Text editors can be used for writing code, editing text files such as configuration files, creating user instruction files and many more. In Linux, text editor are of two kinds that is graphical user interface (GUI) and command line text editors (console or terminal).github
In this article I am taking a look at some of the best 21 open source commonly used text editors in Linux on both server and desktops.vim
1. Vi/Vim Editor
Vim is a powerful command line based text editor that has enhanced the functionalities of the old Unix Vi text editor. It is one the most popular and widely used text editors among System Administrators and programmers that is why many users often refer to it as a programmer’s editor. It enables syntax highlighting when writing code or editing configuration files.app
If you want to see our complete series on vi(m), please refer the links below:frontend
This is a general purpose GUI based text editor and is installed by default text editor on Gnome desktop environment. It is simple to use, highly pluggable and a powerful editor with the following features:async
Support for UTF-8
Use of configurable font size and colors
Highly customizable syntax highlighting
Undo and redo functionalities
Reverting of files
Remote editing of files
Search and replace text
Clipboard support functionalities and many more
3. Nano Editor
Nano is an easy to use text editor especially for both new and advanced Linux users. It enhances usability by providing customizable key binding.ide
Nano has the following features:
Highly customizable key bindings
Syntax highlighting
Undo and redo options
Full line display on the standard output
Pager support to read form standard input
You can check our complete guide for editing files with Nano editor at:
This is a highly extensible and customizable text editor that also offers interpretation of the Lisp programming language at its core. Different extensions can be added to support text editing functionalities.
Emacs has the following features:
User documentation and tutorials
Syntax highlighting using colors even for plain text.
Unicode supports many natural languages.
Various extension including mail and news, debugger interface, calender and many more
5. Kate/Kwrite
Kate is a feature rich and highly pluggable text editor that comes with KDesktop Environment (KDE). The Kate project aims at development of two main products that is: KatePart and Kate.
KatePart is an advanced text editor component included in many KDE applications which may require users to edit text whereas Kate is an multiple document interface(MDI) text editor.
The following are some of its general features:
Extensible through scripting
Encoding support such as unicode mode
Text rendering in bi-directional mode
Line ending support with auto detection functionalities
Also remote file editing and many other features including advanced editor features, applications features, programming features, text highlighting features, backup features and search and replace features.
6. Lime Text
This is a powerful IDE-like text editor which is free and open-source successor of popular Sublime Text. It has a few frontends such as command-line interface that you can use with the pluggable backend.
7. Pico Editor
Pico is also a command line based text editor that comes with the Pine news and email client. It is a good editor for new Linux users because of its simplicity in relation to many GUI text editors.
8. Jed Editor
This is also another command line editor with support for GUI like features such as dropdown menus. It is developed purposely for software development and one of its important features is support of unicode mode.
9. gVim Editor
It is a GUI version of the popular Vim editor and it has similar functionalities as the command line Vim.
10. Geany Editor
Geany offers basic IDE-like features with a focus on software development using the GTK+ toolkit.
It has some basic features as listed below:
Syntax highlighting
Pluggable interface
Supports many file types
Enables code folding and code navigation
Symbol name and construct auto-completion
Supports auto-closing of HTML and XML tags
Elementary project management functionality plus many more
Geany Editor
11. Leaf Pad
This is a GTK+ based, lightweight GUI based text editor which is also popular among Linux users today. It is easy to use by new Linux users.
It has the following features:
Codeset option
Allows auto detection of codeset
Options of undo and redo
Display file line numbers
Supports Drag and Drop options
Printing support
12. Bluefish
Bluefish is an easy-to-install and use text editor targeting Linux programmers and web developers. It offers a wide set of features as listed below:
Lightweight and fast
Integrates external Linux programs such as lint, weblint, make and many others and filters, piping such as sed, sort, awk and many more
Spelling check feature
Supports working on multiple projects
Remote file editing
Search and replace support
Undo and redo option
Auto-recovery of modified files
13. Atom
Atom is a free and open source cross-platform code editor developed by GitHub. It was built to be completely customizable using web technologies such as HTML and JavaScript and it has support for Node.js-based plugins and native Git control.
Atom’s feature highlights include:
100% open source
Modern, customizable layout
Themes
Embedded Git support
Real-time collaboration with Telesync
Smart auto-complete and intelliSense
Built-in package manager
14. VSCode
VSCode is a robust free and open source modern text editor built by Microsoft for Linux, Mac, and Windows computers.
It offers tons of powerful features including:
Full debugging capability with an interactive console, breakpoints, call stacks, etc.
Built-in Git support with Git commands
IntelliSense
100% customizability
Support for tons of languages straight out of the box
Toggable layouts
Built-in terminal
15. Light Table
Light Table is a powerful, clutter-free cross-platform text editor built to be customizable enough to be used in any that its user chooses.
Light Table’s features include:
Inline evaluation
Real-time watches
Free and open source
Plugin manager
Powerful editing
16. Medit Text Editor
medit is a lightweight open source text editor for Mac, Linux, and Windows. It originally started as a simple built-in component of GGAP editor and is now its own stand-alone text editor.
medit’s features include:
Customizable syntax highlighting
Support for plugins written in Python, C, or Lua
Support for regular expressions
Configurable keyboard accelerators
17. Neovim – Vim-based Text Editor
Neovim is a hyperextensible vim-based text editor with a focus on usability and function extensibility. It was forked from the popular Vim editor in order to aggressively refactor its functionality and usability with modern GUIs, asynchronous job control, etc.
Neovim’s feature highlights include:
Free and open source license
Support for XDG base directories
Compatibility with most Vim plugins
A embedded, configurable terminal emulator
18. Notepad++
Notepad++ is a customizable text editor built with a focus on speed and minimal program size for Windows platforms. It is developed based on Scintilla text editor and can have its functionality extended with tons of plugins.
Kakoune is a free and open source Vim-based modal text editor with an editing model that implements Vi’s keystrokes as a text editing language.
It has several features among which are:
Auto-indentation
Case manipulation
Piping each selection to external filter
Hooks
Syntax highlighting
Customization
Multiple selections
20. Micro – Terminal-based Text Editor
Micro is a command line-based text editor built to be easy and intuitive enough for users to take advantage of the features in other terminal-based text editors without the steep learning curve.
Micro’s feature hightlights include:
Mouse support
Multiple cursors
Terminal emulation
High customizability
Plugin system
Static library with no dependencies
21. Brackets Text Editor
Brackets is a modern free and open source code editor created by Adobe with a focus on web development. It is written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to offer web developers with a rich code editing experience with the ability to extend its native features using several free extensions.
Brackets features include:
A beautiful User Interface
Preprocessor support for SCSS and LESS
Inline editors
Live preview
Multiple tabbed editing
PHP support
Supports Language Server Protocol
Support for plugin extensions
Concluding
I believe the list is more than what we have looked at, therefore if you have used other free and open source text editors, let us know by posting a comment. Thanks for reading and always stay connected to Tecmint.
