Best Code Editor 2015

Atom is a free and open-source text and source code editor for the OS X, Linux, and Windows platforms with a modular design. Atom is available under a MIT License and is written in CoffeeScript and Less. There is support for plug-ins written in Node.js, and embedded Git Control, developed by GitHub. The best PHP editors come with multiple additional functionalities that help you write and edit PHP code, make sense of the structure of your file and project, and make fewer errors. For instance, line breaks, indentation, auto-complete, different views and editing modes, code completion, search and compare functionalities, and smart code hints.

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It is always exciting for developers from all over the world whenever they get to showcase their best code editor at computer expos and tech conferences. On that note when we talk about free code editors for Windows and Mac to use in the year 2021, we cannot help but wait in anticipation for brand-new features to use right away.

In this write-up, we will talk about the best coding software for multiple platforms. However, we will lay extra emphasis on Windows OS and Mac OS because they are popular operating systems out there right now.

Most of these best code editors are free; you do not have to buy any expensive licenses or whatever to start working on them. Just download a trial version of the said software and see if it fulfills your requirements. Afterward, you can convert to paid software for yourself or the company you are working for.

In addition, we will also fill you in on the most amazing code editors that you and your development team can use feature-wise. Since not all code editors are alike, some of them cannot be used for wide-scale projects.

Likewise, a basic version code editor can be used as a standalone application. If the app itself allows, it can be integrated into an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Let’s take look at our best code editor list and see what we have handpicked so far.

9 Free Best Code Editors for Windows & Mac to Use in 2021

Best Code Editors of 2021:

1. Notepad++

One of the most well-known code editors that developers all over the world have been using for quite a while is Notepad++. This amazing application was developed in C++. The initial launch version was very simple. It didn’t have a lot of functions back then, but Notepad++ garnered tons of positive reviews.

Not only developers but casual users also prefer using this tool over Windows’ native notepad application.

Using the pure win32 API, the Notepad++ has an amazing execution speed, which is great for the modern gen machines. Thanks to improved execution times, code compilation spans over a matter of few seconds. This helps programmers to get things done right away.

This application is only compatible with the Windows platform at the moment. It uses a GPL license to work. If you are a Mac fan, don’t worry. We have a couple of code editors appended down the list. Just keep glossing over it.

Key Features

Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion
User-defined Syntax highlighting and folding
Multi-view and Multi-Language support
Support syntax highlighting for languages like PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
Macro recording and playback
Entirely customizable GUI
Autosave
Guided indentation
Macros
Split-screen editing and synchronized scrolling

Pricing

Free

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2. Atom

One of the most famous and useful code editors on this list is Atom. Used by millions of developers all over the world, it is an amazing application with a very simple UI that increases its usability.

One of the cool features of this best free code editor is that the developers can submit packages straight from the application. Atom is available for download at multiple platforms: Windows, Linux, and Mac devices. If you are a Mac OSX user, this is the perfect time for you to give this app a shot.

Key Features

Package Manager Integrated for Plugins support
Supports Command Palette
The feature of smart autocompletion
Cross-platform editing
Built-in package manager
File system browser
Find and replace tool
Smart autocompletion
Multiple panes
Packages and themes

Pricing

Free

3. Visual Studio Code [VS Code]

Belonging from the Family of software developed by the tech giant Microsoft, Visual Studio Code is an excellent code editor we have on the list. The application is an amazing piece of software that offers deep built-in support for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.

One of the most effective and time-saving features of this application is its infusion with A.I.

That means that all of the code that the developer writes in the application is read by the software. As a result, it generates auto-responses for code writing. These responses are based on variable types, function definitions, and essential modules.

This application is available for download on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.

Key Features

Code refactoring & debugging
Easy working with Git and other SCM (Software Configuration Management) providers
Easily extensible and customizable
Visual Studio Code CLI
Live Share
Helpers (Intellisense, Context Menus)
Plugins and Themes
Debugging
Split Views, Zen Mode
Integrated Terminal

Pricing

Free

4. Brackets

Although this list recommends some of the best code editors in the market, there is still no comparison to Brackets code editor. Yes, it is free, but what makes it really useful is the full barrage of extensive new features.

This application has a lightweight framework designed by the people over at Adobe. Believe me, those people know what they are doing. It is one of the best code editors that is completely open-source and you can modify it to your liking.

One of the most amazing features of this application is that you can choose between a browser view to look at how your code is doing or you can view the source code in its original form and modify it from there.

This application is available to be used on Windows, Linux, and Mac devices.

Key Features

Offers live preview, pre-processor support, and inline editors
Especially developed tool for macOS
Quick Edit UI feature puts context-specific code and tools inline
Pleasant looking UI
It comes with the inbuilt extension manager for fast & effective extension management
Quick Docs
JSLint
Live Preview
LESS support

Pricing

Free

5. NetBeans

Another code editor on this list that as one of the most famous code-editors is NetBeans. It is open-source software that the developers can use to develop applications using programming languages like PHP, Java, and C++, among many others.

This software also contains features like code analyzers that can debug your code for you and also convertors to change anything that needs modification.

If your applications were developed in the recent past, be advised that NetBeans allows you to upgrade all your applications to benefit from the new and improved Java 8 language constructs.

Best Code Editor 2021

This application is ready to be used on Windows, Linux, and Mac devices.

Key Features

Offers fast & Smart Code Editing
Helps you to write bug-free code
Easy & Efficient Project Management
Rapid User Interface Development
Cross-platform support
Visual debugger
Static analysis tools
Code editor
Code converters
Multiple language support
NetBeans Profiler
Project management
Batch code analyzers

Pricing

Free

6. Bluefish

If you are a fan of working on dozens of different software at once and not wasting time for the code editor to take its sweet time to run your code, then Bluefish is the code editor that was designed with you in mind.

It is an excellent cross-platform editor that can handle many files of code at once and run them simultaneously. One other feature that the developers love about this application is that they can edit their code from their remote working station, which can be anywhere in the world.

This application contains many different options for web developers and programmers that can help them write code, websites, and scripts for quality testing of their software.

This application is available to be used by Windows, Linux, and Mac device owners.

Key Features

Auto-recovery of changes in modified documents after a crash, kill or shutdown
Unlimited undo/redo functionality
Loads hundreds of files within seconds
Project support feature helps you to work efficiently on multiple projects
Dialogues for many HTML tags, with all their attributes
User-customizable toolbar for quick access to often-used functions
Fully featured image insert dialogue
Multi-thumbnail generation for easy creation of photo albums or screenshot pages

Pricing

Free

7. Vim

Another software that is reportedly comprehensive and can be considered an IDE within itself is called: Vim. It is an extremely advanced code editor that is open-source which gives you the ability to modify the application to your liking as a developer.

With the help of Vim editors and UNIX systems embedded in the software, the application can manage all of the text-editing activities of the developers in no time at all, whether the application is used online or on the premises.

This application is available to be used by Linux Devices.

Key Features

It is command centric which lets you perform complex text related task with few commands
There are many plug-in available for Vim. Its functionality can be extended in a great manner using these plug-in
Same as multiple windows, it also supports multiple buffers
It supports recording features which allow to record and play Vim commands in a repeated manner
Its memory footprint is exceptionally low
It is highly configurable and uses a simple text file to store its configuration
It supports multiple windows. Using this feature screen can be split into multiple windows
It supports multiple tabs which allow you to work on multiple files

Pricing

Free

8. Geany

Next on this list of amazing code-editors, we have the software Geany. This application is quite effective because it uses the GTK+ toolkit to accommodate all of the code that the developers push on the software.

An amazing feature of this application is that it has all of the necessary basic components that make up an effectively integrated development environment or (IDE).

The developers can use this application to produce applications thanks to the software’s library that is full of different filetypes and other important features.

Geany supports Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux operating systems.

Key Features

Navigating through the source code is easy
Show status message on attempt to execute empty context action
Allows you to add a note for applying the indent settings in the project preferences
Allows popup menu on message window notebooks and sidebar
Syntax highlighting
Autocompletion of symbols/words
Auto-closing of XML and HTML tags
Many supported filetypes including C, Java, PHP, HTML, Python, Perl, Pascal, and others
Code navigation
Simple project management
Code folding for an overall organized approach to coding huge programs
Construct completion/snippets
Call tips
Symbol lists
Build a system to compile and execute your code
Plugin interface

Pricing

Free

9. Komodo Edit

The software Komodo Edit is an intuitive but immensely powerful code editor that can easily run those long codes that you spent your sprints on.

The application allows you to perform the following functions straight from the application. These functions are integrations with other technologies like Docker, Grunt, Vagrant, PhoneGap, and many others like them.

You can also perform unit testing for all your quality assurance processes, debugging to make your code error-free and code refactoring.

This application is available to be used by Windows, Linux, and Mac device owners from all over the world.

Key Features

A lot of contemporary color schemes
Easily integrates into the desktop environment
Multi-Language Editor
Native Unicode support and Unicode compatibility checking
Track Changes
Multiple selections
Quick bookmarks
Smart language detection
Split view and multi-window
Variable highlighting
Symbol browser
Autocomplete and call tips
Soft characters and matching braces

Pricing

A free trial is available

Conclusion

There you have it; these are the 9 best code editors available right now. They are free to download and use. They are designed and loaded with the best functionalities that developers need regularly.

Of course, our standard of a “best” free/ paid code editor may not be the same as yours. If you have a favorite software that wasn’t on this list, feel free to share your input through the comments section below. We will add that program for you in a follow-up extension write-up.

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Lately at IDR Solutions I have found myself spending a lot of time coding as I’m currently busy with web development tasks such as designing new features for our website and our blog. To complete this task quickly and efficiently, I found that a good code editor with which I could modify HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP could greatly simplify my work. Previously I looked at ‘The 10 Best Android Apps for Designers and Web Developers‘ and The 10 Best Windows Phone 8 & Windows RT Apps for Designers and Web Developers to try and find a suitable editor. They did not exactly cover what I was looking for, so I thought it would be great to test and compile a list of Open Source and Freeware Code Editors that can be used by Coders, Web Developers and Programmers.

1. Notepad ++

Notepad++ is a free source code editor released under a GPL License, and it supports several languages. It presently supports the Microsoft Windows platform and is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size.

NotePad ++ is fully featured and comes with a Tabbed Document Interface so you can work on multiple files at once and has useful little features such as: drag and drop functionality, split screen, spell checking, auto completion, syntax highlighting, folding bookmarks, customization of shortcut key mapping and more.

Notepad++ as of version 6.6 has support for 56 different languages (Ada, asp, Assembly, AutoIt, Batch, C, C++, C#, Caml, Cmake, COBOL, CoffeeScript, CSS, D, Diff, Flash ActionScript, Fortran, Gui4CLI, Haskell, HTML, INNO, Java, Javascript, JSP, KiXtart, LISP, Lua, Makefile, Matlab, MS-DOS, INI file, NSIS, Normal Text File, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, PHP, PostScript, PowerShell, Properties, Python, R, Resource file, Ruby, Shell, Scheme, Smalltalk, SQL, TCL, TeX, Visual Basic, VHDL, Verilog, XML, YAML).

2. jEdit

jEdit is a free open source text editor available under the GNU General Public License version 2.0. It supports BSD, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and is written in Java thus allowing it to run on all the previously mention systems because of Java being multi-platform.

jEdit supports syntax highlighting that provides native support for over 200 file formats.

It is relatively modular in design and can be customized to suit the individual user. There are over 150 available jEdit plug-ins that can be used to enhance your coding experience. A few examples include a XML/HTML editor or an integrated development environment (IDE). Plugins can be downloaded and installed via the “plugin manager” feature.

3. Crimson Editor

The Crimson Editor is available as Freeware made by Ingyu Kang and is a professional source code editor designed for Windows, and has been designed for speedy loading. It also offers many powerful features for programming languages such as HTML, C/C++, Perl and Java. Crimson Editor features Windows shell integration, a tabbed document interface, syntax highlighting, multiple undo/redo, column mode editing, bracket matching, auto-indentation, spell checking, direct editing of text files in FTP and can be integrated with different compilers. Crimson Editor also supports the use of macros.

Crimson Editor however has not been updated since 2008 and as been superseded by Emerald Editor but it can still be downloaded and used.

4. Emerald Editor

The Emerald Editor was designed to be a fast, extensible text editor, heavily inspired by Crimson Editor, a freeware text editor created by Ingyu Kang.

It offers similar functionality and is Open Source unlike Crimson Editor and is available under a LGPLv2 license. It supports all of the features of Crimson Editor but is in a position to further maintain, bug-fix, and otherwise develop the software further in the future.

5. Brackets

Brackets is a free open-source editor developed and released under a MIT License. It was created by Adobe Systems and maintained on GitHub. Brackets is available for cross-platform download on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Brackets has a variety of features including quick Edit, quick Docs, Live Preview, JSLint, LESS support, Theseus integration, and enables inline editing of CSS, Color Property, and JavaScript elements for developers. There is also a really cool feature that allows you to edit color properties, with an inline color picker with previewing and color adjustment functionality.

6. Komodo Edit

Komodo Edit is a free text editor for programming languages. It was introduced in January 2007 as a complimentary product to the commercial Komodo IDE. Komodo Edit is built atop the Open Komodo project which utalises the Mozilla and Scintilla code base and supports the same languages (including Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Tcl, SQL, Smarty, CSS, HTML, and XML) and operating systems (Linux, OS X, and Windows).

Komodo Edit is extendable via plug-ins (which are based on Mozilla Add-ons) and extensions including: a functions list, pipe features, additional language support and user interface enhancements. They also have a GITHUB page. Komodo Edit is licensed under the Mozilla Public License.

7. KompoZer

KompoZer is an open source WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor based on the now defunct Nvu editor. It is available under the MPL/GPL/LGPL License.

KompoZer is maintained as a community-driven fork and the project is available on sourceforge. However there have been no new updates in the last few years. KompoZer’s WYSIWYG editing capabilities are excellent and it allows direct code editing as well as a split code-graphic view.

There is a built-in FTP site manager, a new color picker, tabs functionality, CSS editor, customizable toolbars, forms, cleaner markup, table/cell resizing rulers, automated spellchecker and more.

8. Atom

Atom comes with a Built-in package manager, Smart auto completion, File system browser, Multiple panes support, Themes, Customization and more.

9. Bluefish

Bluefish is a powerful open sourced editor released under the GPL licence and is targeted towards programmers and web developers.

The editor supports many programming and markup languages and is a multi-platform application that runs on most desktop operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS-X, Windows, OpenBSD and Solaris.

It is relatively lightweight, fast (works well on a windows tablet or netbook), comes with a multiple document interface, multi-threaded support for remote files using gvfs, supporting FTP, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, WebDAV, CIFS and more.

You can integrate external programs such as make, lint, weblint, xmllint, tidy, javac, or your own programs or scripts to handle advanced text processing or error detection and includes language definition files for 32 different languages.

10. ATPad

ATPad is a simple Notepad replacement that is written in pure C and uses the Windows API. It is available in twelve languages (including English) and is available under a GPLv2 License.

In terms of functionality you can get customization options, tabbed editing, word wrapping, line numbering, customizable snippets, bookmarks, sending through e-mail and more. ATPad is so lightweight it does not require any installation. You can just run it from your hard-drive or USB and it leaves no traces on the host computer after it finishes.

11. Notepad2 & Notepad2-mod

Notepad2 is a free and open-source text editor for Microsoft Windows, released under a BSD software license. It was written by Florian Balmer.

It features syntax highlighting and support for the following programming languages: ASP, assembly language, C, C++, C#, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), HTML, Java, JavaScript, NSIS, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, SQL, Visual Basic (VB), VBScript, XHTML, and XML.