GNU nano
Hacker ApprovedRanked 12 of 56 text editors by recommenders
Simple, lightweight terminal editor that shows its keybinds on screen and suits quick edits and config files. Critics say it lacks power for heavy editing.
Simple, lightweight terminal editor that shows its keybinds on screen and suits quick edits and config files. Critics say it lacks power for heavy editing.
70 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 52
- criticize it
- 18
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 15 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 52 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Quick edits in the terminal
“Nano is my go-to whenever doing something quick in the terminal. It's quick, I don't need to learn how to use it”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “nano is great though, I can recommend it for quick ad-hoc editing”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “How I am deeply integrating Emacs” “nano remains my go-to editor for many quick terminal operations”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News - Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Zed is our office”
- Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
- Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto”
- Comment from 5 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
Simple and easy to use
“Nano is my go-to whenever doing something quick in the terminal. It's quick, I don't need to learn how to use it”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “I have worked somewhat with nano just out of curiosity and it was a decent experience.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Tanstaafl – Pay-to-inbox email on Bitcoin Lightning” “nano is simpler and it doesn't teach you by holding you hostage”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability” - Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
- Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto”
- Comment from 18 Apr 2026 in “I'm Coding by Hand”
Small and lightweight
“Debian started bundling nano instead of vim because nano is smaller (and easier to quit)”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “The original vi is a product of its time (and its time has passed)” “For the absolute lightweight, there is vi, eMacs, nano, etc.”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown” “So freaking cool..in just 200 (190 actually) lines.”
Comment from 17 May 2026 in “Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust” Shows keybinds on screen
“you get in, it tells you what all the relevant keybinds are right on the screen”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “Nano not powerful, but it is friendly, it shows you its keybinds.”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Good software knows when to stop” “Nano always shows most important (all?) hotkeys on the screen.”
Comment from 29 Aug 2026 in “GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Confusing for newcomers
“Every time I get launched into nano/pico on a new system I find it very confusing.”
Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto” “I don't think nano is particulary beginner-friendly”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto” Not powerful enough for heavy use
“they fall under the level of being useful and only cripple and slow me down”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Ghostty – Terminal Emulator” “Nano not powerful, but it is friendly, it shows you its keybinds.”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Good software knows when to stop”
Other text editors people recommend
The four most recommended other text editors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zed | 700 | 430 | 62% | 13 | 6 mo57 owners | — |
| GNU Emacs | 648 | 207 | 76% | 13 | 20 yrs158 owners | Approved |
| Vim | 513 | 127 | 80% | 13 | 20 yrs55 owners | Approved |
| Visual Studio Code | 485 | 547 | 47% | 12 | 2 yrs13 owners | — |
| GNU nanoThis page | 52 | 18 | 74% | 11 | 15 yrs3 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 82 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I found nano leaps and bounds more intuitive than vim”
“I don't think nano is particulary beginner-friendly”
“For quick editing it is so much more convenient than vim.”
“Every time I get launched into nano/pico on a new system I find it very confusing.”
“I would prefer ms-edit or nano if I have to edit text files from the terminal.”
“Very handy. Occasionally I've deleted files accidentally or made destructive changes, and could restore a working version from the past as if I had a timemachine.”
“Nano always shows most important (all?) hotkeys on the screen.”
“That's the power of vim, emacs, nano, and I think Kate too.”
“So freaking cool..in just 200 (190 actually) lines.”
“When I don't have a GUI available, I use micro, nano, joe.”
“Nano was able to spit it out consistently, Images 2 really struggles”
“I'd rather use nano than having to write code on xcode”
“it forced me to be smarter by doing things simpler.”
“I took notes in a fullscreened GNU Nano. Distractions, ADHD, etc.”
“I have worked somewhat with nano just out of curiosity and it was a decent experience.”
“Nano not powerful, but it is friendly, it shows you its keybinds.”
“they fall under the level of being useful and only cripple and slow me down”
“For the absolute lightweight, there is vi, eMacs, nano, etc.”
“a truly open-source alternative to webcontainers.io, so we built one”
“nano is simpler and it doesn't teach you by holding you hostage”
“nano's own feature count and flexibility / extensibility”
“Debian started bundling nano instead of vim because nano is smaller (and easier to quit)”
“Nothing is being built on it even though I think the idea did have potential”
“Please dont buy nano reading this, I find the coin still speculative”
“literally any fee they charge is more than what nano charges”
“It has zero fees and I worked using its zero fees to store data/timestamps in it”
“Nano is pretty amazing, but, yeah, the interest is in profit not the technology”
“If that is all you need there has always been Vim and Nano.”
“nano is great though, I can recommend it for quick ad-hoc editing”
“nano is my go-to text editor, because it's the default text editor for all our systems”
“super-simple to configure and spruce-up with custom functions”
“nano is still my default “edit that config file quickly””
“I have always admired nano for how simple and easy to use it is”
“you get in, it tells you what all the relevant keybinds are right on the screen”
“I think they recently added Ctrl+S to save by default, even if unconfigured, woohoo.”
“It's not just customisable, it's also insanely scriptable.”
“It’s also great for quick updates for other config files.”
“nano remains my go-to editor for many quick terminal operations”
“The line numbers and position bar are some real quality-of-life enhancements!”
“Nano is my go-to whenever doing something quick in the terminal. It's quick, I don't need to learn how to use it”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.