As a developer, your main tool is obviously those that will allow you to turn your ideas into code: A text editor. As time go by, more online text editors are created that can help you code from any computer with internet access. In this article, let's have a look at 10+ useful online code editors.

Amy Editor

Created in 2007 by Petr Krontorád, Amy Editor is an advanced editor with a look and feel of a Mac. Amy Editor features lots of useful options, such as line numbers, syntax highlighting, snippets for more than 20 languages, collaboration, and more.
Amy can edit, save and export files. It can also manage projects.

» http://www.amyeditor.com/

JSBin

As you can guess, JSBin is an online text editor primarily focused on Javascript. I really love the clean and simple interface. Each code can be tested using a powerful “Preview” feature, and then exported into a text file.
Another good thing to note is that JSBin can import popular Javascript frameworks such as jQuery or Mootools, so you can test your js plugins as well.

» http://jsbin.com/

Bespin

Using HTML5 quite intensively, Bespin is a new project from Mozilla Labs. This online editor is very powerful and has lots of cool options. In order to use Bespin, you have to create an account. Note that Bespin can be downloaded and then embedded in any kind of web project, only by adding two files in your header!

» https://bespin.mozilla.com/

Kodingen

Kodingen is another great online editor, probably one of the most powerful tool on this whole list. It can be used unregistered or you can create an account to use advanced functions as such as SVN repositories, collaborative work, etc.
This editor features templates for most programming languages, syntax highlighting, line numbering and more. A must!

» http://kodingen.com/

EditPad

Unlike the first few editors featured in this post, EditPad is simple and minimal. No syntax highlighting, no project management…Just a plain page to type your text without any distractions. I’m not a big fan, but this “online notepad” can be a life saver on a particularly slow machine.

» http://www.editpad.org/

TypeIt

TypeIt isn’t a code editor and I hesitated to feature it in this post. This handy tool helps you to access special characters such as French accents, like a visual keyboard does. Definitely a site to have in your bookmarks if you’re often working on multi-language sites.

» http://www.typeit.org/

PractiCode

PractiCode is a very basic code editor. It has very limited functions (Handles CSS, HTML and VbScript) but it is perfect to make quick and dirty code.

» http://www.landofcode.com/online-code-editor.php

9ne

9ne (Pronounced Nine) is a nice online text editor, based on the well known GNU Emacs. 9ne provides most of the basic Emacs functionalities and currently supports XML and Javascript syntax highlighting modes.

» http://robrohan.com/projects/9ne/

jsvi

Vi has always been one of my favorite text editors of all times. Why? Because it is powerful, fast, and you’ll find it everywhere: GNU/linux distros, Mac, web servers… Now, you’ll also find Vi online with this implementation called JSVI. Most Vi functions have been implemented into this web-based version.

» http://gpl.internetconnection.net/vi/

HTMLedit

As the name says, HTMLedit is a (very basic) HTML editor that can be used for quick and dirty coding. However, its interest is limited, particularly if compared to most other items from this list.

» http://htmledit.squarefree.com/

DarkCopy

Have you ever felt distracted when working on a buggy piece of code? If yes, there’s no doubt that you will enjoy DarkCopy. This simple online text editor has limited functions but it provides a dark, clutter-free environment so you can concentrate on the most important: getting things done.

» http://darkcopy.com/

SimpleText

SimpleText.ws may have a cool retro Apple look, but it is also a powerful tool that allows you to create, edit, and save plain text files in your web browser. Another good point of SimpleText is that you can host it yourself if you want, using Google Apps Engine. This guide will show you how to do.

» http://www.simpletext.ws/

 

38 Comments

  1. Posted February 16, 2010 at 9:30 am | Permalink

    Nice article!
    I think that Kodingen editor looks pretty good. I’ve never really had the need for an online editor yet, I find Eclipse IDE to be fine for what I need to do :-)

    • Posted February 16, 2010 at 9:33 am | Permalink

      Yeah, Kodingen is probably the most complete from the whole list. The best thing with online editors are that they are available all the time and from any computer + no need to install anything :)

      • Posted February 16, 2010 at 11:33 am | Permalink

        Yeah, that does make sence. With Eclipse IDE I can set up ‘Projects’ and have an explorer view of all files and folders for each ’site’ (project) I’m working on. Online editors won’t have that functionality (I don’t think) for a long time, due to all of the privacy and security implications.

        For standalone editors I really REALLY like Programmers Notepad 2, It can be themed and modified to suit your exact needs.

  2. Posted February 16, 2010 at 9:32 am | Permalink

    I wanted a good code editor! Thanks!

  3. Posted February 16, 2010 at 10:29 am | Permalink

    From the set of editors above – in my opinion is the Best.

    I don’t really use online editors if I don’t have to, but if I DO – it’s always Bespin. it’s very functional and easy to use.

  4. Posted February 16, 2010 at 2:25 pm | Permalink

    Pretty good list. I use #7

  5. Posted February 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm | Permalink

    Nice. I used Amy Editor for Python and Django. It’s pretty nice but I still prefer a local program like Komodo.

  6. Posted February 16, 2010 at 7:56 pm | Permalink

    I’ve never really used an online editor for coding but I might start using JSBin for quick Javscript debugging. I have a feeling that Google might come up with a few online code editors as part of Google Docs.

  7. Posted February 16, 2010 at 8:16 pm | Permalink

    Are any of these code editors open source?

    I ask this because it would be cool to integrate a code editor like one would integrate TinyMCE or CKEditor, with ones own hooks and such.

    Would be useful to use in Wordpress for quick editing plugins or themes.

  8. Posted February 17, 2010 at 1:05 am | Permalink

    The one that should have been mentioned is EditArea:

    http://www.cdolivet.com/index.php?page=editArea&sess=320f1133edac2596d10c4db9d9fa8c0f

    It works in all major browsers, including IE 6, also lightweight and fast.

  9. Posted February 17, 2010 at 10:58 am | Permalink

    Thanks for sharing very important matter. It’s so much helpful for me because I don’t know about this before. A lot of thanks by Petr Krontorád

  10. Posted February 17, 2010 at 12:32 pm | Permalink

    Thanks Jean :)

    Is that a new design or i’m going nuts? :) Put the pings after the comment form :)

  11. Posted February 18, 2010 at 8:26 am | Permalink

    Great post, Will hope to try some of these out soon.
    Thanks.

  12. Posted February 19, 2010 at 1:45 am | Permalink

    Nice collection of online code editors.
    Is it safe to use online editors?

  13. Posted February 19, 2010 at 3:57 am | Permalink

    I got this “This Connection is Untrusted” from Firefox when i opened your Bespin link

    • Posted February 19, 2010 at 6:27 am | Permalink

      Didn’t get it when I wrote this post, but yes I’m having it know. Weird because Bespin has been created by Mozilla!

  14. Ignace
    Posted February 19, 2010 at 3:51 pm | Permalink

    Some online code editors that weren’t mentioned:

    http://www.coderun.com/
    http://phpanywhere.net/
    http://www.tide4javascript.com/
    http://ecoder.quintalinda.com/

    Apparently online IDE’s become more and more popular altough I still miss my favorites like xdebug and phpunit

  15. Posted February 24, 2010 at 1:27 am | Permalink

    Super cool list. Going to check some of these out! Did you rank them in order of preference?

  16. Posted February 28, 2010 at 6:01 am | Permalink

    I used Kodingen and I liked it’s feature. Great list :-) I will check some of them. Thanks for sharing.

  17. Posted March 1, 2010 at 4:27 pm | Permalink

    I didn’t even know these existed, great idea & great article, maybe these are the future of development!? Like the look of Kodingen might give it a try!!

  18. Posted March 9, 2010 at 6:24 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for this useful resource, I’ll be sure to give some of these a try.

    I’m in the habit of just using Notepad for coding though and don’t know if I’ll be able to break it very easily. I don’t like programs that are overly user friendly.

  19. Posted March 10, 2010 at 11:22 am | Permalink

    One I’ve bookmarked along the way is phpanywhere.net. I went to use it recently but I didn’t feel comfortable handing over my FTP info.

    Thanks for the list… I know JSBin is going to come in handy.

  20. Posted March 16, 2010 at 9:17 am | Permalink

    I got the warning when I first tried to open bespin. Then I closed the window and clicked the link again. It worked fine. I guess it’s not a security problem, but an error with the certificate. (since it uses https). I don’t understand why they are using a secure connection for bespin

  21. Posted March 16, 2010 at 9:21 am | Permalink

    Also, I loved bespin’s command line. I always loved to code in a linux terminal

  22. Posted March 31, 2010 at 9:00 pm | Permalink

    Good article, but you missed one: http://collabedit.com

  23. Darrin
    Posted April 11, 2010 at 3:35 pm | Permalink

    Hi Jean,
    You should check out Codeslam also http://getcodeslam.com/. In beta though

  24. Posted April 17, 2010 at 8:34 am | Permalink

    This is a very good list of code editors. Thanks for putting them all into a post for us.

  25. Posted May 2, 2010 at 7:43 pm | Permalink

    Very helpful post. Thanks for putting up this informative article on coding. Great layout.

  26. Posted May 14, 2010 at 9:50 am | Permalink

    hey nice post. i’ve just started studying programming and html so this will be very useful to me. i’m bookmarking your site. thanx!

  27. Posted May 31, 2010 at 8:23 am | Permalink

    Excellent post… was just what I was looking for! Thanks again.

  28. Posted July 3, 2010 at 1:08 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us. I’m particularly interested in trying out Kodingen. It looks like an excellent tool! Cheers, Graham

  29. Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:19 am | Permalink

    Another great editor is codepad.org/. Although it isn’t really an ‘editor’ it’s got some really nice features:
    From their site:
    “codepad is an online compiler/interpreter, and a simple collaboration tool.
    Paste your code below, and codepad will run it and give you a short URL you can use to share it in chat or email. ”

    Supported languages: C/C++, D, Haskell, Lua, OCaml, PHP, Perl, Plain Text, Python, Ruby, Scheme, Tcl

  30. Posted August 16, 2010 at 2:35 pm | Permalink

    This code editors list will sure make life easier for a lot of people.

    when i came to this site and saw this list, it ended my search.

    Looked up the best code editor and chose it:)

    Thank you very much for this.

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