Best Free and Open Source Compact Editors

10 Free and Open Source Simple GUI Based Linux Text Editors

A text editor is software used for editing plain text files. This type of software has many different uses such as modifying configuration files, writing programming language source code, jotting down thoughts, or even making a grocery list. Given that editors can be used for such a diverse range of activities, it is worth spending the time finding an editor that best suites your preferences.

Whatever the level of sophistication of the editor, they typically have a common set of functionality, such as searching/replacing text, formatting text, importing files, as well as moving text within the file.

This article focuses on simple GUI text editors. These editors aren’t intended to offer the functionality provided by many text editors. Instead, they are designed for anyone wanting a very basic text editor with a convenient graphical interface.

Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.

Ratings chart

Let’s explore the 10 text editors at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, a screenshot of the software in action, together with links to relevant resources.

Simple GUI Based Text Editors
GNOME Text EditorDefault text editor for the GNOME desktop environment
PlumaPowerful text editor for MATE
MousepadSimple text editor for the Xfce desktop environment
FeatherPadLightweight Qt plain-text editor
NotaBrowse, create, and edit text files
CorePadDocument editor for C Suite, a minimalistic application suite
geditSmall and lightweight text editor for GNOME
xedSmall and lightweight text editor
HowlGeneral purpose editor
AirpadBasic, generic graphical text editor
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9 Comments
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InfoLibre
InfoLibre
1 month ago

Geany is a very good text editor too.

James
James
28 days ago

The best text editor is the default text editor for your OS. I use Mate, so Pluma is the best text editor for me.

Kelvin
Kelvin
28 days ago
Reply to  James

That’s just ridiculous.

Jacob
Jacob
26 days ago
Reply to  Kelvin

Fully agree. Vim every day.

elkuku
elkuku
27 days ago
Reply to  James

Fully agree.

I use KWrite or Kate 😉

Jacob
Jacob
26 days ago
Reply to  elkuku

Kwrite is just based on Kate. And both are meh.