Pico text editor
Shares rank 42 of 56 text editors by recommenders
Simple terminal editor for people who do not want to learn emacs or vi, though critics find it confusing for beginners.
Simple terminal editor for people who do not want to learn emacs or vi, though critics find it confusing for beginners.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 55%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Simple alternative to emacs and vi
“always the go-to editor for those who didn't want to mess around with emacs or vi”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “The Microsoft SoftCard for the Apple II: Getting two processors to share memory”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Confusing for beginners and first-time users
“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” “none of vi, emacs, nano/pico make any sense to a beginner”
Comment from 30 Oct 2026 in “NetBSD adds a new text editor called atto”
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 | — |
| Pico text editorThis page | 6 | 5 | 55% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“none of vi, emacs, nano/pico make any sense to a beginner”
“Every time I get launched into nano/pico on a new system I find it very confusing.”
“Those are worse than a command line.”
“he is now working at x.com/pico”
“generative AI and its derivatives should be completely shunned as image/video encoders”
“PICO has changed all sorts of small details in the images”
“This does not seem to reckon with the many, MANY times this has been tried and failed.”
“always the go-to editor for those who didn't want to mess around with emacs or vi”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.