Best Open Source Text Editor for Windows 11/10

This post covers the best open-source text editor software for your Windows 11/10 PC. There are several good open-source text editors available for the Windows operating system. Choosing the one that best suits your needs is important; not only for your workflow but for several other reasons.

The right text editor can significantly improve your productivity and efficiency by offering features such as easy navigation, syntax highlighting, and auto-completion. If you’re working on a particular programming language, it can provide integration with development tools specific to that language. Many text editors are also highly customizable, allowing you to add plugins, extensions, and themes that offer a more personalized experience.

Best Open Source Text Editor for Windows 11/10

Here’s a list of the best Open Source Text Editor software for Windows 11/10 PC:

Notepad++
Sublime Text
Brackets
Geany

Let us have a detailed look at their key features.

1] Notepad++

Notepad++ is one of the best free text editor software out there. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is free to use. It has plenty of useful features that allow users to perform complex text editing tasks with ease. Some of its key features include syntax highlighting for a wide variety of file formats, multilanguage support, powerful search and replace capabilities, auto-completion for words and functions, a highly customizable graphical user interface, and support for a wide variety of plugins that add new features and functionalities to the app.

Notepad++ is a lightweight application (just 5 MB in size). It has a multi-tabbed interface that allows users to work with multiple documents simultaneously. Plus it also allows for split-screen views, making it easier to compare documents side-by-side.

2] Sublime Text

Sublime Text is another powerful open-source text editor available for the Windows operating system. It is widely known for its speed and responsiveness and offers a smooth editing experience, even when dealing with large files. Some of its key features include auto-completion suggestions, syntax highlighting, quick navigation, powerful search and replace, split view, and distraction-free mode.

The user interface of Sublime Text is highly customizable. Users can personalize the editor’s appearance and behavior using various color schemes, themes (default and adaptive), and layout options. It has a built-in package manager called ‘Package Control’ that allows users to add new features and functionalities to the editor conveniently. You can download and evaluate Sublime Text for free. There’s no enforced time limit for the evaluation as of now, but to support the project you may buy a license. Use this link to download Sublime Text for your Windows 11/10 PC.

3] Brackets

Brackets is an open-source, modern text editor released under the MIT License. While it can be used as a general-purpose text editor, its features and design make it particularly well-suited for web development tasks. One of the most notable features of Brackets is Live Preview. It enables users to see real-time changes in the browser while they update HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

Brackets comes with a customizable interface and supports different themes to personalize its look and feel. Apart from common text editing capabilities such as syntax highlighting, split view, and plugin support, it offers support for preprocessor languages like LESS and Sass, Inline Editing, and and other features tailored to the needs of web developers. Click here to get Brackets for your Windows 11/10 PC.

4] Geany

Geany is a simple and lightweight text editor with basic IDE (integrated development environment) features. It is available under the General Public License (GPL v2) and is free to use. Geany supports working with multiple documents simultaneously, making it easier to switch between files. It offers syntax highlighting, code folding (collapse and expand sections of code), auto-completion, powerful search and replace functionalities, and many other interesting features that make it an efficient choice for users who prefer a lightweight yet feature-rich environment for text editing.

Geany has built-in support for over 50 programming languages and many other useful file types, such as ini-style config files, Diff output, SQL files, etc. The user interface of Geany can be customized to suit individual preferences and its features can easily be extended through its extensive plugin support. Download Geany using this link.

I hope you find this useful.

Read: TED Notepad, a free Notepad alternative for power users.

Is there a text editor in Windows 11?

Yes, Windows 11 comes with built-in text editors called Notepad and WordPad. While Notepad is a basic and lightweight text editor, WordPad is a more feature-rich editor that supports rich text formatting. You may use any of them for basic text editing, but for more advanced text editing or programming tasks, you need third-party text editors or integrated development environments (IDEs).

Does Windows 11 have Notepad++?

Notepad++ doesn’t come pre-installed on Windows 11. It is a third-party text editor that can be downloaded and installed separately. Notepad++ is much advanced than Notepad (the default text editor in Windows) and offers many features, such as syntax highlighting, auto-completion, code folding, plugins, and more. If you want, you can replace Notepad with Notepad++ as the default text editor in Windows.