Top 5 Free Code Editors 2026

Rank Editor Platform Best For Extensions IntelliSense Get It
1 Visual Studio Code Win/Mac/Linux Everything — web, data, devops Marketplace (huge) Excellent Download VS Code
2 Neovim Win/Mac/Linux Terminal power users Lua plugins With LSP Get Neovim
3 Emacs Win/Mac/Linux Customizable OS-like environment Elisp packages With LSP Get Emacs
4 Zed Mac/Linux (Win coming) Speed & collaboration Growing Built-in AI/LSP Get Zed
5 VSCodium Win/Mac/Linux Open-source VS Code Open VSX Excellent Get VSCodium

Top 5 Paid Code Editors/IDEs 2026

Rank Editor Pricing Best For Extensions IntelliSense Get It
1 IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate ~$169/year (first year) Java & full-stack Plugins Top-tier Buy IntelliJ Ultimate
2 WebStorm ~$129/year JavaScript/TypeScript Plugins Top-tier Buy WebStorm
3 Sublime Text ~$99 one-time Speed & minimalism Packages With packages Buy Sublime Text
4 PhpStorm ~$199/year PHP & web Plugins Excellent Buy PhpStorm
5 Visual Studio Pro ~$45–250/month .NET & enterprise Marketplace Excellent Buy Visual Studio

Coding on the Go?

Acode, Termux, and the rest — full mobile code editing roundup inside.

View Mobile Code Editors