GNU Emacs vs NumenText
GNU Emacs
gnu.orgNumenText
github.comSide by side
| Figure | GNU Emacs | NumenText |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Go IDEs | 8.8 (#2) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Editing | It provides content-aware editing modes, including syntax coloring, for many file types. | It offers a non-modal, menu-driven editor with familiar shortcuts such as Ctrl+S, Ctrl+C, and F5 to run. |
| Extensions | It includes a packaging system for downloading and installing extensions. | The maker’s GitHub organization lists NumenText plugins for Jupyter, Git, HTML, and TODO. |
| License | GNU Emacs is free software distributed under conditions of the GNU General Public License. | The repository identifies the project as licensed under Apache License 2.0. |
Plans
In their own words
NumenText
NumenText is a terminal-based IDE written in Go, with a non-modal, menu-driven editor for people who want an IDE in the terminal without learning Vim or modal editing. It has multiple tabs, familiar shortcuts, and syntax highlighting for more than 20 languages. Build and run shortcuts cover C, C++, Go, Rust, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, and Kotlin. Its LSP client provides autocomplete, go-to-definition, hover information, and diagnostics; its DAP client supports breakpoints and step-by-step debugging. A test runner handles output from go test, pytest, cargo test, Maven, and Gradle, alongside configurable formatters and linters. Other tools include an integrated PTY terminal, regex search and replace, Markdown preview, a hex viewer and editor, bookmarks, TODO/FIXME scanning, and Git diff markers. It runs on macOS and Linux and is available free under Apache License 2.0. The project describes it as a single binary without runtime dependencies; compiling from source requires Go 1.25 or later.