Chime vs Kate

Chime is an open source editor designed specifically for macOS, with native extensions and a minimalist interface. It supports the Language Server Protocol, and extensions can provide deeper project integration. Refactoring tools are listed. The current stable download is version 2.2.5, released 29 Nov 2023, and requires macOS 12.0 or later. Chime’s maker says source code is never captured or transmitted off the machine. The app does make outgoing requests for software updates, licensing, and crash reporting, and users can opt out. Crash reports can also be disabled; they are described as intended to improve the products and not intended to contain personally identifiable information. Chime Systems Inc. is identified as the Canadian corporation behind the product, with Matt and Tania credited as makers. Chime has a free plan listed at free and supports macOS only.

Kate is a free text editor for viewing and editing text files on Linux, macOS and Windows. It can show multiple documents in horizontally or vertically split windows, and supports multi-cursor and column editing. For code and other structured text, Kate provides syntax highlighting for over 400 languages, bracket matching and on-the-fly spell checking. Programming tools include auto-completion with argument hints, scriptable auto-indentation and Vi input mode; the editor uses the Language Server Protocol for auto-completion in many languages. Search and replace handles regular expressions, multiline searches, open files and files on disk. Listed plugins include an embedded terminal, SQL, build, GDB and Replace in Files tools. Kate can open remote files and supports Unicode and other encodings. Backups on save and swap files can help recover data after a system crash. The editor is free, and its listed plan describes it as available for Linux, Windows and macOS. Nightly packages are compiled daily, but may be unstable or incomplete and are recommended for testing.