Simple Text Editors

These text editors all work in character terminals. They have fewer capabilities than vi or emacs but are easier to learn.

pico

editor component of pine and alpine email program

University of Washington, 1989

C language, Apache license

exit with Ctrl+x

nano

resembles pico with additional features

Free Software Foundation, 1999

C language, GPL license

exit with Ctrl+x

micro

modern, uses mouse

Zachary Yedidia, 2016

Go language, MIT license

exit with Ctrl+q

tilde

modern, uses mouse and menus

many dependencies, build issues on some systems

Gertjan Halkes, 2018

C language, GPL license

exit with Ctrl+q