Open Source Notepad Alternatives
The best open source alternative to Notepad is Notepad++. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Notepad and loads of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Notepad are Atom, Vim, Kate and gedit.
Notepad alternatives are mainly Text Editors but may also be Code Editors or IDEs. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Notepad.Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
Notepad++ vs Notepad opinions
Yeah it's better than Windows' notepad, feature rich and dark mode support.
Feature-packed. If that's not enough, you can extend it even further with plugins.
Very good for writing code
- Free Personal • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Chrome OS
- BSD
- Electron / Atom Shell
Atom is an open-source, Electron based text editor with a massive ecosystem of plugins and themes that are easily accessible through a built-in package manager. Being built with Electron, it uses web technology (HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Node.
Discontinued
Atom will be discontinued at the end of 2022: https://github.blog/2022-06-08-sunsetting-atom/
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Haiku
- AmigaOS
- OpenSolaris
- MorphOS
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.
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.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Chrome OS
- BSD
- GNOME
- OpenSolaris
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
- BSD
- Haiku
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.
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:
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
CudaText is a cross-platform text editor, written in Lazarus.
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.
Notepad2 vs Notepad opinions
Just one file, but powerfull.
Notepad3 is a fast and light-weight Scintilla-based text editor with syntax highlighting. It has a small memory footprint, but is powerful enough to handle most programming jobs.
Notepad3 vs Notepad opinions
xahkyenIt's the best alternative that I was looking for: more powerful, while being lightweight, simply to use and full with useful features.