Leafpad is described as 'Lightweight text editor that emphasizes simplicity. As development focuses on keeping weight down to a minimum, only the most essential features are implemented in the editor' and is a popular Text Editor in the development category. There are more than 100 alternatives to Leafpad for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD and Flathub apps. The best Leafpad alternative is Notepad++, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Leafpad are Vim, Zed Editor, Kate and gedit.
Notepad++ is a free, open-source code editor supporting several languages, offering features like syntax highlighting, plugin support, dark mode, portability, privacy, and efficient resource usage, making it highly customizable and suitable for various programming needs.
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.
Leafpad is GUI and very simple. Vim is a terminal based power tool. They are completely incomparable.
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.
The Kate project develops two main products: KatePart, the advanced editor component which is used in numerous KDE applications requiring a text editing component, and Kate, a MDI text editor application.
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.
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.
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:
Leafpad is a simple GUI editor anyone can use. Emacs is a great power tool but is overkill for anything Leafpad would be appropriate for.
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.
Nano is not a drop-in Leafpad replacement, but definitely suitable for users willing to use a terminal to view and edit plain text. It's lightweight and provides clear explanation on how to save/exit files. Nano is a great application for newbie Linux users to editing configuration files on headless machines like routers and server, since they don't need the advanced features and learning curve of Vim/vi.
Open-source command-line text editor for Windows with a modern interface inspired by MS-DOS Editor, featuring key bindings, lightweight build under 250KB, multi-file handling with ctrl + P, keyboard-optimized navigation, and direct file editing for developers.
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.
Notepad3 is a fast and light-weight text editor with syntax highlighting for programming jobs. Auto-completion, Multi-language, Dark mode more.
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I love vim, but it has an extremely steep learning curve and is terminal-based. Leafpad is a grandma-friendly graphical application for viewing and editing plain text files (in other words notepad.exe for Linux).