# KWrite

5 Hacker News commenters recommended KWrite and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend KWrite as a simple, quick text editor and a basic Notepad replacement on Linux. One critic found its syntax highlighting unusable.

## Why people recommend it

- Good for quickly writing thoughts (1 comments): "I really enjoyed opening it for quickly writing out thoughts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48361355))
- Basic editing on Linux (1 comments): "On Linux, I'll use KWrite to do my basic editing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47335497))
- Notepad alternative on Linux (1 comments): "For just notepad you have kwrite." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47319509))
- Still available, easy to install (1 comments): "KWrite still exists. Just install it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48361382))

## What people warn about

- Syntax highlighting made it unusable (1 comments): "It was completely unusable, I had to turn off syntax highlighting." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49506974))
- Called egregious alongside Konsole (1 comments): "Konsole and KWrite are particularly egregious." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831228))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Windows Notepad](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows-notepad.md): 86 recommend
- [TextEdit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/textedit.md): 15 recommend
- [Microsoft Edit](https://hackerapproved.com/p/edit-exe.md): 10 recommend
- [CotEditor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/coteditor.md): 9 recommend
- [Pico text editor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pico.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

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