Compare the Top Code Editors for Linux as of April 2025

What are Code Editors for Linux?

Code editors are software tools that allow developers to write, edit, and debug source code for programming and web development. These editors provide essential features like syntax highlighting, code completion, auto-indentation, and error detection to enhance productivity and reduce coding errors. Many code editors also offer integrations with version control systems (like Git), debuggers, and build tools, allowing developers to manage their code and workflows efficiently. While some code editors are lightweight and focused solely on text editing, others offer extensive features and customization options through plugins and extensions. By providing a streamlined environment for coding, code editors are essential for software development, web development, and scripting tasks. Compare and read user reviews of the best Code Editors for Linux currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Apache NetBeans

    Apache NetBeans

    Apache Software Foundation

    Apache NetBeans is a versatile, open-source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used for developing applications across a wide range of programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, PHP, HTML5, and C/C++. Known for its modular architecture, NetBeans provides robust tools and features that cater to the needs of developers working on desktop, mobile, and web applications. It includes intelligent code editing, debugging, and profiling capabilities, along with a built-in visual GUI builder for designing Java-based user interfaces. NetBeans also offers support for version control systems like Git, SVN, and Mercurial, facilitating seamless team collaboration. As an Apache Software Foundation project, NetBeans benefits from an active community that continuously improves and expands its functionality, making it a reliable and flexible choice for developers across various domains.
    Starting Price: Free
  • 2
    Geany

    Geany

    Geany

    Geany is a powerful, stable and lightweight programmer's text editor that provides tons of useful features without bogging down your workflow. It runs on Linux, Windows and MacOS is translated into over 40 languages, and has built-in support for more than 50 programming languages. One the primary reasons for Geany's existence is that there is a need for a decent, GUI, lightweight, cross-platform, flexible and powerful IDE/editor. Many editors meet one or more of these requirements but fall short on others. Using the GPL v2 license, Geany assures that not only can you customize and hack it, but that everyone benefits from changes the community makes. Many parts of Geany are heavily customizable like color themes (Geany Themes) or adding new filetypes. Furthermore, Geany provides many settings to let you adjust it to your needs and preferences. Many supported filetypes including popular programming languages like C, Java, PHP, HTML, JavaScript, etc.
  • 3
    Kate

    Kate

    KDE

    Kate is packed with features that will make it easier for you to view and edit all your text files. Kate lets you to edit and view many files at the same time, both in tabs and split views, and comes with a wide variety of plugins, including an embedded terminal that lets you launch console commands directly from Kate, powerful search and replace plugins, and a preview plugin that can show you what your MD, HTML and even SVG will look like. Kate supports highlighting for over 300 languages making it easier to read code in almost all programming languages. Kate also understands how brackets works and will help you navigate inside complex code blocks hierarchies. On-the-fly spellchecking is also included and will help you check your text before publishing. Work on multiple files at the same time with split views. Use the project sidebar to navigate your project directory structures and use Kate's smart tabs to quickly access your recently opened documents.
  • 4
    UltraEdit

    UltraEdit

    IDM Computer Solutions

    For almost 3 decades, UltraEdit has been the go-to text editor for 2+ million users and many Fortune 100/500/1000 enterprise customers. Renowned for its power and performance in handling and processing huge files and data, UltraEdit is also a highly configurable and fully themed code editor with support for nearly any source language or syntax. Often called the "Swiss army knife" of text editors, UltraEdit is a powerful tool for users in a wide range of responsibilities and industries. From programming and project management to large file manipulation, from data sorting and column/block editing to remote (FTP/SFTP) file operations, from advanced file searching and text data reformatting, there's almost no problem that UltraEdit can't solve in the world of text editing. UltraEdit is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and is supported by a professional development team and customer service staff located in the USA.
  • 5
    Brackets

    Brackets

    Brackets

    With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, Brackets is a modern text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser. It's crafted from the ground up for web designers and front-end developers. Brackets is a lightweight, yet powerful, modern text editor. We blend visual tools into the editor so you get the right amount of help when you want it without getting in the way of your creative process. You'll enjoy writing code in Brackets. Brackets is an open-source project, supported by an active and passionate community. It's made by other web developers like you! Instead of jumping between file tabs, Brackets lets you open a window into the code you care about most. Want to work on the CSS that applies to a specific ID? Put your mouse cursor on that ID, push Command / Ctrl+E and Brackets will show you all the CSS selectors with that ID in an inline window so you can work on your code side-by-side without any popups.
  • 6
    PearAI

    PearAI

    PearAI

    Ask questions or generate code with the context of your codebase for accurate results. This also works with choosing specific folders, online docs, terminal content, files, and more. PearAI can directly code in your files, and allow you to see diffs. Try CMD+I (CTRL+I on Windows). Here, we ask PearAI to help us add error handling and comments. Without writing a single line of code, we were able to make a new feature in an unfamiliar codebase: adding a documentation page to the PearAI landing page. Speed up your development process by seamlessly integrating AI into your workflow. PearAI's goal is to reduce the time it takes for an individual to go from idea to creation. Coding itself is a crucial tool in product development, and we believe that with the advancement of AI, it may drastically change over the coming years. We aim to build the environment that will encompass these changes, both in the short-term and long-term.
    Starting Price: $15 per month
  • 7
    Theia

    Theia

    Theia

    Eclipse Theia is an extensible platform to develop multi-language Cloud & Desktop IDEs with state-of-the-art web technologies. Not sure whether you need a web or desktop version or both? With Theia you can develop one IDE and run it in browsers or native desktop application from a single source. The Theia project is hosted at the Eclipse Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation, and is developed by a diverse community. Unlike other "open-source" projects, projects hosted at an Open-Source Foundation are protected against single-vendor decisions against the interest of the diverse community. Theia is designed in a modular way to allow extenders and adopters customizing and extending every aspect of it. Composing a custom IDE-like product is as easy as listing all needed extensions in a package.json file. Adding new functionality by implementing your own extensions is easy, too and provides all the flexibility you need.
    Starting Price: $0
  • 8
    Boost Note

    Boost Note

    Boost Note

    Boost Note is a powerful, lightspeed collaborative workspace for developer teams. Built to empower developers productivity with the most solid note taking experience for developers. Not just a GitHub flavored markdown. Put diagrams with Charts.js, Mermaid, and PlantUML in documents to maximize visibility. Choose from keymaps like Vim, over 150 themes, and more to create your own Markdown editor. Manage your documents programmatically. Grab an authentication token and access Boost Note's APIs via simple HTTP requests. Automate your documentation work with over 2,000 external tool integrations via Zapier. Collaborate with your colleagues and share information your way. Have all your teams in one shared workspace. Write documents as a team with Boost Note's realtime editing. Check revision history of a doc. You can easily roll back to one of the previous versions in one click. Keep your important data safe through granula access control based on workspace.
    Starting Price: $3 per member per month
  • 9
    CodeLite

    CodeLite

    CodeLite

    CodeLite is a free, open-source, cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE) designed primarily for C, C++, PHP, and JavaScript development. It offers a lightweight and highly customizable environment with support for multiple compilers, including GCC, Clang, and Microsoft Visual C++. CodeLite features an intuitive code editor with syntax highlighting, auto-completion, and code refactoring capabilities. It also includes an integrated debugger with support for GDB, making it easy to set breakpoints, inspect variables, and trace call stacks. Additionally, CodeLite supports Node.js and TypeScript development, making it a versatile choice for both desktop and web-based applications. Its flexibility, cross-platform compatibility (Windows, macOS, and Linux), and integration with popular version control systems like Git and Subversion make it a go-to IDE for developers seeking a lightweight alternative to more resource-intensive environments.
    Starting Price: Free
  • 10
    Neovim

    Neovim

    Neovim

    API is first-class, discoverable, versioned, documented. MessagePack structured communication enables extensions in any language. Remote plugins run as co-processes, safely and asynchronously. GUIs, IDEs, web browsers can, embed Neovim as an editor or script host. Works the same everywhere, one build-type, one command. Modern terminal features such as cursor styling, focus events, bracketed paste. Built-in terminal emulator and strong defaults. Fully compatible with Vim's editing model and Vimscript v1. Start with :help nvim-from-vim if you already use Vim. The current stable release version is 0.5 (RSS). See the roadmap for progress and plans. With 30% less source-code than Vim, the vision of Neovim is to enable new applications without compromising Vim's traditional roles. Lua is built-in, but Vimscript is supported with the most advanced Vimscript engine in the world (featuring an AST-producing parser).
  • 11
    Eclipse CDT

    Eclipse CDT

    Eclipse Foundation

    The CDT Project provides a fully functional C and C++ integrated development environment based on the Eclipse platform. Features include support for project creation and managed build for various toolchains, standard make build, source navigation, various source knowledge tools, such as type hierarchy, call graph, include browser, macro definition browser, code editor with syntax highlighting, folding and hyperlink navigation, source code refactoring and code generation, visual debugging tools, including memory, registers, and disassembly viewers. Adds concept of build configuration to the core model. Allows assignment of toolchains to standard makefile projects. Combined previous standard and managed project wizards. User selects project types and toolchains. Parameterized templates to help populate new projects. Very flexible, template actions written with the plug-in. Semantic highlighting amongst other editor improvements.
  • 12
    Eclipse PHP

    Eclipse PHP

    Eclipse Foundation

    The PHP IDE project delivers a PHP Integrated Development Environment framework for the Eclipse platform. This project encompasses the development components necessary to develop PHP-based web applications and facilitates extensibility. It leverages the existing web tools project in providing developers with PHP capabilities. The essential starting point for PHP developers, including a PHP language support, a Git client, XML Editor and Mylyn, terminal. The experience of developing PHP application with PDT can be extended with a large variety of plugins created by the Eclipse ecosystem. Syntax highlighting, syntax validation, content assistance, code navigation, PHP debugging (Zend Debugger / Xdebug), PHP Profiling (Zend Debugger / Xdebug), PHPUnit, code formatted, refactoring, code templates, remote projects, and the whole power of the Eclipse Ecosystem.
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