' and is a very popular Text Editor in the development category. There are more than 100 alternatives to GNU Emacs for a variety of platforms, including Mac, Linux, Windows, BSD and Flathub apps. The best GNU Emacs alternative is Obsidian, which is free. Other great apps like GNU Emacs are Notepad++, Visual Studio Code, VSCodium and Sublime Text.

GNU Emacs iconGNU Emacs
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GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of...

More about GNU Emacs
More about GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs alternatives page was last updated Jul 5, 2025
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  1. Haystack IDE icon

    Haystack IDE

     1 like
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    The canvas-based IDE that makes navigation and refactoring 10x faster.

    License model

    • Free • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    Haystack IDE screenshot 1

    Haystack IDE Features

    1.  Ad-free
    2.  Autocompletion
    3.  Dark Mode
    4.  Syntax Highlighting
    5.  No registration required
    6.  Works Offline
    7.  Floating windows

    Haystack IDE VS GNU Emacs

     
  2. NoteTab icon

    NoteTab

     22 likes
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    NoteTab is a leading text editor, popular Windows Notepad replacement, and powerful code-based HTML editor for Windows.

    License model

    • Freemium • Proprietary

    Application type

    Country of Origin

    • CH flagSwitzerland

    Platforms

    • Windows
    NoteTab screenshot 1

    NoteTab Features

    1.  Support for scripting
    2.  Search and Replace

    NoteTab VS GNU Emacs

     
  4. HippoEDIT icon

    HippoEDIT

     10 likes
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    HippoEDIT is a powerful, fast and easy to use Windows text editor, primarily targeted at power users and programmers. It has modern and lightweight user interface, which supports different interface schemes, Multi Tab environment, seamless web and help browser, File Explorer and...

    License model

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Windows
    HippoEDIT screenshot 1

    HippoEDIT Features

    1.  Syntax Highlighting

    HippoEDIT VS GNU Emacs

     

  5. JED

     1 like
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    JED is a freely available text editor for Unix, VMS, MSDOS, OS/2, BeOS, QNX, and win9X/NT platforms. Although it is a powerful editor designed for use by programmers, its drop-down menu facility make it one of the friendliest text editors around.

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application type

    Country of Origin

    • US flagUnited States

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Haiku
    • MS-DOS
    JED screenshot 1

    JED VS GNU Emacs

     
  6. MadEdit icon

    MadEdit

     14 likes
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    MadEdit is an Open-Source and Cross-Platform Text/Hex Editor written in C++ and wxWidgets.

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Xfce
    Main window
    Discontinued

    The project is no longer developed. Last version, 0.2.9, released in February 2009, can be still downloaded from SourceForge.

    MadEdit Features

    1.  Syntax Highlighting
    2.  Hex Editor

    MadEdit VS GNU Emacs

     
  7. Vy icon

    Vy

     2 likes
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    vy is a modal editor with a very modular architecture. vy is built on top of Tkinter which is one of the most productive graphical toolkits; It permits vy to have such a great programming interface for plugins.

    166 Vy alternatives

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    Vy screenshot 1
    Discontinued

    Last update and release on Nov 2020.

    Vy VS GNU Emacs

     
  9. Nota (Maui Applications) icon

    Nota (Maui Applications)

     2 likes
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    Nota is a convergent text editor. Nota is easy to use, with a simple interface by default. Nota supports syntax highlighting for various languages, focus mode, annotations, configurable fonts, colors, a integrated side panel and more.

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application types

    Country of Origin

    • MX flagMexico

    Platforms

    • Linux
    Nota (Maui Applications) screenshot 1

    Properties

    1.  Lightweight
    2.  Minimalistic

    Features

    1.  Syntax Highlighting

    Nota (Maui Applications) VS GNU Emacs

     
  10. Tilde icon

    Tilde

     3 likes
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    Tilde is a text editor for the console/terminal, which provides an intuitive interface for people accustomed to GUI environments such as Gnome, KDE and Windows. Example: copy current selection is Control-C; paste previously copied text is Control-V.

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application types

    Country of Origin

    • NL flagNetherlands
    • European Union flagEU

    Platforms

    • Linux
    Tilde screenshot 1

    Properties

    1.  Lightweight

    Features

    1.  Autocompletion
    2.  Full-Text Search
    3.  Syntax Highlighting
    4.  Terminal-based

    Tilde VS GNU Emacs

     
  11. mle icon

    mle

     1 like
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    A small, flexible, terminal-based text editor written in C.

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    mle screenshot 1

    Properties

    1.  Lightweight
    2.  Customizable
    3.  User friendly

    Features

    1.  Syntax Highlighting
    2.  Support for scripting
    3.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
    4.  Support for regular expressions
    5.  Modal editor
    6.  Multiple Cursors
    7.  Console-based
    8.  Tabbed interface

    mle VS GNU Emacs

     
  12. JOE icon

    JOE

     18 likes
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    JOE is a full featured terminal-based screen editor which is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). JOE has been around since 1988 and comes standard with many Linux distributions.

    License model

    • Free • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    JOE screenshot 1
    Discontinued

    Last update on Apr 2021 and last release on Jan 2018.

    JOE Features

    1.  Command line interface
    2.  Support for Large File

    JOE VS GNU Emacs

     
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