this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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So what do you guys use if not using vscode? Asking 'cause I don't want to use Microshit.
Kate!
I'm experimenting with Kate. Doesn't come close in terms of features but useful for small stuff. It's like Notepad++ for Linux.
I like Kate as a fancy notepad, I use it for taking quick notes or opening a txt file I downloaded. I have it set to start up into a new blank document, so it works more like Windows Notepad.
I still use VSCode for real programming though.
Kate did well at searching for text inside binary files though, I recently used it to see which DLL an error message was coming from, VSCode couldn't do it.
Mostly GNU Emacs, but my $EDITOR is sam.
I am currently using VSCodium, which is basically VSCode built from the VSCode repo without the Microsoft bits. Somebody else has also suggested Eclipse Theia (the website pushes hard on AI because investors or something like that, but the editor itself is pretty okay. It is also compatible with the same extensions as VSCode/Codium which is pretty cool) but I've just gotten used to using VSCodium.
Of course, you have the people suggesting vim and its derivatives, which are apparently super powerful once you get used to them. Helix is another one that is kind of like Neovim but preconfigured with features that most people would want built in. I've only tried neovim once, it seems pretty cool, but I'm personally not bothered enough to go through the steep learning curve. VSCodium suits my needs just fine. If you're the kind of person who likes that sort of stuff it would be nice though. Kate (by KDE) is also a good code editor esp. if you use KDE Plasma.
One gem I found was Lite XL. It's a really lightweight editor written in Lua, super barebones, and there's a whole plugin ecosystem around it!
Using geany. It's simple tabbed text editor which does not get in your way.
it's not awesome; just does the job and has zero ambition to march towards enshittification
NeoVim with tmux is pretty awesome.
Some people like Helix though.
I use micro editor in the terminal
Either Emacs or Neovim.