Compare the Top Text Editors for Linux as of April 2025

What are Text Editors for Linux?

Text editors are software applications that allow users to create, edit, and manipulate plain text files. They are essential for writing and editing code, documentation, notes, and other types of text-based content. Text editors typically offer basic features like syntax highlighting, search and replace, and line numbering for developers, as well as more advanced features like version control integration, autocomplete, and code folding. While simple text editors allow basic editing, more advanced versions are widely used for their versatility and customization options, especially in programming and content creation. Compare and read user reviews of the best Text 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
    Obsidian

    Obsidian

    Obsidian

    Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Your second brain should work the same. In Obsidian, making and following "connections" is frictionless. Tend to your notes like a gardener; at the end of the day, sit back and marvel at your own knowledge graph. Note-taking is incredibly personal. Tried every app, but there's always something not quite right? You deserve better. Obsidian is built to be extensible. With 22 core plugins and 149 community plugins, set up your own toolkit and get running in minutes. You'll even be able to install third party plugins or build your own once Obsidian reaches v1.0. Sky's the limit. In our age when cloud services can shut down, get bought, or change privacy policy any day, the last thing you want is proprietary formats and data lock-in. With Obsidian, your data sits in a local folder.
    Starting Price: $25 one-time payment
  • 3
    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.
  • 4
    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.
  • 5
    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.
  • 6
    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.
  • 7
    Typora

    Typora

    Typora

    Typora gives you a seamless experience as both a reader and a writer. It removes the preview window, mode switcher, syntax symbols of markdown source code, and all other unnecessary distractions. Instead, it provides a real live preview feature to help you concentrate on the content itself. Typora allows you to manage your files easily, providing both file tree panel and articles (file list) side panel, allows you to manage your files easily. Organize your files your way, including putting in sync services, like Dropbox or iCloud. Automatically see the Outline structure of your documents in outline panel, which allows you to quickly go through the document and jump to any section with one click. Export to PDF with bookmarks. Go further and export or import. More formats, including docx, OpenOffice, LaTeX, MediaWiki, Epub, etc, can be exported or imported. See how large your document is in words, characters, lines, or reading minutes.
  • 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
    CKEditor 5

    CKEditor 5

    CKSource

    CKEditor 5 is a modern WYSIWYG rich text editor that can easily accommodate the requirements of businesses and users in the age of digital transformation. It allows software creators and developers to build powerful writing solutions for applications of all sorts, within hours. Thanks to a fully customizable framework, ready-to-use builds, native integrations, extensive documentation, and reliable customer support, the editor can be fully tailored to your needs. To provide users with an all-around streamlined and collaborative writing experience, you can additionally include advanced features such as Track Changes and Comments, Revision History, and (if preferred) Real-time Collaboration! Easy Export to PDF and Word, responsive images, pagination, Markdown input and output support, and robust paste from Word and Google Docs are also popular choices.
  • 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).
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