GNU nano Alternatives and Similar Software

Alternatives to GNU nano for Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, Chrome OS and more. Filter by license to discover only free or Open Source alternatives. This list contains a total of 25+ apps similar to GNU nano.

GNU nano is a small and friendly text editor. If you're looking for more info about GNU nano like screenshots, reviews and comments you should visit our info page about it. Below you find the best alternatives.

The list of alternatives was last updated: 9/8/2019 12:42:00 PM

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Alternatives to GNU nano for all platforms with any license

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Based on the powerful editing component Scintilla, Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size. By optimizing as many routines as possible without losing user friendliness, Notepad++ is trying to reduce the world carbon dioxide emissions.
- Notepad++ is a GUI text editor not a command line Text editor. SecurityChecker • Jul 2018 • 1 agrees and 0 disagrees
Free Open Source Windows PortableApps.com
Lightweight Custom Language Definitions Portable Tabbed interface ... Auto-saving Autocompletion Block edit Built-in editor Code formatting Color coding Column edit mode Configurable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Support for FTP Integrated Search Live Preview Macros Multiple languages Multiple Open Tabs Plugin manager Support for regular expressions Side-by-Side comparison Add a feature

4350 Like
Visual Studio Code

Code combines the streamlined UI of a modern editor with rich code assistance and navigation, and an integrated debugging experience – without the need for a full IDE.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux Chrome OS Electron / Atom Shell
Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Lightweight Built-in Terminal Customizable ... Intellisense Syntax Highlighting Autocompletion GIT support C# Scripting Code completion IDE Support for Javascript Multiple cursors Night mode/Dark Theme Bugs C++ support C support Code formatting Code navigation Color coding of code Electron based Embedded debugger Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Git integration Graphical interface MarkDown support Mercurial support Minimap PHP IDE Plugins Ruby support Run Android Apps on Desktop Support for NodeJS Supports Python Version and Source control Add a feature

660 Like
Atom

A hackable text editor for the 21st Century. At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.
- gnu nano is a small command line editor, atom a big-ish GUI based superluminar • Mar 2018 • 6 agrees and 0 disagrees
Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux Chrome OS BSD ... Electron / Atom Shell
Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Customizable Support for Themes Package Control ... Community based GIT support Teletype Autocompletion Clean design Code completion Collaborative writing Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Folder Hierarchy Fuzzy Finder GitHub integration Gitlab integration Hackable Interior Design Live collaboration Minimap Modular System Multiple languages Multiple cursors Distraction-free UI Open Source apps Package Manager Plugin API Plugin manager Real time collaboration Separated workspaces Support for NodeJS Syntax Highlighting Tabbed interface Unit Testing Add a feature

965 Like
Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free without an expiration time limit, however a license must be purchased for continued use.

Commercial $ $ $ Mac Windows Linux
Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Lightweight Package Control Multiple cursors ... Customizable Syntax Highlighting Auto-saving Autocompletion Automatic packaging Code completion Directory structure Fullscreen support Memory footprint Minimap Distraction-free UI Open Source apps Plugin API Portable Scriptwriting Assistant Syntax Highlighting Text editing Auto-Refresh Add a feature

1815 Like
Vim

Vim ("Vi IMproved") is an advanced text editor that allows syntax highlighting, word completion and has a huge amount of contributed content. Vim offers several “modes” for editing with efficiency. This makes vim a non-user-friendly application but it is also a strength. The normal mode binds alphanumeric keys to task-oriented commands. The visual mode highlights text. The command-line mode offers more tools (for search&replace, defining functions, etc.
- Even better editing/navigating experience, good memory footprint and minimal startup time. Guest • Sep 2018
Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux BSD Haiku ... OpenSolaris
Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Lightweight Syntax Highlighting ... Keyboard focused Batch Editing Built-in terminal emulation Command line interface Configurable Dedication to home row Hackable Support for Large File Lightweight MarkDown support Mnemonic key bindings Modal editor Native application Open source software Plugin manager Plugins Regex substitution Spell checking Terminal-based Vim Buffers Vim folding Visual Mode Word completion Add a feature

1135 Like
gedit

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.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux Chrome OS BSD ... GNOME OpenSolaris
Lightweight Autocompletion Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Spell checking ... Syntax Highlighting Add a feature

648 Like
Geany

Geany is a small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. Another goal was to be as independent as possible from a special Desktop Environment like KDE or GNOME - Geany only requires the GTK2 runtime libraries.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux BSD PortableApps.com ... Xfce
IDE Lightweight Support for Themes Automatic Indentation ... Built-in Terminal Code navigation Customizable Support for Large File Minimalistic Portable Shell integration Shortcut keys Spell checking Syntax Highlighting Vim plugin Add a feature

488 Like
GNU Emacs

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: * Content-sensitive editing modes, including syntax coloring, for a variety of file types including plain text, source code, and HTML. * Complete built-in documentation, including a tutorial for new users.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux BSD
Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Package Control Scripting ... Self-documenting Syntax Highlighting Terminal-based Add a feature

313 Like
Kate

Text editor for the KDE desktop environment with support for multiple languages and syntax highlighting. It is extensible with plugins. Features a MDI interface. Kate is a multi document editor, based on a rewritten version of the kwrite editing widget of KDE, offering all the features of that plus a bunch of its own. Kate has been been moved to the kdesdk package in KDE4, and is a built-in part of your favorite desktop since release 2.2.

Free Open Source Windows Linux BSD KDE
Code formatting Support for regular expressions Syntax Highlighting Tabbed interface Add a feature

195 Like
Neovim

Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: Simplify maintenance and encourage contributions. Split the work between multiple developers. Enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source. Improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux Android BSD
Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Add a feature

59 Like
Notepad2

Notepad2 is a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. Simple as possible, but yet powerful. Has full Unicode support. Can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry.
- Discontinued The program is no longer updated. Last version, 4.2.25, released on October 28, 2012, can be still downloaded from the official website.
Free Open Source Windows PortableApps.com
Lightweight Portable Syntax Highlighting Add a feature

287 Like
UltraEdit

UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and HEX editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later).

Commercial $ $ $ Mac Windows Linux
Column based text editing Hex Editor Add a feature

151 Like
Notepad

Most simple text editor. Just plain text, saves in .txt format. Not available for download; bundled with all versions of Windows.

Free Windows
Lightweight Minimalistic Simple text editor Support for Unicode ... Bundled with Windows Add a feature

161 Like
Bluefish Editor

Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux
Open source software PHP IDE Support for SFTP Add a feature

141 Like
PSPad

PSPad is a freeware programmers editor in 8 languages for Microsoft Windows operating systems. Some features are highlighted syntax, ftp, projects and so on. Code explorer for Pascal, C/C++, INI, HTML, XML, PHP and more in development, internal web browser with APACHE support. Installation contains templates for HTML, PHP, Pascal, JScript, VBScript, MySQL, MS-Dos, Perl. PSPad is useful for people who: - work with various programming environments.

Free Windows
Syntax Highlighting ASCII to Hex Edit files without creating a project Hex Editor ... Lightweight Portable Add a feature

197 Like
SciTE

SciTE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. Originally built to demonstrate Scintilla, it has grown to be a generally useful editor with facilities for building and running programs. It is best used for jobs with simple configurations - I use it for building test and demonstration programs as well as SciTE and Scintilla, themselves. SciTE is currently available for Intel Win32 and Linux compatible operating systems with GTK+. It has been run on Windows XP and on Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.

Free Open Source Windows Linux BSD Xfce
No features added Add a feature

137 Like
Micro

Micro is a terminal-based text editor that aims to be easy to use and intuitive, while also taking advantage of the full capabilities of modern terminals. It comes as one single, batteries-included, static binary with no dependencies, and you can download and use it right now. Features Easy to use Common keybindings (ctrl-s, ctrl-c, ctrl-v, ctrl-z...
- - beginner friendly - uses very sane keymap defaults (Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v) - short cut cheat sheet - excellent help build in - very capable text editor surehand53 • Jun 2018
Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux
Beginner friendly Sync with Simplenote Add a feature

24 Like
VSCodium

This repository contains a build file to generate FLOSS release binaries of Microsoft's VSCode. Microsoft's downloads of Visual Studio Code are licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contain telemetry/tracking. According to this comment from a Visual Studio Code maintainer: When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux Electron / Atom Shell
Automatic Indentation Autocompletion Built-in Terminal Code completion ... Code navigation Color coding Customizable Embedded debugger Extensible by Plugins/Extensions FLOSS Git integration GIT support IDE Support for Javascript MarkDown support Minimap Multiple cursors No Tracking PHP IDE Privacy Protected Syntax Highlighting Support for Themes Add a feature

20 Like
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Leafpad

Leafpad is a 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. Features: Codeset option (Some OpenI18N registered) Auto codeset detection (UTF-8 and some codesets) Unlimitted Undo/Redo Auto/Multi-line Indent Display line numbers Drag and Drop Printing

Free Open Source Mac Linux BSD Cygwin MacPorts
Lightweight Drag n drop Simple text editor Add a feature

62 Like
Notepad3

Although the Windows operating system was updated significantly over the past years. However, the default Windows Notepad has not been updated in 20 years. If you need a text editor for simple programming tasks, using the vanilla Windows Notepad just does not cut it. Enter Notepad3! Therefore, we created Notepad3 with all the features that the default Windows Notepad currently lacks. Notepad3 is a fast and light-weight Scintilla-based text editor with syntax highlighting.

Free Open Source Windows
IDE Lightweight Portable Support for regular expressions ... Search and replace Syntax Highlighting Support for Unicode Add a feature

12 Like
EmEditor

EmEditor is a fast Unicode 64bit text editor for Windows 10/7/Vista/XP/2000 supporting extremely large files (up to 248 GB), binary files, comparison, multiline editing, easy numbering, scriptable macros, CSV files, script keyword highlighting and much more. It is impressive fast for loading large files - e.g. it can open a 1.34 GB file in <9 seconds and be ready for editing right after.

Freemium $ $ $ Windows
Import CSV data Windows Explorer integration Support for Large File Macros ... Support for Unicode Add a feature

66 Like
CotEditor

Syntax Highlighting: Colorize more than 50 pre-installed major languages like HTML, PHP, Python, Ruby or Markdown. You can also create your own settings. Scriptable: Make your own macro in your favorite language, whether it is Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP, UNIX shell, AppleScript or JavaScript. Outline Menu: Extract specified lines with the predefined syntax, and you can jump to the corresponding line.

Free Open Source Mac
macOS-like Colored Text File Versioning Add a feature

26 Like
Onivim 2

Onivim 2 is a retro-futuristic modal editor - the next iteration of the Onivim project - combining Vim-style modal editing with the aesthetics and language features of modern editors. Fast, native, cross-platform Onivim 2 is built from the ground up to be fast. Never wait on your editor! Instant Startup Onivim 2 is powered by Revery - and compiled to native code. Under the hood, it uses libvim for an authentic Vim modal editing experience.

Commercial $ $ $ Open Source Mac Windows Linux
Code completion Command palette Add a feature

9 Like
Textadept

Textadept is a fast, minimalist, and ridiculously extensible cross-platform text editor for programmers. Written in a combination of C and Lua and relentlessly optimized for speed and minimalism over the years, Textadept is an ideal editor for programmers who want endless extensibility without sacrificing speed or succumbing to code bloat and featuritis.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux BSD
Command line interface Lua scripting Portable Syntax Highlighting Add a feature

29 Like
Left

Left is a distractionless writing tool with auto-complete, a synonyms dictionary, writing statistics, markup-based navigation and a speed-reader. The application is free and Open Source, its original purpose was to help Rekka with the writing of the upcoming novel Wiktopher. Features Create markers by beginning lines with #, ## or --. Open a text file by dragging it here, or ctrl o. Save a text file with ctrl s. The synonyms dictionary contains 12465 common words.

Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux
Keyboard centric Minimalistic Open Source apps Add a feature

9 Like