Here’s the list I tried (in no particular order) of native OS X editors:
- Zend studio: An PHP IDE
- TextWrangler: A small brother of BBedit web editor
- TextMate: Very capable and nice editor (30 days trial)
- Fraise: A Smultron’s open source fork (not active anymore); still available and has some bugs
- BBedit: Focused on web developing
- Bluefish: A nice cross platform open source editor
- Smultron: Used to be my editor of choice; I really like sidebar tabs
- Kod: I expected a lot from this but the development stopped a while ago (open source)
- Coda: Also focusing on web development
- Komodo Edit: Another cross platform open source editor (and stripped down version of Komodo IDE)
- Sublime Text 2: Also cross platform and very capable
- Espresso: Aimed at web developers
I’m not going to explain what I liked and what I did not about these editors, because it’s based on my personal preferences. This wouldn’t be fare either. All these editors are really packed with features and capable.
If undecided, give them a try.
EDIT (20.11.2011):
A two more (as suggested by Karl). Although a bit different from the above
selection and to some a bit outdated (ask my students). Nevertheless, these two caused so
many flame wars that the above can only dream of having such impact:
I won’t describe any of them as the XKCD comic says it all:
