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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.
This page was last updated Mar 21, 2022
Notepad
  176
  • Free • Proprietary
  • Windows

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

Learn more about Notepad

  1. Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

    Notepad++ vs Notepad opinions
    Most users think Notepad++ is a great alternative to Notepad.

    Yeah it's better than Windows' notepad, feature rich and dark mode support.

    Positive comment • 9 months ago
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    Feature-packed. If that's not enough, you can extend it even further with plugins.

    Positive comment • about 6 years ago
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    2

    Very good for writing code

    Positive comment • over 2 years ago
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    0

  2. 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/

    Most users think Atom is a great alternative to Notepad.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. gedit

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    • 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.

  8. GNU nano

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    • 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.

  9. 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:

  10. CudaText is a cross-platform text editor, written in Lazarus.

  11. Notepad2

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    • Free • Open Source
    • Windows
    • PortableApps.com

    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
    Almost everyone thinks Notepad2 is a great alternative to Notepad.

    Just one file, but powerfull.

    Positive comment • about 5 years ago
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  12. 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
    pros, cons and recent comments
    xahkyen

    It's the best alternative that I was looking for: more powerful, while being lightweight, simply to use and full with useful features.

    Positive comment • 4 months ago
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Showing 10 of 50 alternatives