Apps similar to Kate include Notepad++, which is free and open source. Other options are Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, VSCodium and Vim. Text Editors like Kate are a crowded field, with more than 100 alternatives for Windows, Linux, Mac, the web and Android.
The vi editor is one of the most common text editors on Unix. It was developed starting around 1976 by Bill Joy at UCB, who was tired of the ed editor. But since he used ed as a code base, access to the original sources has required a commercial Unix Source Code License for more...
Italy
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Jane is Just Another Nasty Editor, designed to view and edit all kind of ASCII files. There are millions of similar editors already available, but the choice is yours: those who try this might discover nice features they'll soon don't want to miss anymore.
MetroTextual is a Windows text editor inspired by Microsoft’s Metro Design Language. It’s designed to be a visually appealing replacement for Notepad; with significant improvements to performance and aesthetics.
Australia
Left is a distractionless writing tool with auto-complete, a synonyms dictionary, writing statistics, markup-based navigation and a speed-reader.
Canada
PlainForge opens, edits, and saves local files with a focus on privacy, control, and productivity. No ads, no tracking, no login, and no internet permission.
Tatastu is the friendly desktop app for building with Claude. It is the visual home for Claude Code and a calmer alternative to editors like Cursor, made for people new to coding or who just want it to feel simple.
United States
NEdit is a multi-purpose text editor for the X Window System, which combines a standard, easy to use, graphical user interface with the thorough functionality and stability required by users who edit text eight hours a day.
United States
Alternate TextBrowser allows a fast navigation through text-files. The program offers the possibility to open multiple text-files at once.
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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.
