Kate Alternatives for Mac

There are many alternatives to Kate for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best Mac alternative is Visual Studio Code, which is free. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Kate and loads of them are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Mac alternatives to Kate are Sublime Text, VSCodium, Vim and Zed Editor.

filter to find the best alternatives

Kate alternatives are mainly Text Editors, but if you're looking for Code Editors or IDEs you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Mac and Linux. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to Kate.
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Alternatives list

  1. Visual Studio Code icon

    Visual Studio Code

     1367 likes
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    Free and extensible code editor with built-in Git support, smart IntelliSense, integrated debugger, 30,000+ extensions, works offline, supports markdown and syntax highlighting for numerous languages.

    199 Visual Studio Code alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Chrome OS
    • Snapcraft
    Visual Studio Code screenshot 1
     

    • Most users think Visual Studio Code is a great Kate alternative.

    • Visual Studio Code is the most popular Web-based, Mac & Linux alternative to Kate.

    • Visual Studio Code is Free and ProprietaryKate is Free and Open Source
    • Visual Studio Code is CustomizableKate is not according to our users
  2. Sublime Text icon

    Sublime Text

     2037 likes
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    Powerful editor blending code, markup, and prose editing with enhanced features like multi-tab selection, side-by-side definition viewing, and multiple selection tools for swift code navigation.

    189 Sublime Text alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Pay once)
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    Sublime Text screenshot 1
     
    |
    2
    Comments about Sublime Text as an Alternative to Kate
    Guest
    Positive
    0

    It's literally Kate except it costs money.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Guest
    Positive
    -1

    It looks identical to kate, with same functionalities. For me it's even better.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Kate Icon
    Sublime Text icon

    • Most users think Sublime Text is a great Kate alternative.

    • Sublime Text is Freemium and ProprietaryKate is Free and Open Source
    • Sublime Text is CustomizableKate is not according to our users
  4. VSCodium icon

    VSCodium

     390 likes
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    This repository contains a build file to generate FLOSS release binaries of Microsoft's Visual Studio Code - Open Source ("Code - OSS") project, the open source core of the proprietary Visual Studio Code.

    193 VSCodium alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • Electron
    • Snapcraft
    • Homebrew
    • Chocolatey
    VSCodium screenshot 1
     
    |
    1
    7
    Comments about VSCodium as an Alternative to Kate
    Centaro
    Positive
    0

    The fact that at some point Kate started being shipped without standard keyboard shortcuts for caret control got too annoying.

    Kate Icon
    VSCodium icon

    • Almost everyone thinks VSCodium is a great Kate alternative.

    • VSCodium is Free and Open SourceKate is also Free and Open Source
    • VSCodium is Customizable and Privacy focusedKate is not according to our users
  5. Vim icon

    Vim

     1340 likes
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    Vim ("Vi IMproved") is an advanced text editor that allows syntax highlighting, word completion and has a huge amount of contributed content. It also has a GUI version called GVim.

    211 Vim alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Haiku
    • AmigaOS
    • OpenSolaris
    • MorphOS
    • Flathub
    • Flatpak
    • Snapcraft
    Vim screenshot 1
     
  6. Zed Editor icon

    Zed Editor

     100 likes
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    Blazing fast code editor offering real-time multi-user collaboration, language-aware syntax highlighting, integrated terminal, multi-buffers for tab-free editing, built-in Vim mode, searchable outline, AI coding assistance, advanced keyboard commands, and cross-platform support.

    84 Zed Editor alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Subscription)
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • Flatpak
    Zed Editor screenshot 1
     
  7. Geany icon

    Geany

     575 likes
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    Geany is a powerful, stable and lightweight programmer's text editor that provides tons of useful features without bogging down your workflow.

    149 Geany alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Snapcraft
    • Flathub
    • PortableApps.com
    • Flatpak
    • Haiku
    Geany screenshot 1
     
  9. Neovim icon

    Neovim

     186 likes
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    Refactored version of Vim, simplifying maintenance, improving developer contributions, and enabling new user interfaces. Features extensible plugin architecture, lightweight resource usage, syntax highlighting, no registration, ad-free, and distraction-free mode.

    103 Neovim alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Chocolatey
    • Flathub
    • Snapcraft
    Neovim screenshot 1
     
  10. GNU Emacs icon

    GNU Emacs

     387 likes
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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 the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing. The features of GNU Emacs include:

    177 GNU Emacs alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • BSD
    • Snapcraft
    • F-Droid
    • Haiku
    • Debian
    • MacPorts
    • Homebrew
    The GNU Emacs Manual calls Emacs the extensible, customizable, self-documenting real-time display editor
     

    • GNU Emacs is the most popular Android alternative to Kate.

    • GNU Emacs is Free and Open SourceKate is also Free and Open Source
    • GNU Emacs is Customizable and Privacy focusedKate is not according to our users
  11. gedit icon

    gedit

     693 likes
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    Official text editor of the GNOME desktop environment. Has syntax highlighting and is suitable for programming, with support for several languages. It is extensible with plugins.

    189 gedit alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Chrome OS
    • BSD
    • GNOME
    • OpenSolaris
    • Flathub
    The Default look under GNOME with Adwaita
     
    |
    1
    Comments about gedit as an Alternative to Kate
    Guest
    Positive
    1

    It's an alternative in every way, except Kate has a little bit more features, as it is a KDE app.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Kate Icon
    gedit icon
    • gedit is Free and Open SourceKate is also Free and Open Source
    • gedit is Customizable and Privacy focusedKate is not according to our users
  12. GNU nano icon

    GNU nano

     289 likes
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    GNU nano is a small and friendly text editor. Besides basic text editing, nano offers many extra features like an interactive search and replace, go to line and column number, auto-indentation, feature toggles, internationalization support, and filename tab completion.

    151 GNU nano alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Haiku
    GNU nano screenshot 1
     
  13. Pulsar Editor icon

    Pulsar Editor

     47 likes
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    A Community-led Hyper-Hackable Text Editor, built on Electron. and based on everything we love about our favorite editors.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Chrome OS
    • BSD
    • Electron
    Welcome tab
     
  14. Lite XL icon

    Lite XL

     52 likes
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    Lite XL is a lightweight text editor written mostly in Lua — it aims to provide something practical, pretty, small and fast, implemented as simply as possible; easy to modify and extend, or to use without doing either.

    57 Lite XL alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    Lite XL screenshot 1
     
12 of 69 Kate alternatives