# ed text editor

21 Hacker News commenters recommended ed text editor and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A tiny, line-based Unix text editor that is light on resources and handy for quick or batch edits, though critics find it dated and awkward to use.

## Why people recommend it

- Line-based batch edits, no cursor (2 comments): "Line-based instead of having to manage cursor movements." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46989153)) "You can do a gazillion edits with it in one shot." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49655382))
- Standard and sparing with tokens (2 comments): "It is surprisingly sparing on tokens, which makes sense since those things were designed to work with a teletype." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883752)) "since standard is king: ed it is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46377745))
- Praised as hard to beat (3 comments): "myself, nothing will ever beat ed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865027)) "thanking your lucky stars for ed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47129285)) "you can't do much better than ed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121996))
- Good for quick, specific tasks (2 comments): "It's not terrible if you just need to change a few lines." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546939)) "I think ed is still a great editor for specific tasks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46558111))

## What people warn about

- Dated and unpleasant to use (4 comments): "which in my experience, roughly translates to ‘ugh’" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47127931)) "that's about as much praise as I can give it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49268695)) "The ed(1) command set 50 years old." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791519))

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