Top Alternatives to Leafpad

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.

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.

Brackets is a modern, open-source code editor specifically designed for web development. Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it prioritizes a streamlined workflow with its innovative features like Live Preview and inline editors, making front-end development more intuitive and efficient.

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.

Coda is a Mac-exclusive integrated development environment (IDE) designed for web developers. It combines a powerful text editor, built-in file management (including FTP/SFTP/WebDAV), version control integration, and web preview tools into a single, cohesive application.

Tomboy is a free and open-source desktop note-taking application designed for simplicity and efficiency across Linux, Unix, Windows, and macOS. It utilizes a wiki-like interface for easy linking between notes and offers features like automatic linking, full-text search, and local storage, making it an accessible and reliable tool for organizing your thoughts and tasks.

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.

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.

jEdit is a mature, feature-rich text editor written in Java. It's highly extensible via plugins and suitable for programmers and general text editing tasks across various operating systems.

EmEditor is a robust yet lightweight text editor for Windows designed for power users, developers, and anyone working with large files or needing advanced text manipulation features and it offers exceptional performance and customization.

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.

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.

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.

Textadept is a powerful, free, and open-source text editor designed for programmers. Focusing on speed and extensibility, it offers a minimalist interface while providing robust features like syntax highlighting, code formatting, and a built-in terminal, all heavily customizable through Lua scripting.

Neovim is a modern, extended version of the Vim text editor, focusing on usability, extensibility, and integration. It's designed for developers and power users seeking a highly customizable and efficient text editing experience, particularly within the terminal environment.

Mousepad is a straightforward yet capable text editor designed specifically for the Xfce desktop environment. It provides essential text editing functionalities in a lightweight package, making it an excellent choice for everyday tasks and basic code editing.

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.

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.

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.

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.