HTML has changed into a common language – like meals, music, and dabbing.

The web as we all know it’s an ocean of HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Whether or not it begins on a scribbled sheet of paper or a fundamental textual content editor, this omnipresent code is probably going a constructing block to your favourite web sites or social media apps.

Strains of HTML are used to show textual content, embed multimedia, and supply construction to a shapeless internet web page. In accordance with one examine, as of 2024, HTML is utilized by 95.7% of all of the web sites whose markup language we all know. Even I do know some HTML – and that’s saying one thing.

For curious minds experimenting with supply code or startups launching their first web site, we suggest a dive into HTML with a free textual content editor.

The most effective textual content editor software program

With quite a few choices accessible available in the market at the moment, evaluating your wants, desired options, and price range is important earlier than deciding which device is best for you.

That will help you make one of the best determination, we’ve compiled an inventory of one of the best free textual content editors in accordance with knowledge collected from actual person critiques.

On this checklist, distributors providing a free trial are additionally thought-about free. 

To be included on this checklist, an answer will need to have at the very least one of many following options:

• Syntax highlighting and folding
• Customizable interface
• Auto-completion
• Multi-language surroundings help
• Debugging
• Model management
• Cross-platform enhancing
• In-line editors
• Excessive pace, low footprint

*This knowledge was pulled from G2 on January 24, 2024, and the product checklist is ranked alphabetically. Some critiques could have been edited for readability.

Atom is an open-source textual content editor created by GitHub. It has quite a lot of instruments and themes to customise your expertise. Atom integrates straight with Git and GitHub, that are designed particularly for Home windows customers.

What customers like finest:

“This open-source software program is free and provides many highly effective plugins and extensions. Moreover, it boasts distinctive developer help and an energetic and useful group that gives alternatives for studying and collaboration. The device encompasses a handy collaboration operate that allows seamless teamwork with colleagues, and it is extremely user-friendly and intuitive, making it straightforward to get began and shortly stand up to hurry.”

–Atom Evaluate, Vaibhav Okay.

What customers dislike:

“As a consequence of its wide selection of functionalities, Atom could pose a steep studying curve for brand spanking new customers who could have to turn into conversant in all of the accessible options and shortcuts. Moreover, some customers have reported occasional crashes and bugs with Atom, which could be irritating for these looking for a secure and dependable expertise.”

–Atom Evaluate, Akshaj M.

BBEdit is a textual content editor designed to cater to the wants of software program builders on macOS. It has a wealthy set of options for enhancing, looking, and manipulating prose, supply code, and textual knowledge, making it a go-to device for professionals. BBEdit permits you to entry many coding options and get knowledge science help with out sacrificing pace. 

What customers like finest:

“BBEdit helps many file codecs like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and many others. It provides builders many options resembling syntax highlighting, auto-completion, search and substitute, and many others. BBEdit maintains its reliability and meets the evolving wants of its customers by often releasing updates that introduce new options and repair bugs.”

–BBEdit Evaluate, Jayant J.

What customers dislike:

“I’ve seen that the launch time and tab switching within the newest macOS variations could be fairly sluggish, inflicting vital lag when utilizing the device.”

–BBEdit Evaluate, Shubham V.

Bluefish is a free, open-source textual content editor. It helps HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python, to call a couple of. Bluefish has a clear interface with options like syntax highlighting, code folding, auto-completion, and code snippets. It additionally consists of built-in help for distant file enhancing and model management techniques like Git. 

What customers like finest:

“Bluefish takes up little or no house in your onerous disk. It’s user-friendly and comparatively accessible, making it straightforward to make use of with out technical information. Moreover, it permits one to work seamlessly with numerous programming languages.”

–Bluefish Evaluate, Salini Okay.

What customers dislike:

“Whereas Bluefish permits you to handle a number of open textual content recordsdata on numerous tabs concurrently, it typically turns into sluggish or unresponsive, significantly for recordsdata with greater than 50,000 traces.”

–Bluefish Evaluate, Jake S.

Brackets is a robust, light-weight textual content editor device for internet designers and front-end builders. It’s a supply code editor centered totally on internet growth. Developed by Adobe Inc. and licensed beneath MIT, Brackets is written in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It’s at present maintained on GitHub by open-source builders, making certain its continued evolution and relevance within the fast-paced world of internet growth.

What customers like finest:

“Brackets has a easy and intuitive interface, which makes it preferrred for newcomers. It has complete options resembling discover and substitute, autocompletion, and code collaboration that satisfies the necessities of most builders.”

–Brackets Evaluate, Janak R.

What customers dislike:

“It takes lots of time to open giant recordsdata, and this system often hangs when working with advanced Extensible Markup Language (XML) file codes. It doesn’t provide optimum code completion ideas. Moreover, the default theme choice is proscribed. Whereas the default is a darkish theme, it won’t swimsuit those that choose lighter interfaces.”

– Brackets Evaluate, Jeevan Okay.

CodePen is a dynamic social growth surroundings for front-end designers and builders. It has an open-source code editor that permits you to create HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code snippets, known as “pens,” and check them immediately. With its huge group of customers, you’ll be able to all the time discover somebody to collaborate with. 

What customers like finest:

“CodePen is an easy-to-use code editor on the internet. It may be very helpful for operating fast and easy applications. As somebody who teaches coding, I like to recommend utilizing CodePen for newcomers since you do not have to cope with advanced processes of together with localhost or something like that.”

–Codepen Evaluate, Betsegaw G.

What customers dislike:

“Many instruments can be found however not sensible for actual code growth conditions. The premium model is costlier, and you’ll’t work on it offline. Moreover, the auto code completion is a bit poor in comparison with others.”

– Codepen Evaluate, Lokesh S.

Edit+ is a sturdy and versatile textual content editor particularly designed for Home windows customers. It comes with superior options which are important for internet builders and programmers. The software program helps syntax highlighting and permits customers so as to add customized syntax recordsdata for different programming languages. 

What customers like finest:

“The most effective half about utilizing Edit+ is that I can open a number of tabs concurrently whereas coding, and it not solely highlights the error within the code but additionally within the tab, which makes it straightforward to find the error.”

–Edit+ Evaluate, Mubeen M.

What customers dislike:

“They need to add a couple of libraries and code autocomplete options. One of many must-have options of editors these days is file evaluating, and Edit+ doesn’t have that. “

– Edit+ Evaluate, Rahul G.

Gedit is a flexible and user-friendly textual content editor initially developed in 1998 as a part of the GNU Community Object Mannequin Atmosphere (GNOME) venture. With Gedit, you’ll be able to open and edit numerous American Commonplace Code for Data Interchange (ASCII) recordsdata shortly and simply. This makes it appropriate for easy note-taking and extra advanced software program growth duties. Its superior options, resembling syntax highlighting, search and substitute, and plug-in help, make it a robust device.

What customers like finest:

“Gedit’s user-friendly interface makes it a good selection for customers of all expertise ranges. The excellent set of options that allows one to code successfully. It’s a well known device and a preferred selection for builders. Furthermore, you’ll find many sources and articles for person help.”

– Gedit Evaluate, Miquel G.

What customers dislike:

“This device provides complete options however could be difficult to use successfully. Particularly, the command-line interface (CLI) instruments require a greater person interface, particularly for Linux OS customers. To reinforce the general usability of the software program, the builders should give attention to making the present options extra accessible. They need to additionally develop new options that compete with well-liked editors like Elegant Textual content.”

– Gedit Evaluate, Apoorv N.

Notepad++ is a free textual content editor based mostly on the Scintilla open-source library. The builders behind Notepad++ strongly give attention to energy conservation and minimizing their customers’ carbon footprints. As an open-source device, Notepad++ helps user-made plugins and tutorials.

What customers like finest:

“Notepad++ stands out for being each a free and highly effective textual content editor. The device has quite a few options that may be enhanced with plugins. Notably, it helps formatting HTML, XML, and JSON and encoding and decoding BASE64. You possibly can edit by column, search and substitute throughout a number of recordsdata in a folder, make reside edits over File Switch Protocol (FTP), and rather more. General, Notepad++ is price trying out.”

– Notepad++ Evaluate, Patrick R.

What customers dislike:

“The device may gain advantage from general person interface enhancements, particularly for file show. It additionally requires clever auto-completion of code features and options.”

– Notepad++ Evaluate, Andrew H.

Oxygen XML Editor is a complete XML editor appropriate for newcomers and consultants. Out there on a number of platforms, it may be used as a standalone utility or as an Eclipse plug-in. With Oxygen XML Editor, customers can work with numerous XML-based applied sciences and use instruments for creating, enhancing, and publishing paperwork.

What customers like finest:

“Oxygen is an XML-based editor that provides many spectacular options. For one, it’s straightforward to code on and troubleshoot. Moreover, the software program gives ample output format choices.”

– Oxygen XML Editor Evaluate, Priyanka U.

What customers dislike:

“I’ve used this device for over a decade, and AI has not but been built-in to assist with content material identification from content material administration techniques (CMS). There is a chance for automation to streamline this course of. Moreover, printing the output is usually difficult..”

–Oxygen XML Editor Evaluate, Vishnu H.

Elegant Textual content is a robust textual content editor with all of the instruments you have to refine your workflow and obtain your objectives. Its superior options make it a favourite amongst builders, writers, and designers. With lightning-fast efficiency and a variety of customizable choices, Elegant Textual content is a best choice for anybody who wants a dependable and environment friendly textual content editor. 

What customers like finest:

“The software program has a light-weight and modern design, supporting numerous languages resembling JS and HTML. It additionally consists of plugins like JSON that assist improve its options. It’s extremely customizable, and the free model works exceptionally effectively. I’ve but to discover a have to pay for any various software program.”

– SublimeText Evaluate, Amit Okay.

What customers dislike:

“The software program lacks many fundamental options, resembling a multi-level clipboard, bullets and numbering, auto-correct, and spell verify. Together with these options may assist enhance person productiveness and effectivity.”

– SublimeText Evaluate, Adnan N.

TextEdit is a complete open-source phrase processor and textual content editor that helps numerous doc codecs, together with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, PERL, and SQL. This versatile device lets customers open and edit wealthy textual content paperwork created in Microsoft Phrase or OpenOffice. 

What customers like finest:

“TextEdit is a user-friendly textual content editor. It helps me shortly save quick notes and photos from the clipboard. “

– TextEdit Evaluate, Ikhlaq Ul F.

What customers dislike:

“Many macOS customers are unaware that the working system has a built-in textual content editor and solely uncover it by way of thorough analysis. Whereas TextEdit’s usability is commendable, the interface feels outdated. It will even be useful if this system included a built-in formatting device, as many customers, together with myself, have wanted assist with formatting textual content.”

– TextEdit Evaluate, Benny P.

TextPad is a textual content editor for Home windows that has existed since 1992. Developed by Helios Software program Options, it helps numerous codecs and permits you to open, create, and modify plain textual content paperwork simply. With its intuitive person interface and highly effective options, TextPad is a superb selection for builders.

What customers like finest:

“TextPad is a flexible device that can be utilized for programming in a number of languages. It permits customers to take notes and concurrently evaluate two texts. Moreover, it provides numerous plugins, which broaden the device’s performance.”

– TextPad Evaluate, Uddipan M.

What customers dislike:

“TextPad is barely accessible on the Home windows platform, which limits the scope of use. It will be good to see a macOS and Linux model of this editor. Moreover, including a selection of a darkish mode may very well be useful to many customers.”

– TextPad Evaluate, Aeshwer T.

Textmate is a extremely customizable open-source textual content editor for macOS that helps many programming languages. Its options embody declarative customizations, tabs for open paperwork, recordable macros, part folding, snippets, and shell integration. Created by Allan Odgaard, Textmate is flexible and straightforward to make use of, making it a preferred selection for builders of all talent ranges.

What customers like finest:

“I’m a senior developer and have been utilizing Textmate for a very long time. As Notepad++ shouldn’t be accessible on macOS, that is one of the best various. There are a number of options, resembling file search, macros, bundles, and extra. It additionally has many choices that mean you can customise the editor. I discovered the a number of Carets possibility useful because it permits you to make adjustments at completely different locations. “

– Textmate Evaluate, Alwin A.

What customers dislike:

“This software program is barely suitable with macOS and can’t be used on Home windows working techniques. 

–Textmate Evaluate, Vivin V.

UltraEdit is a high-performance textual content editor utilized by over 4 million professionals and plenty of Fortune 500 enterprise clients. A trusted device for professionals, it caters to varied industries’ most crucial enhancing wants. UltraEdit can also be a extremely customizable and themed code editor identified for its distinctive efficiency and skill to deal with and course of giant recordsdata and knowledge with help for nearly any language or syntax. It’s closest to an built-in growth surroundings (IDE), providing Git integration, debugging options, and workspace administration. 

What customers like finest:

“UltraEdit combines a number of capabilities in a single product, making it simpler to make use of and automate repetitive duties utilizing macros. The recorded macros are quick, and suggestions throughout macro execution is superb. It excels at enhancing giant recordsdata and outperforms different merchandise.”

–UltraEdit Evaluate, Doug F.

What customers dislike:

“Regardless of its spectacular function set, UltraEdit’s menus can typically turn into overwhelming, making it difficult to search out particular functionalities. As a long-time person of over 15 years, I’ve skilled this firsthand.”

–UltraEdit Evaluate, Robert S.

Visible Studio Code is a free and open-source textual content editor with a library of extensions to customise your expertise. It incorporates built-in help for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Node.js. The platform’s numerous extensions are designed to run in separate processes to stop the editor from slowing down.

What customers like finest:

“Visible Studio Code is one of the best IDE! It helps the addition of many extensions and plugins. It accepts all programming languages like Java, Python, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and C#. The most effective factor is that GitHub is already built-in into the editor. “

–Visible Studio Code Evaluate, Vijay B.

What customers dislike:

“It may be difficult for brand spanking new customers to navigate. Whereas many plugins can be found for obtain, it may possibly take time to find and decide which most accurately fits your wants.”

–Visible Studio Code Evaluate, Sahil Okay.

The place syntax meets semantics

The most recent development in software program growth is low-code and no-code growth platforms, which permit builders to create functions with minimal coding utilizing visible interfaces and drag-and-drop options. This has made app growth extra accessible to folks with no programming background.

No matter your technical experience, instruments can be found that will help you construct the online and app tasks you have to reach at the moment’s world. It’s possible you’ll have already got a lowkey internet designer in your crew, or it’s possible you’ll determine to take the reins. A little bit HTML know-how can go a good distance in 2024. 

Learn extra about how low-code platforms are trending in software program growth circles.

This text was initially printed in 2019. It has been up to date with new data.