As a developer , working with some kind of text editor is part of our day to day workflow .
No matter what technology or language you work with a fast , simple and feature rich text editor is always a plus to speed up the workflow .
Here are my recommendations for light , fast and feature rich text editor for Linux .
- Vim
- Nano
- Gedit
- Kate
- Bluefish
- Emacs
- Atom
- Sublime
- VScode
Contents
VIM
Vim is modified version of legendary VI command line text editor . This is default text editor for many server linux OS and desktop linux also . VIM is super light , fast and extensible .
Although vim is light , it is very much powerful . Vim keyboard shortcuts make it very powerful . If you are a keyboard centric person , Vim is for you .
Another feature that make Vim powerful is its extensibility . Vim Awesome is the store full of vim extensions and plugins . We can get virtually any feature we want in vim with these extensions .
There are other flavours of vim like gvim , neovim that target keyboard + mouse based workflow and GUI interfaces . If you are fan of GUI but want to have power of Vim , it is for you .
Vim Official Site : welcome home : vim online
Nano
Nano is yet another another command line based fast and light text editor . The best thing about nano is its easy workflow and small disk footprint . Again just as vim , nano is a keyboard centric text editor as its meant for console use .
Official Site : nano – Text editor (nano-editor.org)
Gedit
Third one in our list is Gedit . It’s not a command line editor but a fully featured GUI text editor .
Gedit supports all the modern text editing and code editing features . Also it has wide range of plugins for all kinds of extra functionality like version control .
Official Site : Apps/Gedit – GNOME Wiki!
Kate
When talking about text editors , one cannot miss kate . Its an offering from KDE plasma desktop . Kate is built on Qt framework as KDE plasma uses it . Its default text for KDE plasma . If you are a KDE plasma fanboy , its the go to choice for you . For others who want to try options , its a greate choice .
Kate is available for windows , mac and Linux .
Official Site : Kate – Get an Edge in Editing (kate-editor.org)
Bluefish
Unlike other options we have covered so far , Bluefish is a full IDE rather than text editor . But the best part is , its still as light as a text editor . Bluefish supports various technologies , languages and has all modern code editing features .
Official Site : Bluefish Editor : Home (openoffice.nl)
Emacs
GNU Emacs is yet another text editor with a huage fanbase . No matter if you are on command line or GUI , you must try emacs once . Emacs offers super light and fast text editing experience . Emacs come with a learning curve . If you want to explore all the options and want to become a power user , its for you .
Official Site : GNU Emacs – GNU Project
Atom
Now we enter the territory of mid to high spec text editors . Atom is not the lightest on resources out there but definitely a feature rich editor . It has support for large number of languages and technologies .
Atom has large collection of themes , extensions and plugins so you can make it your own .
Atom is available for mac , windows and linux .
Official Site : Atom
Sublime
Sublime Text is one of the most popular cross platform , light weight , feature rich , fast text editor. But sublime Text is a Proprietary Freeware software . If you are absolute fan of open source tech , you may not like it .
Official Site : Sublime Text – Text Editing, Done Right
VS Code
This is the project that doesn’t need special introduction . The default standard for all sorts of coding tasks . VS Code is a Open Source , Modern , Extensible , Text and code editor Offered by Microsoft . It is Built on Electron Js and uses Monaco editor as its text editor .
VSCode has huge store for themes and extensions . We can develop any kind of coding and software project with VSCode . with proper settings , extensions and configurations , VSC can be converted to full fledge IDE .
VSCode Official Site : Visual Studio Code – Code Editing. Redefined
So this is my list of recommended Text editors for Linux Users in 2022 . Let me know which one you use . And also if I missed any , don’t forget to mention in comments .
See You in the next one !