Scratch

Scratch is the text editor that works for you. It auto-saves your files, meaning they're always up-to-date. Plus it remembers your tabs so you never lose your spot, even in between sessions. Make it yours.

Free
Open Source
Linux

scratch is the text editor that works for you. it autosaves your files, meaning they're always uptodate. plus it remembers your tabs so you never lose your spot, even in between sessions.

make it yours. scratch is written from the ground up to be extensible. keep things super lightweight and simple, or install extensions to turn scratch into a fullblown ide; it's your choice. and with a handful of useful preferences, you can tweak the behavior and interface to your liking.

it's elementary. scratch is made to be the perfect text editor for elementary, meaning it closely follows the high standards of design, speed, and consistency. it's sexy, but not distracting.

works with your language. whether you're crafting code in vala, scripting with php, or marking things up in html, scratch has you covered. experience full syntax highlighting with nearly all programming, scripting, and markup languages.

other syntaxhighlighted languages: bash, c, c#, c++. cmake, css, .desktop, diff, fortran, gettext, ini, java, javascript, latex, lua, makefile, objective c, pascal, perl, python, ruby, xml.

Links to official Scratch sites

Official Website
Twitter
Facebook

Features

Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Tabbed interface Lightweight Scripting Syntax Highlighting

The Best 32 Scratch Alternatives

syntax-highlighting filter is active.

1651 Like

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features.

Freemium Mac OS X Windows Linux

Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Portable Lightweight Auto saving Distraction free UI Syntax Highlighting Minimap Optimized for fast boot Autocompletion Plugin API Code completion Automatic packaging Memory footprint Multiple cursors Package Control Plugins Feature Scriptwriting Assistant
1021 Like

Vim

Vim ("Vi IMproved") is an advanced text editor that allows syntax highlighting, word completion and has a huge amount of contributed content. It also has a GUI version called GVim.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux BSD Haiku OpenSolaris

Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Lightweight Spell checking Syntax Highlighting Plugin manager Configurability Keyboard focused Modal editor Small size Terminal based Visual Mode Word completion Works on all OSs
834 Like

Atom

A hackable text editor for the 21st Century. At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux BSD Electron / Atom Shell

Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Support for Themes Distraction free UI Interior Design Syntax Highlighting Community based Minimap Modular System Autocompletion GitHub integration Plugin API GIT support Code completion Gitlab integration Multiple cursors Package Control Plugins Feature Fuzzy Finder Hackable Integrated Development Environment Support for Multiple programming languages Separated workspaces Support for NodeJS Unit Testing
614 Like

gedit

Official text editor of the GNOME desktop environment. Has syntax highlighting and is suitable for programming, with support for several languages. It is extensible with plugins.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux BSD GNOME OpenSolaris

Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Lightweight Spell checking Syntax Highlighting Autocompletion
368 Like

Visual Studio Code

Code combines the streamlined UI of a modern editor with rich code assistance and navigation, and an integrated debugging experience – without the need for a full IDE.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux Electron / Atom Shell

Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Support for Javascript MarkDown support Lightweight Syntax Highlighting Mercurial support Version and Source control Dark theme Plugin support Autocompletion Bugs GIT support Code completion Intellisense Multiple cursors C# Scripting Embedded debugger Built in Terminal Git integration
280 Like

Notepad2

Notepad2 is a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. Simple as possible, but yet powerful. Has full Unicode support.

Free Open Source Windows

Portable Lightweight Syntax Highlighting Small size
279 Like

GNU Emacs

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux BSD

Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Scripting Syntax Highlighting Package Control Terminal based Self documenting
245 Like

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

Commercial

Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Support for Themes Syntax Highlighting Search and replace Automatic Indentation
190 Like

PSPad

PSPad is a freeware programmers editor in 8 languages for Microsoft Windows operating systems. Some features are highlighted syntax, ftp, projects and so on.

Free Windows

Portable Lightweight Syntax Highlighting
172 Like

Kate

Text editor for the KDE desktop environment with support for multiple languages and syntax highlighting. It is extensible with plugins. Features a MDI interface.

Free Open Source Windows Linux BSD KDE

Tabbed interface Syntax Highlighting Support for regular expressions Code formatting
38 Like

Notepad2-mod

A modified version (fork) of Notepad2 based on Kai Liu's and other people's patches.

Free Open Source Windows

Portable Support for Unicode Syntax Highlighting Bookmarks Feature
27 Like

SynWrite

SynWrite is a free source code editor and notepad replacement for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems.

Free Open Source Windows Total Commander

Portable Syntax Highlighting
27 Like

RJ TextEd

RJ TextEd is a full featured text and source editor with Unicode support, syntax highlighting and code folding.

Free Windows

Portable Syntax Highlighting
25 Like

Caret

professional text editing for chrome and chrome os. caret is a graphical text editor modeled on http://alternativein .

Free Chrome OS Web Chrome

Works Offline Syntax Highlighting Code completion
19 Like

slap

slap is a Sublime-like terminal-based text editor that strives to make editing from the terminal easier.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux Node.JS

Portable Syntax Highlighting Command line interface
14 Like

Zed Code Editor

Zed is a fully offline-capable text and code editor you can use to edit files locally, on Dropbox, or remotely on any server.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux Chrome OS Web Chrome

Works Offline Dropbox integration Syntax Highlighting Code completion
9 Like

Text Editor Pro

Text Editor Pro (formerly EditBone) is a powerful text editing tool that comes with syntax highlighting, support for over 50 languages and scripts, 22 different styles, a handy file comparison feature and support for multiple directories...

Free Open Source Windows

Portable Syntax Highlighting
8 Like

TwistPad

Twistpad is a fully featured text and code editor for Windows. Twistpad can be used as a simple notepad replacer, or a featured packed editor targeting web and software developers.

Commercial Windows

Portable Tabbed interface Support for Unicode Syntax Highlighting Search and replace
4 Like

TEA

TEA is a fast, pure C++ text editor for UNIX, Mac, OS/2 and Windows.

Free Open Source Mac OS X Windows Linux

Tabbed interface Syntax Highlighting Built in File Manager Built in Image converter Built in Image viewer Built in archiver
2 Like

FavoText

FavoText is a text editor, which supports editing file with text/hex format, syntax highlighting and auto completion; it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers.

Commercial Windows

Syntax Highlighting Support for SFTP Web log analysis

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Scratch

Links to official Scratch sites

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The Best 32 Scratch Alternatives

Sublime Text

Vim

Atom

gedit

Visual Studio Code

Notepad2

GNU Emacs

TextMate

PSPad

Kate

Notepad2-mod

SynWrite

RJ TextEd

Caret

slap

Zed Code Editor

Text Editor Pro

TwistPad

TEA

FavoText

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