The 10 Top Text Editors for OS X

Espresso

Espresso turbo-charges your workflow with the perfect blend of features. Speed through day-to-day edits with extensive language support, contextual completions, powerful smart snippets, and Zen actions. Use the Navigator and code folding to prevail over the most complicated documents. Watch your web pages update in real time with live styling, visualize and inspect your layouts with X-ray, then push the changes to your server with Sync or Quick Publish.

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple’s approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike. Whether you are a programmer or a designer, the production of code and markup is hard work. Without an editor dedicated to the task, it is also often cumbersome, overwhelming, and repetitive.

Macchiato

Macchiato is a simple plain text editor with a twist. Modeled after TextEdit’s plain text mode, the editor is a chrome-less blank canvas. However, it is built from the ground up for writing Markdown prose—and, as such, it will format Markdown text as you write it. Macchiato will not parse your Markdown. Rather, it will stylize your Markdown.

Chocolat

Chocolat is a new text editor for Mac OS X, that combines native Cocoa with powerful text editing tools. Chocolat is a relatively new addition to the world of text editors but despite this, it is a powerful editor for those that want the ability to create the next big app. Chocolat features various handy, time-saving features allowing developers to work efficiently and meet deadlines.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose. Make ten changes at the same time, not one change ten times. Multiple selections allow you to interactively change many lines at once, rename variables with ease, and manipulate files faster than ever. When you need to focus, Distraction Free Mode is there to help you out. Distraction Free Mode is full screen, chrome free editing, with nothing but your text in the center of the screen. You can incrementally show elements of the UI, such as tabs and the find panel, as you need them.

BBEdit

BBEdit is the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. Specifically crafted in response to the needs of Web authors and software developers, this award-winning product provides an abundance of high-performance features for editing, searching, and manipulation of text.

Byword

The easiest way to write Markdown and rich text on your Mac. Byword features a simple, minimalist interface that will allow you to simply get on with your work. What’s more, Byword features various intuitive capabilities and although the app appears to be simple, it masks a great deal of complexity and capabilities that you’ll discover as you use the app more and more.

TextWrangler

TextWrangler is the “little brother” to BBEdit, our leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. TextWrangler is a very capable text editor. What sets BBEdit apart is its extensive professional feature set including Web authoring capabilities and software development tools.

Coda

A fresh approach to web code. Bursting with features but without bloat. Built to make your life better: Coda 2 is the editor you’ve always wanted. Coda is a leading name in the world of text editor and with the new release, Panic really have pushed the boat out – this app is perfect for those that want streamlined web development and the ability to create stunning websites with little effort.

TextEdit

TextEdit is an easy-to-use word processor built into OS X. It’s great for creating simple compositions, but it also includes features like spelling and grammar check, Auto Save, tables, smart quotes, lists, and graphics. You can save your documents in a number of formats, including plain and rich text, Microsoft Word, OpenDocument Text and HTML.