Open source code editors and IDEs, built and launched

Code editors and IDEs you can run yourself. The list is ordered by whether each project came up when Argusic installed it fresh, with the recording of that attempt one click away.

Tested between and . Each row shows its own test date; a project can change after that day.

27 of 27 tested projects run. 34 more waiting for a test.

In short: 21 of the 27 tested projects started as-is on a fresh machine: helix, slate, micro, trix, edit, kakoune, Acode, and react-ace, and 13 more. 6 more started once a stand-in replaced a service they expect, such as a database: vim-anywhere, sidex, web-maker, AnExplorer, warewoolf, and goneovim.

Measured by Argusic on a fresh machine every time. Every number links to its evidence.

#projectverdictArgusic Scorelanguagestarstested on
1helixRuns100 / 100Rust46,511

A post-modern modal text editor.

What the test found: Helix 25.07.1 builds from source and passes the full test suite (424 tests, 0 failures), the hx binary prints version and help correctly, and the health check runs for all configured languages. 7 minutes.

2slateRuns100 / 100TypeScript31,753

A completely customizable framework for building rich text editors. (Currently in beta.)

What the test found: All 5 Slate packages build with rollup, the Next.js documentation site builds and serves successfully on localhost:3000, and all 1519 tests (97 jest + 1422 mocha) pass with 0 failures. 4 minutes.

3microRuns100 / 100Go29,678

A modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor

What the test found: micro v0.0.0-unknown builds and runs as a static binary on Ubuntu 24.04 amd64; 5 test packages pass with no failures and no formatting issues. 3 minutes.

4trixRuns100 / 100JavaScript20,013

A rich text editor for everyday writing

What the test found: Trix builds and all 539 tests pass (510 passed, 29 skipped) under Playwright Chromium; dev server serves dist/index.html with HTTP 200. 6 minutes.

5editRuns100 / 100Rust14,683

We all edit.

What the test found: The Edit 2.0.0 terminal text editor builds from source, passes all 65 tests (requiring EDIT_CFG_ICUUC_SONAME=libicuuc.so.74, EDIT_CFG_ICUI18N_SONAME=libicui18n.so.74, and EDIT_CFG_ICU_RENAMING_VERSION=74 for ICU 74 on Ubuntu 24.04), and the release binary responds to --help and --version commands. 7 minutes.

6kakouneRuns100 / 100C++11,091

mawww's experiment for a better code editor

What the test found: Kakoune builds from source with `make`, passes its full test suite (670 tests, 0 failures), and the binary launches and responds to JSON UI commands. 2 minutes.

7AcodeRuns100 / 100JavaScript7,297

Acode - powerful text/code editor for android

What the test found: 87 vitest test files pass (723 tests), rspack build compiles to www/build/, dev HTTPS server starts on localhost. 14 minutes.

8react-aceRuns100 / 100TypeScript4,207

React Ace Component

What the test found: react-ace v11.0.0 installs and builds with Node 22, all 65 project tests pass, TypeScript type-checks pass, and the library loads correctly as a CJS module. 4 minutes.

9CudaTextRuns100 / 100Python3,220

Cross-platform text editor, written in Free Pascal

What the test found: Prebuilt CudaText 1.237.0.2 binary runs on the Xvfb virtual display, answers version and help commands, and starts as a GTK3 GUI process. 9 minutes.

10netbeansRuns100 / 100Java3,139

Apache NetBeans

What the test found: Apache NetBeans builds from source, all 64 platform unit tests pass, and the IDE CLI starts and lists modules successfully using JDK 21 and Ant 1.10.18. 31 minutes.

11remirrorRuns100 / 100TypeScript3,034

ProseMirror toolkit for React 🎉

What the test found: remirror monorepo v3.0.3 builds (95/95 turbo tasks) and all 1710 tests pass after fixing two rollup config files for Node 18 import-attribute compatibility. 13 minutes.

12substanceRuns100 / 100JavaScript2,734

A JavaScript library for web-based content editing.

What the test found: All 2074 tests in the Substance.js test suite pass with zero failures under Node.js v18.19.1. 4 minutes.

13codejarRuns100 / 100TypeScript1,986

An embeddable code editor for the browser 🍯

What the test found: Build succeeds (tsc exits 0, produces dist/codejar.js + dist/cursor.js + .d.ts). The CodeJar editor works in a headless Chromium browser: initializes with contenteditable='plaintext-only', updateCode and toString function correctly, cursor module exports cursorPosition, selectedText, textAfterCursor, textBeforeCursor. 6 minutes.

14gnvimRuns100 / 100Rust1,960

GUI for neovim, without any web bloat

What the test found: gnvim 0.3.2-dev builds successfully, binary responds to --version/--help, and all 10 tests pass against a real headless nvim 0.10.0 instance. 20 minutes.

15kibiRuns100 / 100Rust1,955

A text editor in ≤1024 lines of code, written in Rust

What the test found: Kibi v0.3.3 builds and runs; cargo test passes all 98 tests; the binary prints version 0.3.3. 3 minutes.

16durdrawRuns100 / 100Python1,835

Versatile ASCII and ANSI Art text editor for drawing in the Linux/Unix/macOS terminal, with animation, 256 and 16 colors, Unicode and CP437, and customizable...

What the test found: Durdraw 0.30.1 is installed in a Python venv, all 9 unit tests pass, and the curses-based ANSI/ASCII art editor launches, plays .dur files, and exits cleanly under a PTY. 4 minutes.

17FerriteRuns100 / 100Rust1,828

A fast, lightweight text editor for Markdown, JSON, YAML, and TOML files. Built with Rust and egui for a native, responsive experience.

What the test found: Ferrite builds from source with Rust 1.92.0, the test suite executes (1597 pass, 3 pre-existing failures, 2 ignored), and the binary responds to --help and --version. 49 minutes.

18ImGuiColorTextEditRuns100 / 100C++1,731

Colorizing text editor for ImGui

What the test found: TextEditor.cpp and TextEditor.h compile and link with Dear ImGui 1.90.1; a test program exercising set/get text, cursor, all 7 language definitions, 3 palettes, error markers, breakpoints, undo/redo, and coordinate operators passed all 19 assertions. 10 minutes.

19AsyncRuns100 / 100TypeScript474

IDE, A native-feeling AI coding workspace that blends chat, planning, agent execution, and project navigation into a unified desktop experience.

What the test found: npm install completes, full build (typecheck + esbuild + vite) succeeds, all 117 test files (709 tests) pass, and the Electron app starts with the dist bundle rendering the agent window via did-finish-load. 8 minutes.

20terax-aiRuns96 / 100TypeScript9,300

Lightweight (7MB) Terminal-first AI-native dev workspace

What the test found: Frontend builds and all 1208 JavaScript unit tests plus 18 Rust sub-crate unit tests pass; Tauri desktop build blocked by missing system libraries (glib-2.0-dev, libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev) that cannot be installed without root. 7 minutes.

21lapceRuns50 / 100Rust38,902

Lightning-fast and Powerful Code Editor written in Rust

What the test found: Lapce builds from source, passes all 13 unit tests with 0 failures, responds to --help and --version, and launches as a GUI window on the virtual display that stays running despite Vulkan/EGL warnings about missing GPU drivers. 21 minutes.

22vim-anywhereRuns with mocks92 / 100Shell3,768

Use Vim everywhere you've always wanted to

What the test found: All 18 BATS tests pass: 8 install tests (macOS mvim present/missing, Linux gvim/xclip missing, unsupported OS, requires git), 5 run tests (temp dir creation, .path/mvim failure, clipboard copy, custom vimrc), 5 uninstall tests (macOS path/workflow removal, missing path, Linux gsettings/gconftool). The project's... 34 minutes.

23sidexRuns with mocks92 / 100TypeScript3,063

VS Code rebuilt on Tauri. Same architecture, 96% smaller. Early release.

What the test found: SideX binary launches, stays alive for 10s with all WebKit subprocesses (NetworkProcess, WebProcess, injected bundle) loading successfully from /tmp/sysroot via LD_PRELOAD; frontend builds; npm install succeeds; cargo test reports 205 passed, 2 flaky BM25 failures. 34 minutes.

24web-makerRuns with mocks92 / 100JavaScript2,701

A blazing fast & offline frontend code editor

What the test found: Web Maker builds successfully, serves its built assets via HTTP, and all 19 Jest unit tests pass across 3 test suites (footer, fileUtils, layout-parameter). 20 minutes.

25AnExplorerRuns with mocks92 / 100Java2,038

📁 Another Android Explorer ( File Manager ) is an All-in-One Open source file manager. AnExplorer File Manager (File Explorer) is designed for all android...

What the test found: AnExplorer Android app compiles and produces a valid unsigned APK (4MB) for the otherProDebug variant; the static marketing website in web/public/ serves correctly; the built-in AndroidTest has a pre-existing compilation error. 7 minutes.

26warewoolfRuns with mocks92 / 100JavaScript348

A minimalist novel-writing system/rich text editor designed to be usable without a mouse. For desktop and standalone word processors/digital...

What the test found: npm install completes, esbuild bundles compile, 1318/1318 tests pass, and the Electron app window creates and stays alive on Xvfb display :99 until killed by timeout. 38 minutes.

27goneovimRuns with mocks46 / 100Go2,622

A GUI frontend for neovim.

What the test found: Go 1.22.2 installed at /home/runner/go; 45 Qt5 dev packages extracted at /home/runner/qt5; Go dependencies resolved; Qt5 pkg-config set up; editor tests compile/link but cannot execute without real Qt5 runtime. 71 minutes.

-vue-quillNot yet tested-TypeScript1,347-
-RSyntaxTextAreaNot yet tested-Java1,255-
-MarkpadNot yet tested-TypeScript1,192-
-ideNot yet tested-JavaScript1,124-
-zed-globalizationNot yet tested-Python1,047-
-mleNot yet tested-C953-
-pyTermTkNot yet tested-Python918-
-kiro-editorNot yet tested-Rust764-
-adNot yet tested-Rust743-
-orbitonNot yet tested-Go710-
-mgNot yet tested-C631-
-typistNot yet tested-TypeScript602-
-react-textarea-code-editorNot yet tested-TypeScript576-
-TangentNot yet tested-TypeScript566-
-CharDeskNot yet tested-TypeScript548-
-qmarkdowntexteditNot yet tested-C++497-
-tttNot yet tested-Go397-
-textbringerNot yet tested-Ruby391-
-nedNot yet tested-C++383-
-Code-SyncNot yet tested-TypeScript331-
-docksideNot yet tested-Python322-
-react-editextNot yet tested-TypeScript307-
-bimNot yet tested-C293-
-PythonBuddyNot yet tested-Python280-
-biscuitNot yet tested-Python266-
-codemirror-editor-vue3Not yet tested-TypeScript249-
-code-inputNot yet tested-JavaScript241-
-cogentNot yet tested-Go238-
-ngx-wigNot yet tested-TypeScript238-
-redNot yet tested-Rust229-
-tiptap-ui-componentsNot yet tested-TypeScript224-
-LexiconNot yet tested-JavaScript217-
-vue-codemirror6Not yet tested-TypeScript205-
-notectlNot yet tested-TypeScript203-

runs installed and started with its real dependencies. runs with mocks started after stand-ins replaced external services such as a database or a third-party API. could not verify neither the standard agent nor the stronger one got it running within the time limit; the log shows where it stopped.

How we tested

On this list as of the latest test: 21 projects ran as-is, 6 with mocks, 0 could not be verified, 34 still waiting. Languages tested: C++, Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Shell, TypeScript. Every attempt used a clean single-use machine, the subject at a pinned version, and a 45-minute limit; the complete procedure is on the methodology page.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How is this list ranked?

By measurement, not opinion: projects Argusic installed and launched on a fresh machine come first, then those that ran with mocks in place of external services, then those it could not verify. Ties go to the Argusic Score, then how popular it is on its own source.

Why are some projects unranked?

34 projects are still waiting for a test or for a finished attempt. They are listed without a rank until Argusic has measured them.

Where is the evidence?

Every row links to the project's Argusic page, where each run has a full log and a terminal recording stored with a sha256 fingerprint. The same pages exist for every one of the tested projects, on this list or not.

More lists in this category

All lists: Best. All tested projects: subjects.