Top Alternatives to Aquamacs Emacs

Notepad++ is a widely-used free and open-source text and source code editor for Windows. Built on the Scintilla editing component, it offers a rich set of features for programmers, including syntax highlighting for multiple languages, code folding, macro recording, and a tabbed interface for managing multiple files efficiently. Its lightweight design ensures fast performance even with large files.

Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, markup, and prose. It's known for its speed, powerful features, and extensive customization options. With features like multiple cursors, GoTo Anything, and a robust plugin ecosystem, it's a favorite among developers and writers alike for boosting productivity and creating a tailored editing environment.

Eclipse is a powerful, open-source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) widely used for Java development, but also supporting a variety of other programming languages through its extensive plugin ecosystem. It provides a robust set of tools for coding, debugging, testing, and deployment.

Vim is an advanced, highly configurable text editor designed for efficiency, particularly favored by developers. Operating primarily in the terminal, it offers powerful editing capabilities through keyboard commands, syntax highlighting, and extensive plugin support, making it a cornerstone tool for programming and advanced text manipulation.

Atom is a highly customizable and extensible open-source text editor developed by GitHub. Built on Electron, it provides a modern, hackable platform for developers, offering robust features like syntax highlighting, Git integration, and a vast ecosystem of packages to enhance productivity and tailor the editing experience to individual needs.

gedit is a free and open-source text and code editor for the GNOME desktop environment. Known for its simplicity and clean interface, gedit provides essential features for both general text editing and basic code development, making it a popular choice for users seeking a straightforward and efficient tool.

Geany is a powerful yet lightweight text editor that bridges the gap between basic editors and full-fledged IDEs. It provides essential development environment features like syntax highlighting, code navigation, and a built-in terminal, making it suitable for a wide range of programming tasks.

GNU Emacs is a highly extensible and customizable text editor, renowed for its powerful features and ability to serve as a complete development environment. It is based on the Emacs Lisp programming language, allowing for deep customization and a vast ecosystem of packages.

TextMate is a robust and feature-rich graphical text editor for macOS, specifically designed for developers. It offers syntax highlighting, powerful macros, bundles for extensibility, and a highly customizable interface to streamline coding workflows.

PSPad is a versatile, freeware text and code editor designed for Microsoft Windows. It offers a rich set of features for developers, including syntax highlighting, a built-in FTP client, project management, and a hex editor, all within a lightweight and portable package.

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a free, open-source, lightweight yet powerful source code editor developed by Microsoft. It supports a wide range of programming languages and offers robust features like debugging, intelligent code completion (IntelliSense), built-in Git control, and an extensive ecosystem of extensions for enhanced functionality. Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, VS Code has become a popular choice for developers across various disciplines.

GNU nano is a user-friendly command-line text editor widely used on Unix-like systems. Known for its simplicity and quick startup, it provides basic editing functionalities for configuration files, scripts, and general text manipulation directly within the terminal environment.

Notepad is a fundamental text editor included with Microsoft Windows. It provides a very simple interface for creating, opening, and saving plain text files. It's a classic tool for quick notes and basic text manipulation, known for its speed and lack of complex features.

Kate, the KDE Advanced Text Editor, is a powerful yet lightweight text editor popular among developers and advanced users. Offering robust features like syntax highlighting, built-in terminal, extensibility via plugins, and comprehensive customization options, Kate caters to a wide range of text editing and coding tasks across platforms.

UltraEdit is a powerful and versatile text, hex, and code editor designed for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It offers a comprehensive feature set for developers, programmers, web designers, and general users working with text files, code, and binary data.

SciTE is a free and open-source text and code editor built on the SCIntilla editing component. It's designed to be a lightweight yet powerful tool for programmers and web developers, offering syntax highlighting, code folding, autocompletion, and extensibility across multiple platforms.

Bluefish is a powerful yet lightweight code editor designed for web developers and programmers. It offers a wide array of features for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and many other programming languages, focusing on efficiency and ease of use for building dynamic websites and applications.

HxD is a fast and feature-rich hex editor, disk editor, and memory editor designed for raw data manipulation. It offers comprehensive tools for working with binary files, disks, and RAM, making it suitable for developers, reverse engineers, and anyone needing to analyze or modify raw data.

VSCodium is a community-driven, freely licensed distribution of Microsoft's VS Code editor. It removes proprietary telemetry and tracking, providing a truly open-source alternative for developers who prioritize privacy and freedom.

TextPad is a robust and lightweight text editor designed for Windows systems. It offers a comprehensive set of features for editing plain text files, source code, and HTML documents. With support for syntax highlighting, macros, and a tabbed interface, it provides a productive environment for programmers and general users alike.

Qt Creator is a powerful, cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE) tailored for building applications with the Qt framework. It supports C++, QML, and JavaScript, offering a comprehensive suite of tools for designing UIs, writing code, debugging, and deploying software across various platforms.

EditPad Lite is a free text editor designed for Windows, offering essential text editing features and serving as an excellent replacement for Notepad. It supports large files, multiple languages, and a tabbed interface, making basic text manipulation simple and efficient for non-commercial users.

ReText is a straightforward yet effective text editor designed primarily for authoring documents in Markdown and reStructuredText. It provides essential features like live preview and syntax highlighting, making it a suitable choice for writers and developers who prefer lightweight, plain text formats.

TextEdit is a fundamental, open-source word processor and text editor included with macOS. Designed for simplicity, it handles both plain text and Rich Text Format (RTF) documents, making it suitable for quick note-taking, basic document creation, and editing code or configuration files.

MacVim is a robust, open-source text editor specifically tailored for macOS users, bringing the power and extensibility of Vim with a native graphical interface. It seamlessly integrates Vim's renowned modal editing and command-line power with the familiar macOS windowing environment.

RJ TextEd is a powerful freeware text and source code editor for Windows, offering comprehensive features for web development, programming, and general text editing.

SynWrite is a comprehensive and free source code editor for Windows, serving as an excellent Notepad replacement with robust features for various programming and web development tasks. It's designed for performance and extendibility, making it suitable for both novice and experienced developers.

Scribes is a free and open-source minimalist text editor designed for programmers and writers who value simplicity and efficiency. It provides a clean interface with essential features like syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and extensibility through plugins, making it a lightweight yet powerful tool for various coding and writing tasks.

Caret is a robust and feature-rich text and code editor designed for the Chrome platform, offering advanced editing capabilities, syntax highlighting, and offline functionality for developers and writers.

Editra is a robust, cross-platform text editor designed with developers in mind. It's open-source, highly customizable through plugins, and features essential tools for coding like syntax highlighting, code completion, and an embedded terminal.

wxHexEditor is a robust, open-source, cross-platform hexadecimal editor built with C++ and wxWidgets. It serves as a powerful tool for low-level data manipulation, including disk editing, data recovery, reverse engineering, and file analysis.

JOE (Joe's Own Editor) is a venerable, full-featured terminal-based text editor known for its ease of use and extensive feature set, making it suitable for both casual editing and complex programming tasks within the command line environment.

CotEditor is a free and open-source text editor designed specifically for macOS. It offers a clean and intuitive interface, making it a lightweight yet powerful tool for plain text editing, coding, and more.

Zed was a powerful, open-source code and text editor designed for developers who prioritized keyboard-centric workflows and offline capabilities. It aimed to provide a fast, responsive editing experience with advanced features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and integrated tools.

MadEdit is a discontinued, cross-platform text and hex editor designed with developers in mind. It offers syntax highlighting, a hex editing mode, and various customization options within a lightweight, tabbed interface. While no longer maintained, it provided a range of features useful for coding and binary file manipulation.

Hex Workshop is a comprehensive hex editor for Windows, offering advanced tools for binary data manipulation, disk editing, and data analysis. It provides a user-friendly interface with powerful features for developers, reverse engineers, and anyone working with low-level data.

HippoEDIT is a robust yet lightweight text editor for Windows, designed for programmers and power users. It offers syntax highlighting for numerous languages, extensive customization options, and a feature set aimed at enhancing coding and text editing efficiency.