Comparison of text editors

This article compares notable text editors. It may not be up-to-date or all-inclusive. Comparisons are between stable versions (not upcoming or beta releases) and are exclusive of any add-ons, extensions or external programs unless otherwise noted.

Other features can be listed via the Category of text editor features.

Name	Developer	Initial release	Latest release		Programming language	Cost (US$)	License	GUI	TUI or CLI
Name	Developer	Initial release	Version	Date	Programming language	Cost (US$)	License	GUI	TUI or CLI
Acme	Rob Pike	1993	Plan 9 and Inferno		C	No cost	MIT GPL-2.0-only LPL-1.02
Alphatk	Vince Darley	1999	8.3.3^[1]	2004-12-10		$40	Proprietary, with BSD components
Atom	GitHub	2014	1.63.1^[2]	2022-11-23	HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++	No cost	MIT
BBEdit	Rich Siegel	1992	15.5.2^[3]	2025-07-15	Objective-C, Objective-C++	No cost for most features, $49.99 for full version	Proprietary
Bluefish	Bluefish Development Team	1999	2.2.19^[4]	2025-11-21	C	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
Brackets	Adobe Systems	2012	2.2.1^[5]	2023-03-22	HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C++	No cost	MIT
Coda	Panic	2007			Objective-C	$99	Proprietary
ConTEXT	ConTEXT Project Ltd	1999			Object Pascal (Delphi)	No cost	BSD-3-Clause
Crimson Editor	Ingyu Kang	1999	3.72-r286m^[6]	2011-10-01	C++	No cost	Proprietary
ed	Ken Thompson	1970	unchanged from original		C	No cost	?
Editra	Cody Precord	2007	0.7.20	2013-01-05	Python	No cost	wxWindows license
EmEditor	Emurasoft, Inc.	1997	21.3.0	2021-11-24	C++	$39.99	Shareware
epsilon	Lugaru Software	1984	14.00^[7]	2020-10-20	C	$250	Proprietary
FeatherPad	Pedram Pourang	2016	1.4.1^[8]	2023-06-12	C++, Qt	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
FocusWriter	Graeme Gott	2008	1.8.13^[9]	2025-08-18	C++, Qt	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
gedit	GNU Project	2000	48.0^[10]	2024-09-14	C	No cost	GPL-3.0
Geany	Enrico Tröger	2005	2.1.0^[11]	2025-07-06	C, GTK+	No cost	GPL-2.0-or-later
GNU Emacs	Richard Stallman	1984	30.2^[12]	2025-08-14	C, Emacs Lisp	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
GNU nano	Chris Allegretta	1999			C	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
IA Writer	Information Architects	2010.09.22	7.2	2025-08-25	Objective-C (iOS), Objective-C (macOS), C# (Windows), Java (Android)	$29.99	Proprietary
JED	John E. Davis	1992	0.99-19	2009-12-13	C, S-Lang	No cost	GPL-2.0-or-later
jEdit	Slava Pestov	1998	5.7.0^[13]	2024-08-03	Java	No cost	GPL-2.0-or-later
JOE	Joseph Allen	1988	4.6^[14]	2018-01-09	C	No cost	GPL
JOVE	Johnathon Payne	1983	4.17.5.5^[15]	2025-05-14	C	No cost	JOVE license
Kate	KDE Project	2000-12	25.12.2^[16]	2026-02-01	C++	No cost	LGPL, MIT
KEDIT	Mansfield Software Group, Inc.	1983	1.6.1	2016-12-05	C	$129	Proprietary
Komodo Edit	Activestate	2007	12.0.1^[17]	2020-02-10	Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby	No cost	MPL, GPL, LGPL
Komodo IDE	Activestate	2001			Python, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, PHP, Ruby	$295	Proprietary
KWrite	KDE Project	2000	24.12.1^[18]	2025-01-09	C++	No cost	LGPL
LE	Alexander V. Lukyanov	1997	1.16.8^[19]	2021-02-05	C++	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
Leo	Edward K. Ream	1996	6.7.6^[20]	2023-12-19	Python	No cost	MIT
Light Table	Chris Granger	2012	0.8.1^[21]	2016-01-22	ClojureScript	No cost	MIT
mcedit	Miguel de Icaza	1994	4.8.33^[22]	2025-01-23	C, Python, PHP, Javascript, Perl, Tcl, Ruby	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
Metapad	Alexander Davidson	1999	3.6^[23]^[24]	2011-05-28	C	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
mg	Dave Conroy	1986	current^[a]	2020-07-22	C	No cost	Public domain
MinEd	Thomas Wolff	1992	2022.27	2022-12-23	C	No cost	GPL
MS-DOS Editor	Microsoft	1991	2.0.026			Bundled with MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows	Proprietary
ne	Sebastiano Vigna Todd Lewis Daniele Filaretti	1993	3.3.4^[26]	2025-02-06	C	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
NEdit	Mark Edel	1991	5.7^[27]	2017-02-08	C	No cost	GPL-2.0-or-later
Notepad	Microsoft	1985	11.2302.16.0		MASM (originally)	Bundled with Microsoft Windows	Proprietary
Notepad++	Don Ho	2003-11-25	8.9.1^[28]	2026-01-26	C++	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
nvi	Keith Bostic	1994	1.81.6^[29]	2007-11-18	C	No cost	BSD-3-Clause
Pico	University of Washington	1992	4.64		C	No cost	Apache-2.0
PolyEdit	PolySoft Solutions	1998	5.4	2010‑04‑07		$27.95	Shareware
PSPad	Jan Fiala	2002	5.5.1^[30]	2025-02-05	Object Pascal (Delphi)	No cost	Proprietary
RJ TextEd	Rickard Johansson	2004	15.63^[31]	2022-09-29	Object Pascal (Delphi)	No cost	Proprietary
Sam	Rob Pike	1980s (early)	stable		C	No cost	LPL (OSI approved)
SciTE	Neil Hodgson	1999	5.5.4^[32]	2024-12-18	C++	$41.99 for macOS. No cost for others	HPND
SlickEdit	SlickEdit, Inc.	1988	28.0.1	2024-01-21	C, Slick-C	$299	Proprietary
Smultron	Peter Borg	2004	12.0.6	2020-01-03	Objective-C	$7.99	Proprietary
SubEthaEdit	TheCodingMonkeys	2003	5.2.4^[33]	2022-01-08		No cost	MIT
Sublime Text	Jon Skinner, Sublime HQ	2008	4 (Build 4200)^[34]	2025-05-21	C++, Python	$99	Shareware
TED Notepad	Juraj Simlovic	2001	6.3.1^[35]	2021-12-01	C	No cost	Proprietary
Textadept	Mitchell	2007	12.9^[36]	2025-10-01	C, Lua	No cost	MIT
TextEdit	Apple Inc.	2001	1.18	2022-10-24		No cost (also bundled with macOS)	BSD-3-Clause
TextMate	MacroMates	2004-10-10	2.0.23^[37]	2021-10-12	Objective-C++	No cost	GPL-3.0-or-later
TextPad	Helios Software Solutions	1992	9.3.0^[38]	2023-08-01		$30.00 (£16.50)	Shareware
TextWrangler	Bare Bones Software	2003	5.5.2	2016-09-20		No cost	Proprietary
The SemWare Editor	Sammy Mitchell	1985-11	4.49^[39]	2023-01	C, SAL	No cost	BSD-2-Clause
UltraEdit	IDM Computer Solutions	1994	25.0	2018-03-12	C++	$99.95	Proprietary
VEDIT	Ted Green, Greenview Data	1980	6.24.2	2015-01-12	Assembly, C	$89 standard, $239 Pro64	Proprietary
vi	Bill Joy	1976	3.7		C	No cost	BSD-4-Clause or CDDL
Vim	Bram Moolenaar	1991	9.2^[40]	2026-02-14	C, Vim script	No cost	Vim
Visual Studio Code	Microsoft	2015	1.109.2^[41]^[42]	2026-02-11	JavaScript, TypeScript	No cost	Source code: MIT^[43] Binaries built by Microsoft: Proprietary^[44]^[45]
XEmacs	Lucid Inc.	1991	21.4.22^[46]	2009-01-30	C, Emacs Lisp	No cost	GPL-2.0-or-later
XNEdit	Olaf Wintermann	2018	1.5.2	2023-10-05	C	No cost	GPL-2.0-or-later

Operating system support

Natural language (localization)

	Languages
Acme	English
Alphatk	English
Atom	English
BBEdit	English
Brackets	English, German, French, Polish(Outdated), Korean, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish(Outdated)
Coda	English, German, French, Spanish
ConTEXT	English, German, French, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish
Crimson Editor	English
ed
Editra	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
EmEditor	English, German, French, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish
epsilon	English
Geany	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
gedit	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
GNU Emacs	English
JED	English
jEdit	English
JOE^[48]	English, German, French
JOVE	English
Kate^[49]	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
KEDIT	English
Komodo Edit	English
KWrite	English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
Metapad^[50]	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
mined	English
MS-DOS Editor	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Nano	English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese
NEdit	English
Notepad	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
Notepad++	English, German, French, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Hindi
nvi	English
Pico	English, Italian
PolyEdit	English
PSPad	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
RJ TextEd	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Sam	English
SciTE^[51]	English, German, French (Outdated (1.72)), Polish, Japanese (Outdated (1.62)), Italian, Dutch (Outdated (1.67)), Portuguese (Outdated (1.63)), Spanish, Swedish
SlickEdit	English
Smultron	English, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish
SubEthaEdit	English
TED Notepad	English
TextEdit	English, German, French, Polish, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
TextMate	English
TextPad	English, German, French, Polish (Outdated (4.7.3)), Japanese, Italian(Outdated (4.7.3)), Dutch (Outdated (4.7.3)), Spanish (Outdated (4.7.3)), Portuguese (Outdated (4.7.3))
TextWrangler	English
The SemWare Editor	English
UltraEdit	English, German, French, Korean, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese
VEDIT	English
vi	English
Vim	Afrikaans, Catalan, Chinese(Simplified), Chinese(Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, English(UK), English(US), Esperanto, Finnish, French, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Norwegian(Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese(Brazil), Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Visual Studio Code	English, Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish
XEmacs	English
XNEdit	English

Document interface

The following table identifies the following attributes of an editor that describe its user experience with respect to multiple documents:

Multiple instances: Whether multiple instances of the program can be open at the same time for editing multiple files (one in each instance). Applies both for single-document interface (SDI) and multiple-document interface (MDI). Also, applies for a program that has a user interface that looks like multiple instances of the same program (such as some versions of Word).
Single document window splitting: Whether a window can be split to simultaneously view different areas of a file.
MDI overlappable windows: Whether each open document gets its own fully movable window inside the editor environment.
MDI tabbed document interface: Whether multiple documents can be viewed as tabs in a single window.
MDI window splitting: Whether supports splitting the application window to show multiple documents (non-overlapping windows).

Text editor support for common document interfaces
	Multiple instances	Single document window splitting	MDI overlappable windows	MDI tabbed document interface	MDI window splitting
Acme
Alphatk
Atom
BBEdit
Bluefish
Brackets
Coda
ConTEXT
Crimson Editor
ed
Editra			?		?
EmEditor
Geany		Plug‑in
gedit		Plug‑in^[g]			Plug‑in^[h]
GNU Emacs				^[i]^[j]
JED
jEdit
JOE				^[k]
JOVE
Kate
KEDIT
Komodo Edit
Komodo IDE
KWrite
LE
Light Table
Metapad
mined			^[l]
MS-DOS Editor
Nano
NEdit
Notepad
Notepad++					2 windows
nvi
Pico
PolyEdit
PSPad
RJ TextEd
Sam
SciTE				^[m]
SlickEdit
Smultron
SubEthaEdit
TED Notepad	?	?	?		?
TextEdit
TextMate
TextPad
TextWrangler
The SemWare Editor
UltraEdit
VEDIT
vi
Vim			^[n]	^[o]
Visual Studio Code
XEmacs
XNEdit

Basic features

	Spell checking	Regex-based find & replace	Encoding conversion	Newline conversion	Multiple undo/redo	Rectangular block selection	Virtual space support
Acme	external^[p]						?
Alphatk							?
Atom						Plug‑in
BBEdit							?
Bluefish							?
Brackets	Plug‑in		Plug‑in				?
Coda							?
ConTEXT		Partial ^[q]	Partial ^[r]				?
Crimson Editor	Instant/live (like Firefox)						?
ed							?
Editra			?	?	?		?
EmEditor
Geany	Plug‑in^[s]						^[53]
gedit	^[t]	Plug‑in^[u]				plug‑in ^[54]	?
GNU Emacs	Plug‑in^[v]						^[55]
JED							?
jEdit	Plug‑in^[w]						^[56]
JOE	Plug‑in^[x]	Partial ^[y]	^[z]				?
JOVE							?
Kate
KEDIT							?
Komodo Edit							?^[aa]
Komodo IDE							?^[ab]
KWrite							?
LE			^[ac]				?
Light Table	Plug‑in^[57]	?				?	?
Metapad	Partial ^[ad]						?
mg		^[58]		Partial	^[58]		?
MinEd		^[ae]	^[af]	^[ag]			?
MS-DOS Editor
Nano							?
ne							?
NEdit	Plug‑in^[59]						?
Notepad			Partial	Partial			?
Notepad++	^[60]
nvi						?	?
Pico							?
PolyEdit							?
PSPad							?
RJ TextEd							?
Sam	external^[ah]						?
SciTE		Limited ^[ai]					?
SlickEdit							^{[citation needed]}
Smultron							?
SubEthaEdit						^[61]	?
Sublime Text							^[62]
TED Notepad							?
TextEdit							?
TextMate			Partial				?
TextPad							?
TextWrangler							?
The SemWare Editor							?
UltraEdit		Limited ^[aj]					?
VEDIT	^[ak]						?
vi							?
Vim	^[al]						No^{[citation needed]}
Visual Studio Code	Plug‑in					Limited ^[am]	^[64]
XEmacs	Plug‑in^[v]						?
XNedit	Plug‑in^[59]						?

Programming features

	Syntax highlighting	Function list	Symbol database	Auto completion	Code folding	Text folding	Compiler integration
Acme		external^[p]	external^[p]	Partial ^[an]			external^[p]
Alphatk		?	?
Atom							Plug‑in
BBEdit
Bluefish							^[ao]
Brackets							Plug‑in
Coda
ConTEXT		?	?
Crimson Editor			Partial ^[ap]
ed							external^[aq]
Editra		?	?	?		?	?
EmEditor		Plug‑in	Plug‑in	Plug‑in^[ar]
Geany			^[as]		Partial
gedit		Plug‑in	Plug‑in	Plug‑in		Plug‑in^[at]	^[au]
GNU Emacs
JED
jEdit		Plug‑in	Plug‑in				Plug‑in
JOE		?		?
JOVE
Kate		Plug‑in	Plug‑in				Plug‑in
KEDIT			Macro
Komodo Edit
Komodo IDE
KWrite		?	?
LE							^[av]
Light Table							Partial ^[aw]
Metapad
mined	^[ax]	?
MS-DOS Editor
Nano
ne
NEdit		Plug‑in		Plug‑in
Notepad
Notepad++		^[ay]	^[65]^[66]	^[az]
nvi		?
Pico
PolyEdit
PSPad			Plug‑in
RJ TextEd
Sam							external^[ah]
SciTE		^[ba]	?
SlickEdit
Smultron					?	?	?
SubEthaEdit		?	?
TED Notepad		?	?
TextEdit
TextMate			Plug‑in	^[bb]
TextPad			Plug‑in^[bc]
TextWrangler							Plug‑in^[bd]
The SemWare Editor			Plug‑in^[67]	^[be]	Partial ^[bf]
UltraEdit			Partial ^[bg]
VEDIT				<^[bh]
vi
Vim		Plug‑in^[68]
Visual Studio Code
XEmacs		?
XNEdit		Plug‑in		Plug‑in

Additional programming features

	CLI shell integration	GUI shell integration	Macro language	Collaborative editing	Large file support	Long line support	Multi-line regex support	Search in files
Acme			Extensible		?	?		?
Alphatk			^[bi]		?	?	?	?
Atom	^[69]	?	Plug‑in^[70]		~27 MB	Soft-wrapping	^[71]
BBEdit			^[bj]		memory ^[72]
Bluefish			?		?	?		?
Brackets			Extensible			?	Partial
Coda			^[bk]		?	?
ConTEXT					memory ^[bl]	?		?
Crimson Editor						?		?
ed				via mkfifo	?	?	?
Editra	?	?	?	?	2 GB	?	?	?
EmEditor					16TB	?
Geany		?	Plug‑in	?	?	?
gedit			^[bm]	Plug‑in		?		Plug‑in^[73]
GNU Emacs					2.3 EB^[74]^[75]^[76]^[77]
JED					memory ^[78]			Plug‑ins
jEdit					(heap)^[bn]	?
JOE					^{[citation needed]}	?	?	^[80]
JOVE					memory	?
Kate			Plug‑in		^[81]	Maybe ^[bo]		Plug‑in
KEDIT					^{[citation needed]}	10Kb
Komodo Edit	?	?	^[83]		?	?
Komodo IDE	?	?	^[83]		?	?
KWrite					^[81]	^[84]		?
LE				^[bp]	memory ^[bq]	?		?
Light Table					?	?
Metapad					memory ^[85]	?
mined	?	?	?	?	?	?		?
EDIT (MS-DOS)					(64~300 KB)
EDIT (DR-DOS)					2 GB, for as long as there is disk swap space for two temporary files
Nano					?	?	?	?
NEdit								?
Notepad					memory	?
Notepad++				^[86]	2GB^[87]	^[88]
nvi				?	?	?	?	?
Pico	?	?	?		?	?	?	?
PolyEdit					^{[citation needed]}	?		?
PSPad					memory ^[89]	?	with plug‑in
RJ TextEd						?		?
Sam					?	?		external^[ah]
SciTE	?	?				?
SlickEdit					2 TB
Smultron	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
SubEthaEdit					?	?		?
TED Notepad						?	?	?
TextEdit					?	?	?	?
TextMate						?		?
TextPad					memory ^[90]	?
TextWrangler					memory ^[91]			?
The SemWare Editor				Only in special DOS multi-user version	2 GB		?
UltraEdit					^[br]
VEDIT					^{[citation needed]}
vi					~65 MB	?
Vim				with plug‑in^[92]	memory ^[bs]
Visual Studio Code				with plug‑in^[93]	?	?
XEmacs					on 64-bit OS ^[bt]	?
XNEdit								?

Key bindings

	Custom	IBM CUA	macOS	vi	Emacs	Pico	WordStar	WordPerfect	Brief
Acme
Alphatk	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Atom	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
BBEdit^[94]^[95]		?		?		?	?	?	?
Bluefish		?		?	?	?	?	?	?
Brackets		Partial		Plug‑in	Plug‑in
Coda		?		?	?	?	?	?	?
ConTEXT	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Crimson Editor	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
ed
Editra
EmEditor		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
epsilon		?	?	?		?	?	?
Geany		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
gedit	^[bu]	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
GNU Emacs						Partial ^[96]	^[97]	^[98]	^[98]
JED		Partial ^[bv]	?			?		?
jEdit		?			?	?	?	?	?
JOE^[99]
JOVE							^[100]
LE		?	?		?	?	?	?	?
Light Table		Partial	?	Plug‑in	Plug‑in	?	?	?	?
Kate				^[101]
KEDIT
Komodo Edit		?				?	?	?	?
Komodo IDE		?				?	?	?	?
KWrite		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Metapad	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
mg		?	?	?		?	?	?	?
mined	?	?	?	?				?	?
MS-DOS Editor
Nano					Partial ^[102]
NEdit		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Notepad
Notepad++	Partial
nvi	?	?	?		?	?	?	?	?
Pico					Partial ^[102]
PolyEdit	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
PSPad		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
RJ TextEd		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Sam
SciTE	Partial ^[bw]	?	?				?	?	?
SlickEdit	^[bx]		^[by]	Partial ^[bz]
Smultron	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
SubEthaEdit
TED Notepad	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
TextEdit
TextMate
TextPad		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
TextWrangler^[94]^[103]		?					?	?	?
The SemWare Editor		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
UltraEdit		?		?	?	?	?	?	?
VEDIT				^[104]
vi
Vim	Partial	Plug‑in^[105]	Plug‑in^[106]	^[ca]	Plug‑in^[cb]	?	Plug‑in^[108]		Plug‑in^[109]
Visual Studio Code				Plug‑in^[110]	Plug‑in^[111]				Partial Plug‑in^[112]
XEmacs						Partial ^[96]	^[97]	^[98]	^[98]
XNEdit		?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Notes:

Vim: Custom maps of Ctrl-1 .. Ctrl-9, Ctrl-0 cannot be set, nor is Control-Shift-<char> distinguished from Ctrl-<char>.^[113]^[114]
Notepad++: Custom shortcuts of Shift-<char> cannot be set, they need an added modifier such as Ctrl or Alt. i.e. SCI_LINESCROLLUP cannot be bound to "Shift-I"as the "Add"button is greyed out.
Pico: Pico uses most of Emacs's motion and deletion commands: ^F ^B ^P ^N ^D etc.

Protocol support

Character encoding support

The following table identifies notable character encodings that an editor supports – can load, save, view and edit text in the encoding without changing any characters. Partial implies that the editor can only convert the character encoding to internal (8-bit) format for editing, some encodings are supported only in some platforms or the editor can only display a character set (such as OEM) by loading corresponding font, but does not support keyboard entry for that character set.

	ASCII	ISO-8859	DOS (OEM)	EBCDIC	UTF-8	UTF-16
Acme		?	?	?		?
Alphatk		?	?	?
Atom	?	?	?	?	?	?
BBEdit
Bluefish
Brackets
Coda				?
ConTEXT			Partial ^[cc]
Crimson Editor			Partial ^[cc]		Partial
ed		?	?	?
Editra
EmEditor
Geany				?
gedit			?	?
GNU Emacs					^[cd]	^[ce]
JED				?		Partial ^[cf]
jEdit
JOE		?	?	?
JOVE
LE		?	?	?
Kate			?	?
KEDIT			Partial ^[cc]
Komodo Edit
Komodo IDE
KWrite		?	?	?
Metapad			Partial ^[cc]
mined
MS-DOS Editor		?		?	?	?
Nano			?	?
NEdit		?	?	?
Notepad			Partial ^[cc]
Notepad++				plug‑in?
nvi		?	?	?	^[cg]
Pico
PolyEdit		?	?	?
PSPad				?
RJ TextEd
Sam		?	?	?
SciTE^[ch]
SlickEdit
Smultron		?	?	?
SubEthaEdit
TED Notepad		?	?	?
TextEdit			?	?
TextMate			?	?
TextPad		?	?	?	Partial ^[ci]	Partial ^[ci]
TextWrangler
The SemWare Editor		^[cj]	Partial ^[cc]	Plug‑in
UltraEdit
VEDIT					Partial ^[ck]	Partial ^[ck]
vi		?	?	?
Vim				Partial ^[cl]
Visual Studio Code				^[123]
XEmacs			?	?	^[cm]
XNEdit			?	?

Right-to-left and bidirectional text

Support for right-to-left (RTL) text is necessary for editing some languages like Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, and Yiddish and the mixture of left-to-right (LTR) and RTL known as bidirectional (BiDi). The following table indicates whether an editor supports RTL and BiDi text. Some editors (e.g. Notepad++ 5.1.3) can render bidirectional text but does not support editing it.

	RTL	Bidi
Acme
Alphatk	?	?
Atom
BBEdit
Bluefish
Brackets	?	?
Coda	?	?
ConTEXT	?	?
Crimson Editor	?	?
ed	?	?
Editra	?	?
EmEditor
Geany	?	?
gedit
GNU Emacs		^[cn]
JED	?	?
jEdit
JOE	?	?
JOVE
LE	?	?
Kate
KEDIT
Komodo Edit
Komodo IDE
KWrite	?	?
Metapad	?	?
MS-DOS Editor	?	?
mined	^[co]	^[co]
Nano	?	?
NEdit
Notepad
Notepad++		Partial ^[cp]
nvi	?	?
Pico	?	?
PolyEdit	?	?
PSPad	?	?
RJ TextEd
Sam
SciTE
SlickEdit	?	?
Smultron	?	?
SubEthaEdit
TED Notepad	?	?
TextEdit
TextMate
TextPad	?	?
TextWrangler
The SemWare Editor
UltraEdit
VEDIT	?	?
vi	?	?
Vim		through terminal support
Visual Studio Code
XEmacs	?	?
XNEdit

Newline support

The following table identifies newline support of editors. The three options are:

CR/LF: Generally, used on Windows.
LF: Generally, used on Unix-like systems (including macOS).^[124]
CR: Generally, used on Classic Mac OS.

Notes

↑ last update in OpenBSD repo^[25]
1 2 No native support, available as a part of the Inferno port for Windows or by using `plan9port` over the WSL.
1 2 3 4 5 Requires Cygwin or the Windows Subsystem for Linux to run on Windows.
↑ GEdit, when installed from MacPorts, runs in X11 and, therefore, does not have a native look and feel. However, precompiled native macOS binaries for GEdit may be downloaded from the GEdit project page, or from the GEdit FTP download server.
1 2 3 gedit, NEdit, and SciTE run in the X11 window environment, and therefore do not use the native Aqua look-and-feel when running on macOS.
↑ Stand alone NSIS installable package is available
↑ gedit supports single document window splitting via plug‑ins. Archived 2011-12-14 at the Wayback Machine.
↑ gedit supports multiple document window splitting via plug‑ins. Archived 2011-12-14 at the Wayback Machine.
↑ GNU Emacs 27.1 includes built-in support for tab bar (per-frame) and tab-line (per-window). Earlier versions of GNU Emacs can use a tabbed document interface in a non OS-native way using the Tabbar plug‑in.
↑ GNU Emacs can support a tabbed document interface modelled after GNU Screen using the elscreen Archived 2008-01-17 at the Wayback Machine package.
↑ JOE supports editing multiple files but only seeing one of them, and switching to others via Ctrl+K+N, which is functionally equivalent to having tabs but no visible tab bar.
↑ mined supports Copy/Paste between multiple documents in separate windows, when these documents are in separate terminal windows
↑ SciTE_max_buffers
↑ Vim Provided GVim is used.
↑ Vim version 7 supports a tabbed document interface. Earlier versions can emulate tabs through scripts, for example.^[52]
1 2 3 4 Acme can invoke external commands and display their return values in order to integrate additional functionality.
↑ ConTEXT does not support regular expression backreferences in its search and replace function. Archived 2007-12-18 at archive.today
↑ ConTEXT only supports converting text to UTF-16. Also, it can only use one type of new-line format if converting to UTF-16.
↑ Geany supports spell checking via a plug‑in
↑ gedit supports spell checking via a plug‑in, which is distributed with gedit.
↑ gedit supports Regex-based find & replace via plug‑ins ( Archived 2011-12-14 at the Wayback Machine).
1 2 Emacs supports spell checking via the external programs ispell, aspell, or Hunspell.
↑ jEdit supports spell checking via an external plug‑in.
↑ JOE supports spell checking via the ispell or aspell external plug‑ins.
↑ JOE uses a non-standard regular expression syntax.
↑ JOE can easily pipe text through the GNU recode(1) utility; it detects locale settings and allows editing in any encoding set up by the environment.
↑ Komodo Edit is based on Scintilla and may support virtual space similar to Geany and Notepad++ ()
↑ Komodo IDE is based on Scintilla and may support virtual space similar to Geany and Notepad++ ()
↑ LE can pipe text through the GNU recode(1) utility
↑ Metapad spell checking by calling external program Aspell.
↑ mined supports multiple lines in search and replacement expressions.
↑ mined can convert the encoding format when using the Copy & Paste feature between multiple documents (that have different encodings).
↑ mined supports new-line conversion via a command-line option or from the menu. Files with mixed newline types can be edited transparently; different kinds of new-line have different visual indications.
1 2 3 It is possible to start external applications from inside Sam and display their return values.
↑ Scintilla-based editors such as SciTE, Notepad2 and Notepad++ do not support alternation (
↑ UltraEdit uses the Boost C++ regex library. While Boost supports backreferences past \9 with \g{10}, UltraEdit has not yet implemented this feature.
↑ VEDIT 6.2 comes with Scribe spelling checker which has been written entirely in Vedit macro language. In addition, macro package for integrating Aspell can be downloaded here.
↑ Vim version 7 supports spell checking natively. Earlier versions require a script.^[63]
↑ Visual Studio Code does not support virtual space, and rectangular selection beyond line endings is not possible.
↑ Acme's auto-completion only works on file names.
↑ bluefish: Configurable via the outputbox feature.
↑ With external tool OpenCTags
↑ ed can invoke external commands, like a compiler.
↑ EmEditor Professional supports Auto Complete via plug‑ins (32-bit or 64-bit).
↑ Geany uses its own tags file format, not compatible with ctags, see the manual.
↑ gedit-folding: Folding plug‑in for Gedit
↑ gedit: Compiler integration: Functionality in plug‑ins installed with gedit.
↑ make can be launched from the LE text editor, but the output is not captured
↑ Evaluates expressions in some dynamic languages such as Clojure, Python and Javascript in realtime
↑ mined: Syntax highlighting: HTML/XML, Javascript, JSP.
↑ Notepad++ comes with Function List support, and it can be enhanced via plugins.
↑ Notepad++ installs with auto complete list for multiple programming languages. Has user option to add additional personalized auto complete list(s).
↑ Function list (and stuff) available in Ru-Board build, ver 1.79.66Ru and later
↑ TextMate: Auto complete: Supported language bundles
↑ Textpad uses an add-on ()
↑ TextWrangler can integrate with a compiler if you write a shell script that takes flag input of the code and compiles it. You place this in ~/Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Unix Support/Unix Filters/. It should show in the #! menu.
↑ The Semware Editor: Auto complete: Supported via supplied/user-created lists.
↑ The Semware Editor: Text folding: Compressed view possible.
↑ Not in the Linux version.
↑ Vedit: Auto complete: Template editing, plus 3rd party macro for expanding symbols from tags database.
↑ Alpha Macro support via AppleScript, Tcl or text factories.
↑ BBEdit Macro support via AppleScript, Perl, Python, Lasso, shell scripts or text factories.
↑ Coda offers macros via AppleScript, text "clips,"or plug‑ins (Cocoa apps or any installed scripting language).
↑ name
↑ Cssed Macro support via Python.
↑ jEdit: Limited by Java heap size.^[79]
↑ Kate: Line length is limited by default. The limit can be removed, but long lines may cause poor performance.^[82]
↑ LE text editor locks the file and warns if someone else has changed the file
↑ LE text editor can view and edit large files or their parts in mmap-shared mode
↑ UltraEdit has no real limit on file size - and can easily open, edit, and save large text files in excess of 4 GB! .
↑ 2GB with 32 Bits, on a 64 Bit system it depends on the available virtual memory.
↑ Emacs: 64-bit compilation on 64-bit OS can handle 2 GB files, otherwise the limit is 512 MiB.
↑ It is possible to customize all Gedit shortcuts because it is Gtk based.
↑ The JED base release comes with a basic CUA emulation, but it doesn't bother to bind lots of useful editor features. Also, like some other editors, 1 side of a region must be at the cursor. The main extension collections jedmodes/jed-extra and the "Red Project" have improved versions, tackling the former problem in particular.
↑ In SciTE, custom keystrokes may be assigned to Lua scripts, external programs or lexers (highlighters).
↑ SlickEdit provides emulation of Visual Studio, Visual C++ 6, CodeWright, Epsilon and ISPF key bindings in addition to those given in the table.
↑ SlickEdit supports CodeWarrior, Xcode and BBEdit key binding emulation.
↑ SlickEdit includes support of vi key bindings, the ex command line and some, but not all Vim extensions.
↑ Vim emulates vi keys fully when in 'compatible' mode
↑ Vim With a script^[107]
1 2 3 4 5 6 when choosing e.g. Terminal font
↑ GNU Emacs: While GNU Emacs supports the UTF-8 encoding, it doesn't fully support the Unicode standard, since it doesn't fully support the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (see comment in the 'Right-to-left and bidirectional text' section below).
↑ GNU Emacs: While GNU Emacs supports the UTF-16 encoding, it doesn't fully support the Unicode standard, since it doesn't fully support the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (see comment in the 'Right-to-left and bidirectional text' section below).
↑ JEDs Windows version comes with a pair of scripts that can convert UTF-16 text files (actually anything iconv can convert) to and from JED's internal UTF-8. The Red Project releases include an enhanced version of these scripts.
↑ nvi Gentoo
↑ SciTE can open files in UTF or one single-byte encoding specified in a configuration file.
1 2 TextPad can load and save UTF-8 and UTF-16 text files, but cannot use or even preserve characters outside of the system encoding.^[122]
↑ when choosing e.g. New Courier font
1 2 Vedit can convert UTF-8 and UTF-16 files to Windows character set and back. Characters not included in Windows charset can be preserved.
↑ Vim supports EBCDIC when compiled on a system that uses the EBCDIC character set.
↑ from version 21.5.29
↑ GNU Emacs

(1) According to a comment in the source file where the bidi support is implemented (http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/tree/src/bidi.c accessed August 15, 2017), GNU Emacs doesn't fully conform to the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (Unicode Annex #9, a.k.a. UAX #9) in the way it wraps the lines of a bidi paragraph: "we are violating paragraph 3.4 of UAX#9. which mandates that line breaking shall be done before reordering each screen line separately."

(2) According to the online GNU Emacs manual (section 22.19 Bidirectional Editing, accessed August 15, 2017), for the purpose of changing paragraph direction, "Paragraph boundaries are empty lines, i.e., lines consisting entirely of whitespace character". This contrasts with the otherwise ubiquitous convention of regarding the newline marker (LF on Unix derivatives, including macOS, and CR+LF on Windows) as the paragraph separator in plain text documents. However starting with version 26.0.50, the bidi paragraph separator can be customized.
1 2 mined: supports bidi in cooperation with bidi terminal (mlterm, mintty); also supports "poor man's bidi mode"(automatic visual text order right-to-left input) in normal terminal
↑ Notepadpp: Scintilla (Notepad++'s Engine) does not really support bidirectional editing ... Some bidirectional text support added in 4.1.0. https://sourceforge.net/p/scintilla/bugs/757/#01c9
↑ GNU Emacs: GNU Emacs doesn't regard the newline marker as a paragraph separator in bidi texts. See comment in the 'Right-to-left and bidirectional text' section.