Best Code Editors for Java

Windsurf is a cutting-edge IDE designed for developers to maintain focus and productivity through AI-driven assistance. At the heart of the platform is Cascade, an intelligent agent that not only fixes bugs and errors but also anticipates potential issues before they arise. With built-in features for real-time code previews, automatic linting, and seamless integrations with popular tools like GitHub and Slack, Windsurf streamlines the development process. Developers can also benefit from memory tracking, which helps Cascade recall past work, and smart suggestions that enhance code optimization. Windsurf’s unique capabilities ensure that developers can work faster and smarter, reducing onboarding time and accelerating project delivery.

Visual Studio Code is a highly extensible AI-powered code editor built for developers who demand flexibility and performance. It combines intelligent coding assistance, modern debugging tools, and collaboration features in one lightweight package. With Agent Mode, VS Code reads your codebase, runs terminal commands, and edits across files automatically until tasks are complete. Its Next Edit Suggestions feature predicts and completes your next move as you type, enhancing speed and code accuracy. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) enables developers to connect their favorite AI models—from OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, or Google—and extend functionality through custom servers. Developers can work in any language, from JavaScript and Python to C#, Java, and Go, while leveraging over 75,000 extensions for added productivity. Seamless integration with GitHub Codespaces, cloud storage, and CI/CD tools allows teams to code, collaborate, and deploy anywhere. Open-source at its core, VS Code empowers both individuals and enterprises to innovate without limits.

IntelliJ IDEA is a powerful and versatile IDE tailored for professional Java and Kotlin developers who want to maximize their productivity and code quality. It provides comprehensive support across the entire development process, including design, coding, debugging, testing, and deployment. With smart code analysis, safe refactoring, and error detection, IntelliJ IDEA minimizes bugs and technical debt so developers can focus on innovation. The latest version adds full support for Java 24 features and enables Kotlin’s K2 mode by default, improving performance and memory efficiency. New interactive Kotlin notebooks allow real-time prototyping and data visualization within the IDE. IntelliJ IDEA also includes advanced debugging tools like the Spring Debugger for managing dynamic database connections. JetBrains prioritizes developer comfort with an intuitive interface and customizable settings. The IDE adheres to strict privacy and security standards, ensuring developers’ data remains protected.

A highly advanced text editor designed for coding, markup, and writing. With the Goto Anything feature, you can quickly access files using minimal keystrokes and effortlessly navigate to symbols, lines, or specific words. This editor allows you to make multiple edits simultaneously rather than repeating one change multiple times. Thanks to multiple selections, you can efficiently modify numerous lines at once, easily rename variables, and handle files more rapidly than you ever thought possible. The Command Palette provides access to less frequently used features, such as sorting, syntax adjustments, and indentation modifications. By entering just a few keystrokes, you can search for exactly what you need without the hassle of navigating through menus or remembering complex key commands. Additionally, Sublime Text boasts a robust Python API that enables the development of plugins to enhance its existing capabilities. With the ability to install Package Control through the command palette, you gain straightforward access to a wealth of community-created packages that can extend the editor's functionality even further. This makes it an invaluable tool for anyone looking to streamline their coding or writing process.

Notepad++ serves as a free alternative to traditional Notepad and is designed for editing source code across various programming languages. Functioning within the Microsoft Windows ecosystem, it operates under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The editor is built on the robust Scintilla editing framework and is developed using C++, making use of the pure Win32 API and Standard Template Library (STL) to achieve enhanced execution speed and a compact file size. By optimizing numerous processes while maintaining user-friendliness, Notepad++ aims to contribute to the reduction of global carbon dioxide emissions. The software’s efficiency allows computers to use less CPU power, enabling them to operate at lower energy levels, which in turn leads to reduced power consumption and a more sustainable environment. This approach exemplifies how software development can align with eco-friendly initiatives.

Eclipse IDE stands as the premier open platform tailored for professional developers engaged in computer programming, and it has never been better. This IDE provides essential tools to drive rapid innovation with a simplified configuration process, including the Eclipse IDE Installer 2020-09, which now incorporates a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in several of its packages. The enhancements also extend to theming and styling, featuring an improved dark theme for Windows and a refined light theme for GTK. Additionally, Eclipse IDE has transitioned to require Java 11 as its minimum operating version while maintaining the ability to compile older versions as desired. Among its new experimental features is support for aarch64, along with robust Linux support that has been integrated into this version. Furthermore, Node.js is now embedded within all LSP-based tools, facilitating seamless functionality from the start. Eclipse IDE remains free and open source, distributed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0, underscoring its commitment to community-driven development. The platform thrives on an extensive ecosystem of plugins, bolstered by an active and engaged community of contributors. This collaborative environment ensures that Eclipse IDE continues to evolve and meet the diverse needs of developers worldwide.

Apache NetBeans is a dynamic, open-source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that supports the development of applications in various programming languages, such as Java, JavaScript, PHP, HTML5, and C/C++. Renowned for its modular framework, NetBeans equips developers with a comprehensive suite of tools and features tailored for creating desktop, mobile, and web applications. It boasts advanced code editing, debugging, and profiling functionalities, as well as an integrated visual GUI builder for crafting user interfaces in Java. Additionally, NetBeans provides support for multiple version control systems like Git, SVN, and Mercurial, enhancing collaborative efforts among teams. As a project under the Apache Software Foundation, NetBeans is continually refined by a vibrant community dedicated to expanding its capabilities, ensuring it remains a dependable and adaptable option for developers in numerous fields. Furthermore, its extensive documentation and tutorials make it accessible for both novice and experienced programmers alike.

EditPlus is a Windows-based text editor that includes integrated support for FTP, FTPS, and SFTP functionalities. Beyond being a suitable alternative to Notepad, it provides a variety of robust features tailored for web developers and programmers, enhancing their coding experience significantly. This versatility makes it a valuable tool for anyone involved in web development or software programming.

Atom is a modern text editor tailored for the 21st century, developed on the Electron framework, and inspired by the features that we cherish in our preferred editing tools. It has been crafted to offer extensive customization options while remaining user-friendly with its default settings. As a vital component of a developer's toolkit, a text editor often collaborates with other tools rather than functioning in isolation. With the integrated GitHub package, you can seamlessly manage your Git and GitHub workflows directly in Atom—creating branches, staging and committing changes, pushing and pulling updates, resolving merge conflicts, and reviewing pull requests, all from within the editor. This package comes pre-installed with Atom, meaning you can start right away! Atom is compatible with various operating systems, including OS X, Windows, and Linux, ensuring a wide accessibility. You can easily search for and install new packages or even develop your own straight from the editor. Additionally, Atom enhances your coding efficiency with its intelligent and adaptable autocomplete feature, and it allows you to conveniently browse and open individual files, entire projects, or multiple projects simultaneously within a single window, making it a versatile choice for developers. Overall, Atom is designed to make coding smoother and more efficient, catering to both novice and experienced developers alike.

UltraEdit has spent more than 30 years serving users who work beyond the comfort zone of general-purpose editors. It is widely used for tasks such as handling very large files, manipulating complex text and data, and supporting workflows where sensitivity, control, or reliability matter more than they do in everyday editing. For individual professionals, UltraEdit is often the tool people reach for when standard editors start to feel limiting — whether that means repetitive advanced edits, heavier files, or more demanding data work. For organizations, it fills a different role: a commercially supported editor for sensitive workflows and regulated environments such as banking, insurance, healthcare, government, and other settings where unsupported tools create too much uncertainty. Today, UltraEdit reports more than 4 million users worldwide and is used by enterprise customers across the Fortune 100, 500, and 1000.

The premier HTML and text editor designed specifically for Mac users, equipped with advanced features that enhance the editing, searching, and text manipulation experience. This tool stands out for its efficiency and user-friendly interface, making it a top choice for professionals in the field.

EmEditor is a quick, lightweight, and highly customizable text editor designed for Windows, offering user-friendly features. It comes in both native 64-bit and 32-bit versions, with the 64-bit variant additionally providing distinct builds optimized for SSE2 (128-bit), AVX-2 (256-bit), and AVX-512 (512-bit) instruction sets, catering to a wide range of user needs. This versatility makes it a popular choice among various coding and editing professionals.

Installing LaTeX is a straightforward process, and you can begin utilizing it immediately, regardless of your prior experience. Overleaf provides a fully equipped LaTeX environment that operates on their servers, allowing for instant access. Using Overleaf ensures that you have a consistent LaTeX setup no matter where you are, which is particularly beneficial when collaborating with colleagues and students, as it eliminates any potential version discrepancies or package conflicts that could arise. This seamless integration fosters a more efficient and productive workflow for everyone involved.

Bluefish is a robust text editor designed specifically for programmers and web developers, offering a wide array of tools for creating websites, scripts, and various coding languages. It accommodates numerous programming and markup languages, making it versatile for different coding needs. For a detailed look at its features, users can explore the overview, browse through screenshots, or download the editor directly. As an open-source project, Bluefish is distributed under the GNU GPL license, promoting free use and distribution. This multi-platform application is compatible with a variety of desktop operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS-X, Windows, OpenBSD, and Solaris. The latest version, Bluefish 2.2.12, is a minor maintenance update that introduces some new features, including a crucial fix for a crash that occurred during simple searches. Enhancements have also been made in Python 3 compatibility, and the detection of encoding in Python files has seen improvements. Additionally, the triple-click function now allows users to select entire lines easily, and on Mac OSX, Bluefish has been optimized to better handle new permission features. Furthermore, issues with displaying the correct language in the Bluefish user interface for certain languages on OSX have been resolved. With these updates, users can expect a smoother and more efficient coding experience.

TextMate is a robust and highly customizable text editor that supports a vast array of programming languages and is developed under an open-source license. The editor simplifies the process of making multiple edits simultaneously by allowing users to easily add several insertion points for quick code alterations. Users can specify their search criteria, and TextMate efficiently displays results, enabling quick navigation between matches, extraction of relevant text, or previewing intended replacements. It also features a file browser that highlights changes, an editor view that marks modified lines, and the ability to generate diffs for the current file's alterations, all while seamlessly integrating with major version control systems. Whether you're dealing with files that incorporate multiple languages, projects that utilize various build systems, or third-party code with different formatting styles, TextMate adeptly manages it all by linking comprehensive scope selectors to keyboard shortcuts and customized settings. Additionally, this flexibility ensures that developers can maintain their preferred workflows while efficiently navigating complex coding environments.

Geany stands out as a robust, efficient, and lightweight text editor designed specifically for programmers, offering a wealth of features that enhance productivity without slowing down the user experience. It is compatible with Linux, Windows, and MacOS, supports over 40 languages, and accommodates more than 50 programming languages natively. One of the main motivations behind creating Geany was the demand for a versatile, user-friendly, and cross-platform IDE/editor that combines flexibility with power. While various editors fulfill some of these criteria, many fail to adequately address others. Geany is distributed under the GPL v2 license, ensuring that users have the freedom to modify and improve the software, while also allowing the entire community to benefit from those enhancements. Its highly customizable components, such as color themes (known as Geany Themes) and the ability to add new file types, cater to diverse user preferences. Additionally, Geany is equipped with numerous settings that allow for extensive personalization, ensuring it meets the unique needs of its users, including support for popular programming languages like C, Java, PHP, HTML, and JavaScript. Ultimately, Geany appeals to developers looking for a reliable tool that combines simplicity with comprehensive functionality.

QuickEdit is a robust and efficient text editor designed specifically for Android devices, ensuring optimal performance on both phones and tablets. This advanced notepad comes equipped with a variety of enhancements, including a code editor that supports syntax highlighting for over 40 programming languages. It delivers exceptional performance and provides real-time feedback, even when handling large text files exceeding 10,000 lines. Users can easily undo and redo changes without any restrictions, manage line indents effortlessly, and enjoy smooth scrolling in both vertical and horizontal directions. The app allows users to jump directly to a specified line number and automatically detects character encoding for convenience. Additionally, it offers a preview feature for HTML and Markdown files, the ability to edit system files on rooted devices, and quick access to recently opened or added files. Furthermore, QuickEdit supports both light and dark themes, making it a versatile choice for various user preferences. With its extensive features, QuickEdit proves to be an indispensable tool for anyone needing a comprehensive text editing solution on their Android device.

Zed is an advanced code editor crafted for seamless collaboration between humans and AI, emphasizing high performance. Developed entirely in Rust to maximize the efficiency of multiple CPU cores and GPU resources, it allows for the integration of emerging LLMs into your coding workflow for tasks such as code generation, transformation, and analysis. The platform facilitates real-time communication with team members, enabling collaborative note-taking, screen sharing, and project management. With its multibuffer system, users can edit selected excerpts from the entire codebase on a single interface. It also supports inline code evaluation through Jupyter runtimes, allowing for joint notebook editing. Zed is compatible with numerous programming languages, thanks to Tree-sitter, WebAssembly, and the Language Server Protocol. Its quick native terminal is integrated with Zed's language-aware task runner and AI features, enhancing productivity. The editor offers first-class modal editing through Vim bindings, incorporating functionalities such as text objects and marks for efficient navigation. Built by a diverse global community of thousands of developers, Zed encourages users to enhance their experience with a wide array of extensions that expand language capabilities, provide various themes, and more. Furthermore, its user-friendly design aims to streamline development workflows, making it an ideal choice for programmers looking to elevate their coding efficiency.

Lapce is an innovative, open-source code editor designed to provide a swift and responsive experience, especially beneficial for developers tackling extensive projects or intricate codebases. Developed using Rust, Lapce takes advantage of native development's performance benefits to ensure a seamless editing experience that minimizes delays. The editor boasts a sleek, contemporary interface alongside advanced features like multi-caret editing, split views, and integrated terminal capabilities. By incorporating support for the Language Server Protocol (LSP), Lapce delivers accurate autocompletion, syntax highlighting, and efficient code navigation for a variety of programming languages, ultimately boosting developer productivity. Its high degree of extensibility, comprehensive plugin support, and emphasis on performance position Lapce as an optimal choice for developers seeking a lightweight yet robust editor that effectively combines simplicity with functionality, making it appealing to both novices and experienced coders alike. Furthermore, Lapce's commitment to community-driven development ensures that it continues to evolve, addressing the needs of users and keeping pace with the ever-changing landscape of software development.

Predator CNC Editor is one of the most popular CNC editor on the market. It has hundreds of features that will improve the productivity of CNC operators, programmers, and machine tool operators. Yet, it is very easy to use. The Predator CNC Editor is a great choice for small shops or large manufacturers.

Experience a versatile, cross-platform code editor that accommodates more than 60 programming languages across 9 different platforms. You can build or compile your projects seamlessly, and by simply double-clicking on an error message in the Build window, you can swiftly navigate to the relevant line of code. Each error and warning is clearly indicated with an icon located in the left margin for easy identification. Additionally, the overview bar next to the vertical scrollbar provides a visual representation of errors and warnings in relation to your current scroll position within the document. For a more efficient workflow, you can either drag the scrollbar slider to a marked location or click directly on the mark to bring it into view. SlickEdit also features an integrated debugging tool that serves as a user-friendly interface for a variety of debuggers. You can set breakpoints, step through code, inspect the stack, and examine variables and members, offering all the essential functionalities you would anticipate from a debugging tool. Furthermore, SlickEdit facilitates debugging for numerous languages, including GNU C/C++, Java, WinDbg, Clang C/C++ LLDB, Google Go, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, XCode, Scala, C# with Mono, Visual Basic with Mono, and Android JVM/NDK, making it a comprehensive solution for diverse development needs. This extensive support makes SlickEdit an invaluable tool for developers working in multiple environments.

CodeSandbox aims to make it easier for you to express your ideas with code, and to validate them. It also removes the hassles of setting up development tooling and sharing your project. Join us to help build the future of web coding. Over 4M developers use the platform each month. This includes organizations like Shopify and Atlassian. Since its launch, creators have created over 35M apps. It's used in thousands of open-source projects like React, Vue and Babel. You can invite your friends, colleagues, or team to join you or simply view your creation by using a URL. Use any of 1M+ packages for building real, powerful applications quickly and efficiently. Import and run repos directly from GitHub or choose from hundreds of templates to start in seconds. Boxy, CodeSandbox's AI-powered coding assistant, is now available to all Pro subscriptions.

The Mac web editor has made its return, aimed at those who create engaging, cutting-edge, and swift websites with a matching application. Espresso empowers users to write, code, design, construct, and launch their projects with both style and efficiency. It boasts advanced text capabilities, an impressive Live Preview feature with Browser Xray, CSSEdit tools, a Navigator for easy navigation, Dynamo for automatic building, and Server Sync for seamless updates. Regardless of whether you are developing a website from the ground up or making adjustments to an existing one, Espresso is designed to meet your needs. You can modify CSS on live sites and instantly observe your design changes without the hassle of publishing, reloading, or saving. Espresso uniquely allows for an enjoyable, straightforward, and non-destructive experience when working with live projects. The latest version of Espresso enables you to create not only high-quality standard CSS but also modular SCSS and LESS. With its stunning navigator, Dynamo's auto-building capabilities, and exceptional integration with live previews and overrides, styling becomes an absolute pleasure. This combination of features makes Espresso an indispensable tool for modern web development.

Textastic for Mac serves as an ideal desktop counterpart to the widely used iOS code editor. Featuring compatibility with over 80 source code and markup languages, it seamlessly extends the robust syntax highlighting capabilities of its iOS version to the Mac platform. Users can easily integrate their own syntax definitions that are compatible with TextMate and Sublime Text. The Mac version is derived from the same code editor that powers the iOS application, ensuring a consistent experience. It utilizes native macOS APIs like Core Text, which enhances performance and speed. The app simplifies your workflow with features such as code completion, file navigation through a symbol list, and support for contemporary Mac functionalities like Auto Save and Versions. Additionally, with iCloud Drive integration, syncing files between macOS and iOS devices becomes a hassle-free process. This application not only supports a vast array of coding languages but also includes features such as iCloud auto-save and macOS Versions, making it a comprehensive tool for developers. Furthermore, it allows for the importation of syntax definitions, themes, and templates from TextMate, enhancing its customization options.

When completing tasks efficiently is your primary focus, the last thing you want is to spend valuable time mastering yet another software program. Your familiarity with previous tools should easily translate to new applications, allowing you to quickly utilize them without a steep learning curve. This is precisely why TextPad enjoys such popularity among users. Whether you're seeking a robust alternative to Notepad, a reliable editor for your web content, or even a programming IDE, TextPad delivers functionality in a way that's intuitive and expected. You can try it out on our website before making a purchase, so don’t hesitate to download your trial version today and discover how much more efficient you can be. Notably, TextPad is engineered to meet the most rigorous text editing needs, handling files as large as virtual memory permits. It is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 7, and Server editions from 2008 to 2019, making it an excellent choice for a wide range of users. With its extensive features and ease of use, TextPad is poised to become an indispensable tool in your productivity arsenal.