Textadept icon
Textadept icon

Textadept

 37 likes

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...

running in windows 7. (aero disabled)

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Application type

Country of Origin

  • US flagUnited States

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • BSD
4.2 / 5 Avg rating (5)
37likes
5comments
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Lightweight

Features

  1.  Syntax Highlighting
  2.  Portable
  3.  Command line interface
  4.  Lua scripting

 Tags

  • programmers-editor

Textadept News & Activities

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Textadept information

  • Developed by

    US flagMitchell
  • Licensing

    Open Source (MIT) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.2
  • Alternatives

    90 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Categories

DevelopmentOffice & ProductivityOS & Utilities

GitHub repository

  •  714 Stars
  •  44 Forks
  •  7 Open Issues
  •   Updated Jun 13, 2025 
View on GitHub

Our users have written 5 comments and reviews about Textadept, and it has gotten 37 likes

Textadept was added to AlternativeTo by tabakis on Nov 20, 2012 and this page was last updated May 23, 2024.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Top Positive Comment
2531688
Dec 21, 2015
3

It has multiple split for the main window, where you can put several files. It allows syntax coloring.

Simple, lightweight. perfect.

Almost as good as Scite

nevada_smith
Jun 11, 2020
2

Mostly great:

  • Blazing fast

  • Low memory usage (in Linux and even in Windows where it uses the non-native GTK).

  • Minimalist (without compromising functionality).

  • Configurable to the hilt.

  • Portable.

However,

  • Struggles when it comes to replacing text (even in a single file).

  • No reliable spell-checker. There is a plugin, but difficult to get it work.

bb010g
Feb 24, 2019
0

Portable, small, and just works for basic to intermediate editing of whatever on Windows.

urldog
Mar 5, 2018
1

This is a masterpiece. As configurable as vim and emacs, but with a saner config language and API. It's tiny, 15mb memory usage. It's a mystery why this is not better known.

10basetom
Apr 29, 2015
1

I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment:

http://yfl.bahmanm.com/Members/ttmrichter/software-reviews/textadept-review

Something which only a year ago would have seemed impossible has happened: I've found a text editor to replace Vim. Here's why.

After giving Textadept a try, I now wonder what took me so long to discover this gem. Simply put, it is the most customizable, scriptable, and hence powerful free text editor that I have ever used on Windows since Vim, SciTE, and NPP (inefficient web apps like Brackets and Atom don’t count). This is the text editor that made me fall in love with Lua and has slowly started replacing NPP as my favorite code editor in the toolbox.

To scratch the surface of how extendable this program is, I'll give you a few examples:

  • If you are unhappy with NPP’s too-subtle flashing icon when a search wraps back to the top, then just add a Lua event handler to display a dialog box when the search wrapping event is triggered.
  • If you want to add a new function to alpha-sort selected lines, then define a key binding pointing to a custom Lua function that does just that (it’s like assigning a variable). I suppose you can also create a custom menu item if you wanted to.
  • If your preferred theme color is not included, then create one from scratch (or look in the growing community to see if someone has already created it).
  • If syntax highlighting for your favorite language is not included, then create a new lexer from scratch (much easier than compiling a new lexer for SciTE).
  • If Intellisense-like autocompletion for your favorite language is not included, then create a new API file from scratch.
  • If you miss the editing modes in Vim, then it’s trivial to emulate a similar experience by editing the preferences file.

You get the idea – this thing is a beast. What I love about it is that it’s a relatively fast and resource-friendly beast that lets you unzip and go, no installation required.

What is 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.

Official Links