Source code editors play a huge role in develpoment of various websites by providing essential features like syntax highlighting, autocomplete, bracket matching, plugins, snippets, live preview and an integrated FTP client. This post includes powerful and most commonly used source code and text editors for Windows, Mac and Linux and I hope that it will provide you with enough information to help choosing one for yourself.

While this post is named the Ultimate collection, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it should contain each and every one of the code editors available. I have put a list of 50 editors that have a solid user base and over time have received a positive feedback from programmers and designers all across the globe.

In case you don’t find your favorite editor, please leave a comment and I will make sure to add it to this list. I would also like to hear which one/ones you prefer and why. Without further due, I present you the 50 Best Source Code Editors – The Ultimate Collection.

1. Aptana Studio (Windows, Mac, Linux)

The world’s most powerful open-source web development IDE just got better. Rebuilt from the ground-up. It’s now much faster, customizable and includes new features to help you be more productive.

Some of Aptana Studio’s features:

• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Code Assist.
• Integrated Debugger.
• Git Integration.
• Built-in Terminal.
• IDE Customization.

2. Arachnophilia (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Arachnophilia is a successor to WebThing, a popular HTML editor. It is a web page development workshop and general programming tool.

Some of Arachnophilia’s features:

• Built-in, intelligent FTP client.
• Automatic uploading of changed files.
• User defined templates.
• User customizable toolbars for quick access to frequently used tags.
• Global search and replace.
• Multiple document interface with full drag-and-drop capabilities.
• Built-in tutorials.

3. BBEdit (Mac)

BBEdit is an all-purpose text editor. While it is very simple and easy to use for anyone who wants to produce clean text, it is also capable of handling complex work for HTML professionals or software developers. This editor is complex under the surface but it does an excellent job of hiding it with features like color coding which reduces the complexity by allowing you to determine the colors used by BBEdit’s syntax-directed text coloring.

The latest major version, BBEdit 10, is packed with more than 100 new features, revamps, improvements, and significant enhancements. The major features include:

• Reinvented and enhanced HTML markup tools.
• Obsolete and never used preferences have been removed from the GUI to reduce the complexity.
• Reinvented and enhanced HTML markup tools.
• Dropbox support.
• Switchable syntax coloring schemes.
• Packages – a collection of the sort of things to extend BBEdit.
• Search, replace, and edit in Zip archives – edit and save documents opened from within Zip archive (edited files are written back to the Zip archive).

Some of Bluefish’s features:

• Lightweight – Bluefish tries to be lean and clean, as far as possible given it is a GUI editor.
• Fast – Bluefish starts really quick (even on a netbook) and loads hundreds of files within seconds.
• A What You See Is What You Need interface.
• Multiple document interface, easily opens 500+ documents (tested >10000 documents simultaneously).
• Project support, enables you to work efficiently on multiple projects, and automatically restores settings for each project.

5. Coda (Mac)

Coda is a one-window web development application for Macintosh which features all the tools needed to build the future of the web. Developed by Panic in early 2007, Coda quickly became at the center of attention and as a result it won the 2007 Apple Design Award for Best User Experience. The development of Coda is mainly due to the lack of full-featured website development platforms. Prior to the release of Coda, programmers at Panic would have to switch between five or six different programs for coding, testing and reference. The only downside is the license which costs $99. It’s quite expensive compared to others. However, it is always better to use the trial (14 days) and determine if this application is suitable for your needs. I have used Coda for as long as I can remember and I think of continuing of doing so. For this reason, I decided that I should add a few images and a more in-depth look at some major features.

Some of Coda’s features:

• Integrated file browser.
• Fully-featured text editor.
• CSS editor.
• Preview.
• Built-in terminal.
• Complete set of references.
• Elegant interface.

One of the best time-saving features Coda offers are built-in reference guides. Apart from built-in HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP guides, you can also add your own books to your collection.

A very neat feature for code editors is a fancy way to organize your sites, projects, websites, etc.

The built-in, fully-featured CSS editor allows you to create beautiful stylesheets. It also has two editing modes when working on your CSS. In visual mode, you’ll get convenient GUI controls that let you edit your style sheets with point and click simplicity. With text mode, your CSS styles are organized and you can edit the details, directly.

6. CodeLobster (Windows)

Starting developing on PHP, probably you often face the problem which IDE to choose for Windows OS. Codelobster PHP Edition streamlines and simplifies php development process. You don’t need to keep in mind names of functions, arguments, tags and their attributes, methods, etc – it is already implemented for you in the autocomplete feature for PHP, HTML, JavaScript and even CSS. Also, you can always get necessary help information by F1 or using special Help control.

Some of CodeLobster’s features:

• PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS code highlighting.
• PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS code collapsing.
• HTML autocomplete.
• Autocomplete of tags, attributes for current tag, closing tags.
• HTML/CSS code inspector.
• Inspector makes it simple to find HTML elements and its styles buried deep in the page.
• HTML toolbar.
• CSS autocomplete.
• Autocomplete of style property names and values.

7. CoffeeCup HTML Editor (Windows)

You want to create great websites. Totally stellar, kick-butt websites that leave people saying, “Wow, you really made that?” Consider the HTML Editor your new best friend. HTML veterans, you’ll create standards-compliant sites using powerful tools like code completion and built-in validation. Rookies, get ready to learn the ropes with resources like the comprehensive tag reference and vibrant website themes.

Some of CoffeeCup HTML Editor’s features:

• Cross-browser compatibility is important, so the HTML Editor gives you the option to add up to 10 different browsers and then open them from inside the program.
• Certain characters have to be formatted as HTML entities in order to render properly. The Characters tab lets you insert these entities with a click of your mouse.
• The built-in Validate HTML tool opens the W3C markup validation service in your default web browser.
• HTML and CSS code completion.
• The Tags tab is a comprehensive reference for (X)HTML, PHP, and CSS tags.

8. ConTEXT (Windows)

ConTEXT is small, fast and powerful text editor for software developers. It offers syntax highlighting support for the most popular scripting languages. It features unlimited open files without any limits on file sizes. It includes a macro recorder, project support, bookmarks and much more. ConTEXT is highly customizable and allows you to change syntax highlighting colors, cursor shapes, right margin, gutter, line spacing as well as user definable execution keys and other things.

Some of ConTEXT’s features:

• Unlimited open files.
• Unlimited editing file size, 4kB line length.
• Powerful syntax highlighting.
• Customizable syntax highlighter colors, cursors, margin, gutter, line spacing, etc.
• Search and replace with regular expressions.

9. CotEditor (Mac)

CotEditor is a source code editor that allows you to quickly edit code from many programming languages. Some of the programming languages supported by CotEditor are: HTML, Java, Javascript, C, C++, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Shell script, CSS, eRuby, LaTeX.

Some of CotEditor’s features:

• Support for color syntax.
• Supports regexp search (A very easy way to replace words).

10. Crimson Editor (Windows)

Crimson Editor is a professional source code editor for Windows. This program is not only fast in loading time, but also small in size (so small that it can be copied in one floppy disk). While it can serve as a good replacement for Notepad, it also offers many powerful features for programming languages such as HTML, C/C++, Perl and Java.

Some of Crimson Editor’s features:

• Edit multiple documents.
• Syntax highlighting.
• Multi-level undo / redo.
• Project management.
• Directory tree view window.
• Find & Replace.
• Column mode editing.

11. Dreamweaver (Windows, Mac)

Adobe Dreamweaver is the industry-leading web authoring and editing software that provides both visual and code-level capabilities for creating standards-based websites and designs for the desktop, smartphones, tablets, and other devices.

Some of Dreamweaver’s features:

• W3C validation – Use the W3C’s own online validation service to ensure the accuracy of your standards-based web designs.
• Subversion support.
• CSS inspection.
• Intelligent coding assistance – Write clean code with confidence.
• PHP custom class code hinting.

12. Eclipse (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment (IDE) and an extensible plug-in system. It is written mostly in Java but extending it with plugins, Eclipse is capable of supporting many programming languages.

13. EditPlus (Windows)

EditPlus is a text editor, HTML editor, PHP editor, Java editor and Hex Viewer for Windows. While it can serve as a good Notepad replacement, it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers.

Some of EditPlus’s features:

• Syntax highlighting for HTML, PHP, Java, C/C++, CSS, ASP, Perl, JavaScript, VBScript, Python and Ruby on Rails. Also, it can be extended for other programming languages based on custom syntax files.
• Seamless Web browser for previewing HTML pages, and FTP commands for uploading local files to FTP server.
• Other features include Hex Viewer, HTML toolbar, user tools, line number, ruler, URL highlighting, auto completion, cliptext, column selection, powerful search and replace, multiple undo/redo, spell checker, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and more.

Some of EmEditor’s features:

• Keyword Highlighting.
• Unicode Support.
• Plug-ins.
• Find and Replace with regular expressions supporting Unicode.
• Keyboard, toolbar, menu, font and color customization.
• Box-select mode (Mouse select with ALT key).
• The window can be split to a maximum of 4 panes.

16. Espresso (Mac)

Speed, beauty, power. These words describe Espresso the best. Elegant syntax highlighting, superior navigation, code folding, smart CodeSense, contextual text snippets, spell check, rich extensibility and raw speed: presenting a state-of-the-art text engine for code artists.

Also, don’t forget that CSSEdit 3 is build-in! Yes, this means that all of your favorite CSSEdit’s award-winning visual tools are now inside Espresso.

Espresso turbo-charges your workflow with the perfect blend of features. Some of those include:

• Web Preview with X-ray — See how your CSS affects web layouts, visualize margins and padding, and quickly find the relevant style rules for any page element.
• Powerful and Efficient Coding — CodeSense, code folding, smart snippets, Zen coding and the drag-and-drop Navigator help you write better code in less time.
• Language Support — Improved HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and PHP; all-new Ruby, Python, Apache and Markdown. Or extend Espresso with XML/JS Sugars.

17. E – TextEditor (Windows, Linux)

E – TextEditor – the power of TextMate on Windows. Packed with powerful editing features and quite a few unique abilities. It makes manipulating text fast and easy, and lets you focus on your writing by automating all the manual work. You can extend it in any language, and by supporting TextMate bundles, it allows you to tap into a huge and active community.

Some of E – TextEditor’s features:

• Customization – Make the editor fit the way you work. Everything in e from the syntax highlighting themes to bundle commands and keyboard shortcuts can be customized.
• E – TextEditor takes the control and makes writing fun and fast again. Snippets automate tedious and repetitive typing, saving you time and effort. Powerful bundle commands transforms the text to your needs. By letting the computer do the manual work, you get the freedom to concentrate on your writing.

18. Geany (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Geany is a text editor using the GTK2 toolkit with basic features of an integrated development environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. It supports many filetypes and has some nice features.

Some of Geany’s features:

• Syntax highlighting.
• Code folding.
• Symbol name auto-completion.
• Construct completion/snippets.
• Auto-closing of XML and HTML tags.
• Call tips.
• Symbol lists.
• Code navigation.

19. HTML-Kit (Windows)

HTML-Kit is a full-featured website editor designed to help HTML, XHTML and XML authors to edit, format, lookup help, validate, preview and publish web pages. Despite its name and the light download size, HTML-Kit is a multi-purpose tool that has support for several scripting and programming languages.

Some of HTML-Kit’s features:

• Validate HTML, XML and CSS – Validate documents using the graphical user interface for W3C’s HTML Tidy and view automatically corrected code in the output window for side-by-side comparison.
• Highlight all find or replace results at once.
• Automatically backup files being uploaded.
• Full-featured drag & drop enabled editor.
• Auto save documents every X number of minutes.

20. IntelliJ IDEA (Windows, Mac, Linux)

IntelliJ IDEA is a code-centric IDE focused on developer productivity. The editor deeply understands your code and knows its way around the codebase, makes great suggestions right when you need them, and is always ready to help you shape your code. It features a neat feature called language injection – easily recognize one language inside another language. Also, smart, type-aware code completion allows you to save countless time and make your work more productive.

Some of IntelliJ IDEA’s features:

• Intelligent Coding Assistance.
• On-the-fly Code Analysis.
• Code Documentation.
• IDE Customization.
• Open API & Plugins.
• Code Inspections & Fixes.
• Code Duplicates Detection.

21. Intype (Windows)

Intype is a powerful and intuitive code editor for Windows with lightning fast response. It is easily extensible and customizable, thanks in part to its support for scripting and native plug-ins. It makes development in any programming or scripting language quick and easy.

Some of Intype’s features:

• Open multiple files on its tabbed interfaced. Work with as many files as you want.
• Convert text strings to lowercase or uppercase.
• Insert indentations or delete them on your code.
• Find and replace advanced function using regular expressions.
• Autocomplete advanced function.

22. jEdit (Windows, Mac, Linux)

jEdit is a mature programmer’s text editor with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of development behind it. Coded in Java, it is packed full of useful functionality and has snappy response times. jEdit is extensible through a large collection of plugins maintained by a world-wide developer team. Plugin Manager makes adding, updating and removing plugins very straightforward.

Some of jEdit’s features:

• Combines the best functionality of Unix, Windows and MacOS text editors.
• Runs on any operating system with a Java 2 version 1.3 or higher.
• Efficient keyboard shortcuts for everything.
• Comprehensive online help.
• Unlimited undo/redo.
• Copy and paste with an unlimited number of clipboards.

23. Komodo Edit (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Komodo Edit is a fast, smart, free and open-source code editor. Switching your trusty code editor is hard, but give Komodo Edit (or its big brother Komodo IDE) a try: it’ll be worth your while.

Windows, Mac, Linux? Yes. PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, XML, HTML 5, CSS 3? Yes, with (customizable) syntax coloring, folding, background syntax checking, and excellent auto-complete and calltips. What else? Fast open (no more slow poking around for files); remote file editing; Vi keybindings (good ones); and a toolbox with shell command integration, macros and code snippets… all wrapped around a tricked-out editor and an extension mechanism the same as Firefox’s.

Some of Komodo Edit’s features:

• Auto-complete & Calltips that Rock – Write code faster and shorten the learning curve with code completion that guides you as you work.
• Extensible – The Code Intelligence system is very extensible. Extensions can provide support for new languages. As well, the following provide some simpler hooks.
• Syntax Coloring – Fast and accurate syntax coloring for dozens of languages.
• Kick-ass Find & Replace – Komodo’s Find & Replace system is fast and friendly. It supports full regular expression syntax (with Rx integration), Find/Replace in Files (with confirmation), Find/Replace in Project, multiline search, Unicode support.

24. NetBeans (Windows, Mac, Linux)

The NetBeans IDE is an award-winning integrated development environment available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. The NetBeans project consists of an open-source IDE and an application platform that enable developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications using the Java platform, as well as PHP, JavaScript and Ajax, Groovy and Grails, and C/C++.

Some of NetBeans’s features:

• Code Bookmarks – Bookmark lines of code for easy browsing later.
• syntax highlighting, code completion, occurrence highlighting, error highlighting.
• PHP code debugging.
• Code coverage.
• Zend Framework support

25. Notepad++ (Windows)

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and also a lightweight Notepad replacement that supports syntax highlighting and syntax folding for 52 programming, scripting, and markup languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License. It has has support for macros and plugins.

Notepad++ has long been my favorite code editor for Windows. The simplicity of the interface is just amazing. It doesn’t matter if you’re professional or a rookie, it is easy to understand and use, it writes clean code. You can compile and run macros, convert text to Hex, submit directly to W3C for validation, launch in Firefox and IE, and more. There’s also a built-in spell-checker. In a nutshell – If there’s one code editor that is almost perfect and that most programmers can’t live without, it definitely is Notepad++

Some of Notepad plus plus’s features:

• Tabbed document interface.
• Drag-and-drop.
• Multiple clipboards (plugin required).
• Split screen editing and synchronized scrolling.
• Spell checker (requires Aspell) (Spell checker does not distinguish between text and code).
• Supports text encoding formats such as Unicode, for international writing systems.
• Find and replace over multiple documents.
• File comparison.
• Zooming.
• Auto-completion.
• Bookmarks.
• Syntax highlighting and syntax folding.
• Brace and indent highlighting.
• Regular expression find and replace.
• Speech synthesis.
• FTP Browser (plug-in included in standard installation).
• Macro recording and execution.
• Various tools such as line sorting, text encoding conversion, text folding.
• File status auto-detection.
• Plugins for multiline regular expression search and replace.

26. NoteTab (Windows)

NoteTab is a leading text editor, popular Notepad replacement, and powerful code-based HTML editor. Winner of software industry awards since 1998, this application does it all: it easily handles a stack of huge files; lets you format text to your heart’s content; does system-wide searches, and multi-line global replacements. It even corrects your spelling mistakes. Build document templates, add bookmarks, convert text to HTML on-the-fly, and take charge of your code. Use a simple, power-packed scripting language to create anything from a text macro to a mini-application.

Some of NoteTab’s features:

• Performance: Fast document handling and text processing, feature rich, bloat free, and reliable.
• Undo/Redo: Offers multi-level undo/redo text editing.
• Highlighting: Highlights URLs, HTML tags, Clip code, and Hyperlinks.
• Bookmarks: Lets you place bookmarks in your text.
• Nonprinting: Option to reveal nonprinting characters.
• Numbering: Includes a line-count ruler.

Some of Vim’s features:

• Syntax highlighting can be used to define your own systax.
• Edit-Compile-Fix: You edit a program, type “:make” and Vim shows the error messages in a window.
• highlighting matches.
• Key mapping, color changing, new command adding, script usage.
• completion, comparison and merging of files.
• extended regular expressions.

48. Visual Studio (Windows)

Microsoft Visual Studio is a powerful IDE that ensures quality code throughout the entire application lifecycle, from design to deployment. Whether you’re developing applications for SharePoint, the web, Windows, Windows Phone, and beyond, Visual Studio is your ultimate all-in-one solution.

Some of Visual Studio’s features:

• IntelliSense – drop-down list that lists matching type or member names while you type.
• Code editor – Visual Studio, like any other IDE, includes a code editor that supports syntax highlighting and code completion.
• Debugger – Visual Studio includes a debugger that works both as a source-level debugger and as a machine-level debugger.
• Open Tabs Browser – The open tabs browser is used to list all open tabs and to switch between them.
• Text Generation Framework – A full text generation framework called T4 which enables Visual Studio to generate text files from templates either in the IDE or via code.

49. WeBuilder (Windows)

WeBuilder is revolutionary all-in-one web code editor for all your web document editing needs. Clean and convenient interface, quick startup, true flexibility and powerful features allow you to create and edit code faster and easier than ever, while integrated tools enable you to validate, reuse, navigate and deploy your code in an efficient and sophisticated manner.

Some of WeBuilder’s features:

• Line numbering, Gutter, Margin.
• UTF-8 Unicode support.
• Word wrap.
• Multiple level Undo/Redo.
• Syntax Highlighting supports many languages.
• Code Inspector for CSS properties.
• Auto Complete for CSS properties.
• Open/save documents from/to FTP or SFTP server.
• Built-In Preview (Internet Explorer and FireFox).

50. Zend Studio (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Zend Studio is the only Integrated Development Environment (IDE) available for professional developers providing the capabilities needed to develop business applications. Features like refactoring, code generation, code assist and semantic analysis combine to enable rapid application development on both the server side (in PHP) and the browser side (in JavaScript). Zend Studio also makes it simple to develop in a production-like environment by integrating with VMware Workstation for running and debugging PHP applications.

Some of Zend Studio’s features:

• Code Analysis & Quick Fix.
• Quick New File Creation.
• Code Formatter.
• Integrated PHP/JavaScript Debugging.
• Firefox / IE Toolbars.
• Syntax Coloring & Code Assist.
• HTML Real Time Error Detection.
• Code Folding.
• Automatic Closing Tag.
• Code Formatting.

Conclusions

Writing this post was very time consuming and informative at the same time. I learned about editors that I had never heard of. While some of you may know each and every one of these editors and IDE’s, there are always people who seek ways to make their coding life easier and more productive. This may seem like a huge and complete list, but I definitely sense that I have left out some editors so please do leave a comment. I hope that this post has been as informative and as useful for you as it has been to me.

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