Notepad2
Shares rank 47 of 56 text editors by recommenders
People recommend it as a free, lightweight Notepad replacement that starts instantly and still has a useful feature set.
People recommend it as a free, lightweight Notepad replacement that starts instantly and still has a useful feature set.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Free and works like Notepad
“It's free, it works like Notepad, and it acts like a bare bones text editor.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown” Starts instantly on ordinary hardware
“Instead I use Notepad2 and Notepad++ which are instant on the same hardware”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Bing Wallpaper showing Ad for Harry Potter and Fantastic beasts box set” Faster than Notepad++
“it's even snappier than Notepad++”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11” Fully featured yet light
“fully featured (but still light)”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability”
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 | — |
| Notepad2This page | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
4 of the 5 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Instead I use Notepad2 and Notepad++ which are instant on the same hardware”
“It's free, it works like Notepad, and it acts like a bare bones text editor.”
“fully featured (but still light)”
“it's even snappier than Notepad++”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.