BIGpedia - Comparison of text editors - Encyclopedia and Dictionary Online

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of text editors. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.

Contents

1 General information

2 Operating system support

3 Document interface

4 Basic features

5 Programming features

General information

This table gives basic general information about the different editors:

	Creator	First public release date	Latest stable version	Cost (USD)	Software license
Acme	Rob Pike	1993	Distributed with 4th Ed. Plan 9	Free	LPL (OSI approved)
Crimson Editor	Ingyu Kang	?	3.7	Free	Proprietary
EditPlus	ES-Computing	March 20, 1998	2.12	$30 (1-user)	Proprietary
GNU Emacs	GNU Project	1984	21.4	Free	GPL
Kate	KDE Project	December 2000	2.4	Free	GPL
KWrite	KDE Project	2000	4.4	Free	GPL
jEdit	Slava Pestov	1998 (?)	4.2	Free	GPL
Nano	GNU Project	1999	1.2.4	Free	GPL
Notepad	Microsoft	?	?	Part of Windows	Proprietary
Notepad2	Florian Balmer	April 2004	1.0.12	Free	GPL
nvi	Bill Joy	1976	1.79	Free	BSD license
Pico	University of Washington	?	?	Free	Proprietary
PSPad	Jan Fiala	?	4.3.2	Free	Proprietary
SubEthaEdit	TheCodingMonkeys	2003	2.1.1	$35 for Commercial Use	Proprietary
TextPad	Helios Software Solutions	?	4.7.3	$29	Shareware
vim	Bram Moolenaar	1980	6.3	Free	GPL-compatible
XEmacs	Lucid Inc.	1991	21.0	Free	GPL
	Creator	First public release date	Latest stable version	Cost (USD)	Software license

Operating system support

This table lists the operating systems that different editors can run on without emulation:

	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux	BSD	Unix
Acme	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Crimson Editor	Yes	No	No	No	No
EditPlus	Yes	No	No	No	No
GNU Emacs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kate	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
KWrite	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nano	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Notepad	Yes	No	No	No	No
Notepad2	Yes	No	No	No	No
nvi	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pico	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PSPad	Yes	No	No	No	No
SubEthaEdit	No	Yes	No	No	No
TextPad	Yes	No	No	No	No
vim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
XEmacs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux	BSD	Unix

Document interface

This table lists common document interfaces supported natively (i.e. without third-party add-ons) by different editors:

	Single document interface	Multiple document interface		Window splitting
	Single document interface	Window cascading/tiling	Window tabbing	Window splitting
Acme	No	Yes	No	Yes
Crimson Editor	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
EditPlus	No	Yes	Yes	?
GNU Emacs	Yes	No	No	Yes
Kate	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
KWrite	Yes	No	No	No
jEdit	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Nano	Yes	No	No	No
Notepad	Yes	No	No	No
Notepad2	Yes	No	No	No
nvi	Yes	No	No	?
Pico	Yes	No	No	No
PSPad	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
SubEthaEdit	Yes	No	No	Yes
TextPad	No	Yes	Yes	?
vim	Yes	No	No	Yes
XEmacs	Yes	No	No	Yes
	Single document interface	Window cascading/tiling	Window tabbing	Window splitting

Basic features

This table lists common basic features supported natively (i.e. without third-party add-ons) by different editors:

	Spell checking	Regex-based find & replace	Encoding conversion	Newline conversion
Acme	?	Yes	No	No
Crimson Editor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
EditPlus	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GNU Emacs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
KWrite	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nano	No	Yes	No	No
Notepad	No	No	No	No
Notepad2	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
nvi	No	Yes	No	No
Pico	?	No	No	No
PSPad	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SubEthaEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
TextPad	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
vim	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
XEmacs	?	Yes	No	No
	Spell checking	Regex-based find & replace	Encoding conversion	Newline conversion

Programming features

This table lists common programming features implemented natively by different editors:

	Syntax highlighting	Multiple undo/redo	Rectangular block selection	Bracket matching	Auto indentation	Auto completion	Code folding	Text folding	Compiler integration
Acme	No	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Crimson Editor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
EditPlus	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	Yes	No	No	No
GNU Emacs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes
Kate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
KWrite	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
jEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Nano	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Notepad	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Notepad2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
nvi	No	No	?	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	?
Pico	?	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
PSPad	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
SubEthaEdit	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
TextPad	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
vim	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
XEmacs	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Syntax highlighting	Multiple undo/redo	Rectangular block selection	Bracket matching	Auto indentation	Auto completion	Code folding	Text folding	Compiler integration

Extra features

This table lists other features implemented natively by different editors:

	Text shell integration	Graphical shell integration	Macro	Collaborative editing
Acme	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Crimson Editor	No	Yes	Yes	No
EditPlus	No	Yes	No	No
GNU Emacs	Yes	?	Yes	Yes
Kate	Yes	Yes	No	No
KWrite	No	No	No	No
jEdit	No	No	Yes	No
Nano	?	?	?	No
Notepad	Yes	Yes	No	No
Notepad2	No	No	No	No
nvi	Yes	?	No	?
Pico	?	?	?	No
PSPad	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
SubEthaEdit	No	Yes	No	Yes
TextPad	No	Yes	Yes	No
vim	Yes	?	Yes	No
XEmacs	Yes	?	?	No
	Text shell integration	Graphical shell integration	Macro	Collaborative editing

Protocol support

This table lists Internet protocols that different editors support for remote file editing:

	FTP	HTTP	SSH	WebDAV
Acme	Yes	Yes	No	No
Crimson Editor	Yes	No	No	No
EditPlus	Yes	No	No	No
GNU Emacs	Yes	No	No	No
Kate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
KWrite	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit	No	No	No	No
Nano	?	?	?	No
Notepad	No	No	No	No
Notepad2	No	No	No	No
nvi	?	?	?	No
Pico	?	?	?	No
PSPad	Yes	No	No	No
SubEthaEdit	Yes	No	No	No
TextPad	No	No	No	No
vim	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
XEmacs	?	?	?	No
	FTP	HTTP	SSH	WebDAV

Encoding support

This table lists character encodings that different editors support:

	ASCII	UTF-8	UTF-16
Acme	Yes	Yes	No
Crimson Editor	Yes	Yes	Yes
EditPlus	Yes	Yes	Yes
GNU Emacs	Yes	No	No
Kate	Yes	Yes	Yes
KWrite	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nano	Yes	No	No
Notepad	Yes	Yes	Yes
Notepad2	Yes	Yes	Yes
nvi	Yes	No	No
Pico	Yes	No	No
PSPad	Yes	Yes	Yes
SubEthaEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes
TextPad	Yes	Yes	Yes
vim	Yes	Yes	Yes
XEmacs	Yes	Yes	Yes
	ASCII	UTF-8	UTF-16

Newline support

This table states which newline character sequences different editors support:

	DOS (CR/LF)	Unix (LF)	Mac (CR)
Acme	No	Yes	No
Crimson Editor	Yes	Yes	Yes
EditPlus	Yes	Yes	Yes
GNU Emacs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kate	Yes	Yes	Yes
KWrite	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes
Nano	?	Yes	?
Notepad	Yes	No	No
Notepad2	Yes	Yes	Yes
nvi	?	Yes	?
Pico	?	Yes	?
PSPad	Yes	Yes	Yes
SubEthaEdit	Yes	Yes	Yes
TextPad	Yes	Yes	Yes
vim	Yes	Yes	Yes
XEmacs	?	Yes	?
	DOS (CR/LF)	Unix (LF)	Mac (CR)

References

"The Emacs Editor"