Notepad Alternatives for Windows

    There are many alternatives to Notepad for Windows if you are looking for a replacement. The best Windows alternative is Notepad++, which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Notepad and loads of them are available for Windows so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Windows alternatives to Notepad are Atom (Free, Open Source), Sublime Text (Free Personal), Vim (Free, Open Source) and gedit (Free, Open Source).

    This page was last updated Oct 15, 2021
    1. Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
      show more ▾
      Notepad++ vs Notepad opinions
      Most users think Notepad++ is a great alternative to Notepad.
      Feature-packed. If that's not enough, you can extend it even further with plugins.
      Positive comment • over 5 years ago

      2
      Very good for writing code
      Positive comment • almost 2 years ago

      0
      Yeah it's better than Windows' notepad, feature rich and dark mode support.
      Positive comment • about 1 month ago

      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.
      show more ▾
      Most users think Atom is a great alternative to Notepad.
    4. 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.
      show more ▾
      Most users think Sublime Text is a great alternative to Notepad.
    5. 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.
      show more ▾
    6. 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.
      show more ▾
    8. 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.
      show more ▾
    9. 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.
      show more ▾
    10. 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.
      show more ▾
    11. 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.

      show more ▾
      Notepad2 vs Notepad opinions
      Almost everyone thinks Notepad2 is a great alternative to Notepad.
      Just one file, but powerfull.
      Positive comment • over 4 years ago

      0
    12. CudaText is a cross-platform text editor, written in Lazarus. It starts quite fast (0.5 sec with ~30 plugins on CPU Intel Core i3 3Hz). It is extensible by Python add-ons (plugins, linters, code tree parsers, external tools).
      show more ▾
    Showing 10 of 81 alternatives