It’s fair to say that HTML is a universal language — like food, music and dabbing.
The internet as we know it is an ocean of HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language. Whether it starts on a scribbled sheet of paper or a basic text editor, this omnipresent code is likely a building block for your favorite websites or online applications. Lines of HTML can be used to display text, embed multimedia and provide structure to a shapeless web page. According to one study, more than 86% of websites whose markup language is known use HTML in some capacity.
Even I know some HTML, and that’s saying something.
For the curious minds looking to experiment with source code, or startups looking to launch their first website, we recommend a dive into HTML. And a free HTML editor is an ideal digital workspace for you to assemble some winning projects.
HTML is no ordinary text. For the purposes of this blog, we will be listing products in additional categories: Web Design Software and WYSIWYG Editors Software.
Web design platforms are designed to help make your dream websites a reality. They include features for editing HTML and CSS, with customizable web page templates and tools for visualizing code as your visitors will see it.
“What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) software allows for convenient editing of webpage content as it will appear for your audience. Users can bounce back and forth between the published format and the HTML source code for media they’re working on, allowing them to learn the code as they go and save it for sharing or reference purposes.
Collectively, these are all HTML editors in their own right, albeit with slightly different uses. The products we’re featuring here have more than 2,800 validated user reviews on G2 as of June 6, 2019, and only represent a small portion of the 150-plus software offerings listed on our platform across these categories.
For each product we provide:
This list includes any HTML editing software with an available free offering. Some products provide limited free options, while others are completely free without restrictions.
This does not include products that are free temporarily or only offer free trials. They may only support one user or project, and scaling may require full investments.
If you’re ready to crack the code on HTML, we encourage you to check out the following zero-cost options for you or your team. We have broken them down by category for added insight into their intended application, with the products in each section organized by user satisfaction in their respective categories. Enjoy!
Product name: Notepad++
G2 star rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 1,043
Notepad++ is a free text editor based around the Scintilla open-source library. The developers behind Notepad++ have a strong focus on power conservation and minimizing the carbon footprints of their users, and the platform was built with this in mind. As an open-source tool, Notepad++ supports user-made plugins and tutorials.
Image courtesy of Notepad++
“We have many editors available in the market today, but Notepad++ is among the best editors I have ever used. The software is faster to load into my computer and does not require large memory unlike some other editors. It has many file formats for coders and therefore can be used by programmers. It also completes tags for me during coding.”
— Notepad++ review from Mary M.
Product name: Visual Studio Code
G2 star rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 601
Visual Studio Code is a free and open-source text editor with a library of extensions to customize your experience. It contains built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js. The platform’s various extensions are designed to run in separate processes to prevent slowing the editor.
Image courtesy of Visual Studio Code
“As a programmer I use this editor because it has many tools that others do not have. Its autocomplete is intelligent and gives you very good suggestions when writing. It also has support for the most popular programming languages on the market. You can also install add-ons very easily to extend the functions.”
— Visual Studio Code review by Andrew F.
Product name: Atom
G2 star rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 524
Atom is an open-source text editor created by GitHub. It has a variety of tools and themes to customize your experience. Atom can also integrate directly with Git and GitHub. It is designed especially for Windows users.
Image courtesy of Atom
“Extensions, extensions, extensions. I've used Atom since it was released and it's grown quite a bit. The extensions are fantastic and cover pretty much any type of tool integration I have needed thus far.”
— Atom review from Jeff L.
Product name: Brackets
G2 star rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 157
Brackets is an open-source text editor that enables designers and front-end developers to work within their browsers. Visual tools are included in the editor to provide extra help when needed. Brackets is focused specifically on web development languages like HTML, CSS and Javascript, and it was built on a Javascript framework.
Image courtesy of Brackets
“Brackets is a simple and fast but also powerful text editor. Much of its charm is that it is a very light application when it is fully loaded in memory. I've checked it and even with several plugins or theme changes it stays very light.”
— Brackets review from Michael K.
Product name: Komodo Edit
G2 star rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 18
Komodo Edit is a multi-language text editor that offers everything you need for basic programming, such as autocomplete and change tracking. It was created by Vancouver-based ActiveState, which offers a number of other developer-focused platforms as well. Some of these tools, such as the more feature-heavy Komodo IDE, are offered in various packages based on the needs of the user.
Image courtesy of ActiveState
“I have used a variety of Mac HTML editors over the years. I found Komodo about six or seven years ago and I haven't used anything else since. I do a fair amount of HTML/CSS coding. I like how Komodo highlights the brackets I am working in and has an easy-to-use, understanable interface and a robust error checker. For me it works great.”
— Komodo Edit review from Benjamin G.
Product name: H5P
G2 star rating: 4.6 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 22
H5P is a tool for creating, sharing and reusing interactive content with HTML5, the latest version of the language. Users can create responsive and mobile-friendly content, including presentations, videos, games and more. It supports frameworks for Drupal, WordPress and Moodle through plugins and modules.
Image courtesy of H5P
“This is an amazing tool to make easy, creative, interactive content in no time! The tools are very user-friendly, self explanatory and completely customizable! There are a lot of options including YouTube integration. H5P also works with Drupal and Wordpress, which are two of the platforms we currently use. It has been a great advantage for us!”
— H5P review from Margie A.
Product name: Google Web Designer
G2 star rating: 3.8 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 214
Google Web Designer offers features to help create interactive, HTML5-based designs and motion graphics that are compatible on any device. It provides seamless integration with other major Google applications such as Google Drive and Google Ads. The full design suite allows for editing in CSS and Javascript in addition to HTML.
Image courtesy of SitePoint
“The best thing about Google Web Designer is the fact that it’s pretty much optimized for ad creation, so it's easier to export ads for different display networks. It's also easy to use, especially if you are familiar with web design software or software like Adobe's suite. The learning curve is not steep at all, and learning it through GWD's YouTube channel was a matter of hours. I also love the fact that is constantly evolving and that it has nice support from Google.”
— Google Web Designer review from Carlos M.
Product name: CoffeeCup HTML Editor
G2 star rating: 3.8 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 49
CoffeeCup first released its HTML editing software in 1996. The free application allows users to create HTML or CSS files from scratch or build off of themes and layouts that are included. It includes a components library and comprehensive workflow to help create organized, effective sites for a variety of purposes.
Image courtesy of CoffeeCup Software
“In a crowded HTML editor market, CoffeeCup HTML Editor stands out with some intriguing features. It really does a good job of helping would-be coders learn HTML by arranging code, suggesting code samples and making it easy to preview on-the-fly changes. The software also comes with a range of HTML code samples, templates and other goodies. Using the program is fairly easy without too many intrusive elements. The editor is fully compatible with many of today's web technologies and it is easy to integrate advanced elements onto a page of code.”
— CoffeeCup HTML Editor review from Bruce E.
Product name: Bluefish
G2 star rating: 4.1 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 39
Bluefish is an editor built for programmers and web developers to write websites, scripts and programming code. It is an open-source application compatible with Windows, MacOS, Linux and other operating systems. It supports a number of programming and markup languages, including HTML, XML, CSS, Javascript, Python and PHP.
Image courtesy of SourceForge
“Bluefish is easy to use and allows you to quickly create simple sites of HTML and CSS content. This is perfect for static content sites such as websites of companies where you only want to show some information about the company and contact forms.”
— Bluefish review from Terrence G.
Product name: Microsoft Expression Web
G2 star rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 80
Microsoft Expression Web is currently on its fourth release. It includes features for producing and maintaining high-quality, standards-based websites in HTML, CSS, Javascript and other coding languages. It is available for download in English as well as German, Spanish, French, Korean and more.
Image courtesy of Amazon UK
“I love the versatility of this program. While at first it was harder for me to navigate, I have learned a lot over time. It allows me to be creative in my web design. My other favorite thing about Expression Web is that you can preview your web pages in a variety of platforms (and versions of those platforms) to ensure they look right before you make them live.”
— Microsoft Expression Web review from Amber M.
Product name: TinyMCE
G2 star rating: 4.5 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 31
TinyMCE is a rich text editing solution used in part to create products like Atlassian, Medium and Evernote. It can be used in three different modes: Classic, Inline and Distraction Free. Users also receive access to Tiny Drive, the vendor’s cloud platform for image upload and asset management.
Image courtesy of Percussion Software
"TinyMCE has many positive traits, but the two biggest for us were ease of implementation and powerful plugins. Being able to customize the editor with exactly the features we needed — through plugins — and simply dropping it onto a page was wonderful. And, it just works!”
— TinyMCE review from Michael D.
Product name: CKEditor 4
G2 star rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 17
CKEditor is a fully customizable WYSIWYG editor with a focus on HTML content. It is an open-source platform with 70 language versions, 400-plug plugins and 240-plus configuration options. CKEditor 4 and CKEditor 5 are both rated highly in the category, with CKEditor 4 focused more on personal configuration options and CKEditor 5 better suited for real-time collaboration across teams.
Image courtesy of CKEditor
“It is very straightforward and easy to use. You can switch from Rich Text Editor to Plain Text Editor. For someone who has a background in HTML, I found this very useful because if something in Rich Text doesn't look the way I want it to look, I can use the Plain Text Editor to look at my code.”
— CKEditor 4 review from Cristy T.
Product name: Summernote
G2 star rating: 4.4 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 16
Summernote is a “super simple WYSIWYG editor” built on the CSS framework Bootstrap. This open-source platform offers extensive customization with prebuilt code for modules and plugins. Customizable features include the toolbar, dialogs and font names.
Image courtesy of GitHub
“We needed a simple-yet-powerful foundation to build upon when we chose Summernote, and it has definitely delivered on this. The best part is the API, which is very easy to build out your own customized functionality on.”
— Summernote review from Love D.
Product name: openElement
G2 star rating: 3.8 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 13
Designed specially for Windows users, openElement is a free web authoring tool compatible with HTML5 and CSS3. It allows for the intuitive creation of responsive, multilingual websites. Users receive access to the online forum where fellow users discuss topics related to the software, as well as a wiki with extensive information such as configuration assistance and element details.
Image courtesy of CNET Download
“I love the simplicity openElement brought to website creation. It also gives the user a notebook, where they can write their guidelines.”
— openElement review from Georgia T.
Product name: Simditor
G2 star rating: 4.7 out of 5.0
Number of reviews: 3
Simditor is a bare bones WYSIWYG editor. This open-source platform integrates only key features by default and supports extensions for certain additional features. The development team welcomes submissions of new extensions from the user community.
Image courtesy of Accessify
“It is open source so that we can change its source code and make changes as per our requirements. Also it supports various languages like C++, C#, Java, HTML, XML, SQL and many more. You just have to download one zip file and type two or three commands in your terminal (for Linux and Mac users) and you are done. Also, you can add an extension of it in your browser.”
— Simditor review from Nikita A.
Any of the free solutions we’ve covered here can get you one step closer to a professional web property for yourself or your company. You may have a low-key web designer on your team already, or you may decide to take the reins. If that’s the case, read our tips for coding websites as a part of the learning materials you’ve already assembled.
A little HTML know-how will go a long way in today’s world, and it’s never too late to start. We wish you well on your personal coding adventures!
Want some help with that website? There are hundreds of website design companies listed on G2 that offer consultations and development services for redesigns or complete sites from the ground up.
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