# Acme text editor

14 Hacker News commenters recommended Acme text editor and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Plan 9 editor that people value for mouse-driven editing and running shell commands from any text, though it needs X.org and lacks mouse warping under XWayland.

## Why people recommend it

- Mouse-centric editing model (5 comments): "It also had the neat behavior in acme where to execute a command, you middle-click on some regular text" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830984)) "I can highlight the text with the mouse and write a sam command (on acme too)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065006)) "it's optimized for this style of work and doesn't shy away mice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089713))
- Works as general-purpose workspace (4 comments): "I use Acme for everything except web browsing (although most links are still managed by Acme)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47331767)) "You can edit text while reading your email and chatting on irc from within Acme." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49405642)) "it has I/O since the beginning, you can plug anything into it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46975095))
- Executes commands from any text (3 comments): "It also had the neat behavior in acme where to execute a command, you middle-click on some regular text" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49830984)) "you can launch these command inside your graphical editor such as sam or better, Acme" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065222)) "I can highlight the text with the mouse and write a sam command (on acme too)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065006))
- Clear, one-thing-well design (3 comments): "It's clear, informative, and even without reproducing it, you can still form an opinion about the tool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46008705)) "If you look at the Sam and Acme text editors you will find they are true modern TUI programs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404622)) "I've discovered that I like Plan9 Sam, Acme and, in general, the one-thing-well camp better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50274224))

## What people warn about

- X.org dependency, no XWayland mouse warping (1 comments): "The only major problems are X.org dependency, lack of mouse warping in XWayland (essential for Acme), and slow text rendering on Raspberry Pi 5." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47465696))
- Slow text rendering on Pi 5 (1 comments): "The only major problems are X.org dependency, lack of mouse warping in XWayland (essential for Acme), and slow text rendering on Raspberry Pi 5." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47465696))
- Colors not displayed correctly (1 comments): "one day we will have a new acme, written in common lisp and displaying all the correct colors" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061676))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Zed](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed.md): 700 recommend
- [GNU Emacs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/emacs.md): 648 recommend
- [Vim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vim.md): 513 recommend
- [Visual Studio Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio-code.md): 485 recommend
- [Neovim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neovim.md): 295 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Acme text editor", https://hackerapproved.com/p/acme/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).