Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Emacs

1.3K
1.2K
+ 1
322
Notepad++

19.8K
16.3K
+ 1
417
Add tool

Emacs vs Notepad++: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In this article, we will compare Emacs and Notepad++ and highlight the key differences between these two popular text editors.

  1. Operating System Compatibility:

Emacs: It is compatible with various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. This makes it a versatile option for users with different system preferences.

Notepad++: Primarily developed for Windows, Notepad++ is mainly compatible with Windows operating systems. However, it can also be used through emulation on Linux and macOS.

  1. Customizability and Extensibility:

Emacs: Known for its high customization capabilities, Emacs allows users to personalize its features extensively using Emacs Lisp, a built-in programming language. This includes creating custom keybindings, adding or modifying functions, and even implementing major modes for specific programming languages.

Notepad++: While Notepad++ does support some level of customization, it is not as robust as Emacs. Users can customize syntax highlighting, macros, and plugins to enhance functionality, but the extent of customization is limited compared to Emacs.

  1. Built-in Features and Functions:

Emacs: Emacs provides a wide range of built-in features such as email client, web browser, and newsreader. It also offers a rich set of functionalities for developers, including code navigation, project management, version control integration, and even building complete development environments.

Notepad++: Notepad++ offers a variety of features tailored towards programming and text editing, including syntax highlighting, code folding, search and replace functionality, and support for multiple documents. However, it does not provide the extensive range of additional built-in features found in Emacs.

  1. Learning Curve and Complexity:

Emacs: Due to its high customization capabilities and extensive feature set, Emacs has a steeper learning curve compared to Notepad++. Users need to invest time in understanding its keybindings, commands, and configuration options to fully utilize its potential.

Notepad++: With a simpler and more intuitive user interface, Notepad++ is generally considered easier to learn and use compared to Emacs. It provides a straightforward environment for basic text editing and programming tasks without the need for extensive customization.

  1. Text Editing Modes:

Emacs: One of the notable features of Emacs is its ability to seamlessly switch between different text editing modes. It provides specific modes for various programming languages, enabling syntax highlighting, auto-indentation, code completion, and other language-specific functionalities.

Notepad++: Similar to Emacs, Notepad++ supports syntax highlighting for various programming languages. However, it does not offer the same level of extensive language-specific modes and functionalities as Emacs.

  1. Community and Support:

Emacs: Being one of the oldest and most popular text editors, Emacs has a highly active and dedicated community. There is widespread documentation available and a vast ecosystem of Emacs packages and extensions developed by the community.

Notepad++: Notepad++ also has a significant user base and active community support. However, it may not be as extensive or diverse as the Emacs community. Users can find a good amount of community-developed plugins, but the overall support and ecosystem might not be as extensive as Emacs.

In Summary, Emacs offers cross-platform compatibility, extensive customization options, a wide range of built-in features, a steeper learning curve, advanced programming language-specific modes, and a large and active community. Notepad++, on the other hand, is primarily compatible with Windows, has limited customization capabilities, provides a simpler user interface, has basic text editing modes, and a comparatively smaller community support.

Decisions about Emacs and Notepad++
Andrey Ginger
Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers · | 3 upvotes · 491.4K views

Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Emacs
Pros of Notepad++
  • 65
    Vast array of extensions
  • 44
    Have all you can imagine
  • 40
    Everything i need in one place
  • 39
    Portability
  • 32
    Customer config
  • 16
    Your config works on any platform
  • 13
    Low memory consumption
  • 11
    Perfect for monsters
  • 10
    All life inside one program
  • 8
    Extendable, portable, fast - all at your fingertips
  • 6
    Enables extremely rapid keyboard-only navigation
  • 5
    Widely-used keybindings (e.g. by bash)
  • 5
    Extensible in Lisp
  • 5
    Runs everywhere important
  • 4
    FOSS Software
  • 4
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 4
    Git integration
  • 4
    May be old but always reliable
  • 3
    Asynchronous
  • 3
    Powerful UI
  • 1
    Huge ecosystem
  • 103
    Syntax for all languages that i use
  • 59
    Tabbed ui
  • 56
    Great code editor
  • 53
    Fast and lightweight
  • 38
    Plugins
  • 28
    Nice GUI
  • 26
    Regex & Special Character Search & Replace
  • 16
    Fast startup
  • 9
    Application is free, and plugins are too
  • 9
    Themes
  • 6
    Free
  • 4
    Very Lightweight
  • 3
    100% Free
  • 2
    Column selection
  • 1
    Awesome autocomplete
  • 1
    Easy edit on FTP servers (NppFTP)
  • 1
    Cos it's seck
  • 1
    Nice gui. are you kidding me?
  • 1
    Open Sourced

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Emacs
Cons of Notepad++
  • 4
    So good and extensible, that one can get sidetracked
  • 4
    Hard to learn for beginners
  • 1
    Not default preinstalled in GNU/linux
  • 3
    No default plugin manager
  • 2
    Can't install more advanced packets

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Emacs?

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.

What is Notepad++?

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Emacs?
What companies use Notepad++?
See which teams inside your own company are using Emacs or Notepad++.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Emacs?
What tools integrate with Notepad++?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

What are some alternatives to Emacs and Notepad++?
Atom
At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.
Eclipse
Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.
Vim
Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.
Spacemacs
Since version 0.101.0 and later Spacemacs totally abolishes the frontiers between Vim and Emacs. The user can now choose his/her preferred editing style and enjoy all the Spacemacs features. Even better, it is possible to dynamically switch between the two styles seamlessly which makes it possible for programmers with different styles to do seat pair programming using the same editor.
Neovim
Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: simplify maintenance and encourage contributions, split the work between multiple developers, enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source, and improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.
See all alternatives