It's listed as the third most popular IDE after Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio by respondents to Stack Overflow's annual survey. Interestingly, it's higher among professionals than learners. Maybe that's because learners are going to be using some of those newer AI-adjacent editors, or because learners are less likely to be using Windows at all.
I'm sure people will leap to the defense of their chosen text editor, like they always do. "Oh, they separated vim and Neovim! Those are basically the same! I can combine those, really, to get a better score!" But I think a better takeaway is that it's incredible that Notepad++, an open source application exclusive to Windows that has had, basically, a single developer over the course of 22 years, has managed to reach such a widespread audience. Especially when Scintilla's other related editors (SciTE, EditPlus) essentially don't rate.
I think the argument you made for combining vim and neovim is pretty good actually. But it seems pretty unique to those two editors (well, throw vi in there if it ever shows up on the chart), so “worst” case notepad++ would be bumped down just one spot.
>Maybe that's because learners are going to be using some of those newer AI-adjacent editors, or because learners are less likely to be using Windows at all.
You can use the 2022 (ie. pre-chatgpt) results for control for that. The results are basically the same.
I love a feature of notepad++ where when you have documents open and exit, it won't bother you with a save dialog and when you open it again the previous state will be there. I found that mousepad on linux can do this.
For something functionality close I would look at Kate.
At least in past I gave up and just used N++ with Wine. It didn't fit the rest of system at all, but was more usable for editing simple text files than DE defaults of GEdit and Kate.
I enjoy coding something new up in Notepad++, without any annoying autocomplete and jank. I call it unplugged (acoustic?) mode. Jeepers Visual Studio these days starts autocompleting if and while for example and sometimes doesn't respect normal keystrokes because it expects me to complete these kind of interactions instead.
Literally yes: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/
This might be a better link: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#1-dev-id-es
It's listed as the third most popular IDE after Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio by respondents to Stack Overflow's annual survey. Interestingly, it's higher among professionals than learners. Maybe that's because learners are going to be using some of those newer AI-adjacent editors, or because learners are less likely to be using Windows at all.
I'm sure people will leap to the defense of their chosen text editor, like they always do. "Oh, they separated vim and Neovim! Those are basically the same! I can combine those, really, to get a better score!" But I think a better takeaway is that it's incredible that Notepad++, an open source application exclusive to Windows that has had, basically, a single developer over the course of 22 years, has managed to reach such a widespread audience. Especially when Scintilla's other related editors (SciTE, EditPlus) essentially don't rate.
I think the argument you made for combining vim and neovim is pretty good actually. But it seems pretty unique to those two editors (well, throw vi in there if it ever shows up on the chart), so “worst” case notepad++ would be bumped down just one spot.
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>Maybe that's because learners are going to be using some of those newer AI-adjacent editors, or because learners are less likely to be using Windows at all.
You can use the 2022 (ie. pre-chatgpt) results for control for that. The results are basically the same.
https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#most-popular-technolog...
First three things I install on any machine - 7zip, Notepad++, alternate browser.
Same, but additionally Irfanview. And once upon a time, Media Player Classic used to be on that list.
This train of thought made me go find https://www.oldversion.com/. For a while, that was invaluable.
Yes, but I start with the browser. What are the Notepad++ alternatives on Linux and MacOS, for those times when I have to use them?
I love a feature of notepad++ where when you have documents open and exit, it won't bother you with a save dialog and when you open it again the previous state will be there. I found that mousepad on linux can do this.
For something functionality close I would look at Kate.
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Geany. Both npp and geany use the same editor component.
These kind of editors are typically already installed. Pluma, Kate, Emacs, Vi... If anything there is still nano.
And of course “Ed is the standard text editor.”
> https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.en.html
At least in past I gave up and just used N++ with Wine. It didn't fit the rest of system at all, but was more usable for editing simple text files than DE defaults of GEdit and Kate.
Sublime Text. I think it's better than Notepad++ and is available for all computer platforms, not just Windows.
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VSCode in UI land, nano/vim in terminal.
A lite (without node) version of Zed could be it.
BBEdit (free version of course).
Sublime maybe?
vim :)
Same, I use ninite for that.
I enjoy coding something new up in Notepad++, without any annoying autocomplete and jank. I call it unplugged (acoustic?) mode. Jeepers Visual Studio these days starts autocompleting if and while for example and sometimes doesn't respect normal keystrokes because it expects me to complete these kind of interactions instead.
I don't do a whole lot of development with it but if I need to open a random code file then it's much better than plain old Notepad.
LOL I guess the editors using Notepad++ downvoted you :P