Most popular free/open source IDEs and Editors

For effective and fast development, IDEs and Editors are the most important tools for us. As you might know, there are plenty of IDEs and Editors for programmers to make their life easier. Most of the high quality IDEs and Editors cost high, but many more out there costs nothing. For me, I have used Eclipse, Netbeans, Java Studio Creator, JDeveloper, VS Express, JEdit and Notepad++. As you can see the following long list, there are many alternatives that suits everyone's need.

Integrated Development Environments

• Eclipse is an open source extensible IDE. At present, it works well as a Java IDE, and includes Java development tools. It requires that you have the Sun Java runtime environment (JRE) installed. The IDE supports Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows ME, Linux, Solaris, QNX, AIX, HP-UX, Mac OS X, and possibly other systems as well.
• NetBeans is a cross-platform open source IDE for Java that comes with a syntax highlighting code editor that supports code completion, annotations, macros, auto-indentation, etc. It includes visual design tools (wizards) for code generation. It integrates with numerous compilers, debuggers, Java Virtual Machines and other tools.
• Gel is a Java IDE that is written in a language other then Java and is natively compiled for Windows. Unlike other Java IDEs available, this enables Gel to be very small and very quick. I
• DrJava is a lightweight development environment for writing Java programs. It is designed primarily for students, providing an intuitive interface and the ability to interactively evaluate Java code.
• BlueJ is an integrated Java environment specifically designed for introductory teaching.
• Code::Blocks is a free C++ IDE built to meet the most demanding needs of its users. It is designed to be very extensible and fully configurable.
• SharpDevelop is a free and open source IDE for the C# and Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) programming languages.
• The Aptana IDE is a free, open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript-focused development environment for building Ajax applications. It features code assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, FTP/SFTP support and a JavaScript debugger to troubleshoot your code.
• MonoDevelop is a free GNOME IDE primarily designed for C# and other .NET languages. The main features of MonoDevelop are Code Completion, Class Management, Built-in Help, Project Support and Add-ins.
• Visual Studio Express - a suite of development tools used for application development.
• jEdit is a text editor for programmers available under the GNU General Public License. It is written in Java and runs on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and a number of other operating systems. There are dozens of plugins for numerous application areas. Syntax highlighting is supported for over 130 file formats. jEdit supports UTF-8 and many other encodings.
• Java Studio Creator integrated development environment, a tool you can use for rapid visual JavaServer Faces web application and portlet development. The latest version is built on the NetBeans platform, and includes features such as Ajax–enabled JavaServer Faces components, support for building JSR-168 portlets, easy access to databases, a streamlined application model, and more. Free for sun developer network members.
• Oracle JDeveloper is a free integrated development environment (IDE) for building Web service-oriented applications using industry standards for Java, XML, SQL, and Web Services. It supports the complete development life cycle with integrated features for modeling, coding, debugging, testing, profiling, tuning, and deploying applications.
• WideStudio is an open source, Integrated Development Environment for desktop applications purely made in Japan. This enables you to develop GUI applications that can run on Windows*, Linux, FreeBSD, SOLARIS, MacOSX in various programming languages such as C/C++, Java, Perl, Ruby, Python,Objective Caml
• SyncJEdit is a new Java IDE and supports multiple JDKs. As a new generation of Java IDE, it brings you many new concepts, ideas and technologies.

• Lazarus is a cross platform Visual IDE developed for and supported by the open source Free Pascal compiler. It aims to provide a Rapid Application Development Delphi Clone for Pascal and Object Pascal developers.
• RoRED is a free IDE for Ruby on Rails, currently only for Windows.
• FreeRIDE, a cross-platform IDE for the Ruby programming language.
• RDT is an open source Ruby IDE for the Eclipse platform.
• Mondrian is a cross-platform project-manager and editor for the Ruby language. Written in 100% native Ruby using the FOX GUI toolkit, Mondrian has the familiar look and feel of a modern IDE while remaining dedicated to the uniqueness of the Ruby language and its community.
• K PHP Develop it's an integrated Web developement tool, something like MS Interdev. It was designed for team work. K PHP Develop contains three modules Server, Server Setup, Client and plugins for accessing database servers. support PostgresSQL, MySQL and Sybase
• Dev-PHP is a well-featured integrated development environment (IDE). You'll be able to create scripts and applications using the PHP scripting language and the PHP-GTK library.
• Maguma Studio is a powerful PHP IDE Integrated Development Environment for the Windows platform. Full of features PHP developers need to enhance their development process
• PHP Coder is a free IDE developed for PHP programmers. Through tight integration of the PHP interpreter and the PHP documentation, PHP Coder gives you a time-saving Development Interface.
• tsWebEditor is a powerful php and html editor which you can also use as a simple text editor.
• Template tamer is a tool for creating and maintaining template based dynamic PHP web applications, with code clearly and completely separate from the html design.
• Arisesoft Winsyntax - is a free PHP-code editor with a fast syntax highlighting engine and the context PHP-help for professional scripting.
• PerlEdit is an IDE for Perl and a general-purpose text editor. It includes a source code text editor with syntax highlighting and a visual debugger.
• Quanta Plus is a highly stable and feature rich web development environment.
• Anjuta is a versatile Integrated Development Environment for C and C++ on GNU/Linux.
• Quincy is a simple programming environment for C/C++. It contains an editor, a compiler, a debugger, and graphics and GUI toolkits.
• BVRDE is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C and C++. It is designed to make cross-platform development easy

Text Editors to replace notepad for coding

• PSPad - editor for developers for Microsoft Windows systems. The universal freeware editor, useful for people who work with plain text, create web pages and want to use a good IDE for their compiler
• Notepad++ is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
• metapad is a small, fast (and completely free) text editor for Windows 9x/NT/XP with similar features to Microsoft Notepad but with many extra (and rather useful) features. It was designed to completely replace Notepad since it includes all of Notepad's features and much, much more.
• Programmer’s Notepad - the free, open source, text editor with special features for coders.
• TED Notepad is a growing freeware editor for true plain-text. It looks like a small Notepad, but is more and more fertile in innovative features, text-processing functions and other tools.
• Crimson Editor is a professional source code editor for Windows, offers many powerful features for programming languages such as HTML, C/C++, Perl and Java.
• AEdiX Suite is a coding and editing suite, especially designed for web developers. It offers syntax highlighting for 24 different language (HTML, PHP, ASP, C, C++, Pascal, java, JavaScript, perl, VBScript, SQL, ASM, Sphere script), script based template support as well as integration with HTML Tidy to verify your code.
• Zeus for Windows is a powerful, full-featured programmers text editor that comes pre-configured for many programming languages. Add to this an editor with a small footprint and lightning fast file loading and you have the perfect Notepad replacement.
• SuperEdi is a text editor with syntax coloring and build-in FTP client.The editor is extendable using executable programs, text clips and automation scripts. SuperEdi supports Unicode UTF-8, UTF-16 as well as many locale- specific encodings.
• SEG is a text editor designed mostly for PHP scripting but may be used for lot more.
• ConTEXT is a small, fast and powerful freeware text editor, developed mainly to serve as secondary tool for software developers.
• SC UniPad is a Unicode™ plain text editor for the Windows operating systems.
• EDXOR is a versatile, convenient and optimal text editor and file processor that far surpasses the capabilities of other Notepad-like applications.
• Araneae is a simple, yet powerful text editor, providing only the features necessary to create websites and scripts using the latest web technologies.
• Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting.
• QJot is a relatively small, completely USB portable, alternative rich text editor that saves .doc files, inserts images and more.
• HAPedit is an acronym for Html Asp Php editor; a win32 text-mode editor useful for all developers of dynamic web pages.
• Syn is an Open Source Text and Programming Editor with Syntaxhighlight for many Languages, and some IDE Features, like starting a program (e.g. Compiler) and capture the output, support for Projects etc.
• Notetab - The ultimate free Notepad replacement and a handy HTML editor. Handle a heap of files with a simple tabbed interface. Search files, strip HTML tags and format text quickly. Build libraries of text macros to speed up your work.
  
  [Updated 02/08/2007]
  
  
• SciTE is a cross-platform text editor written by Neil Hodgson using the Scintilla editing component. It is licensed under the Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer.
• Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.
• Komodo Edit, Award-winning editing for dynamic languages including Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and Tcl; plus support for browser-side code including JavaScript, CSS, HTML and XML.
• XEmacs is a highly customizable open source text editor and application development system.
  
  [Updated 23/08/2007]
  
  
  
• Apple Xcode (Apple Developer Tools) - a very powerful integrated development environment for application development on MacOS X in C, C++, Objective-C or Java, or scripting in AppleScript. The dev tools include all the needed SDKs, a powerful GUI editor (Interface Builder) and a bunch of performance tuning and other tools. You can get the Apple Developer Tools for free after registering with the Apple Developer Connection (get the free plan).
• TextWrangler - a free, fast, lightweight general-purpose text editor with syntax highlighting and most other essential text editing functionality. BBEdit's free cousin.
  

See Also;

• Top 10+ source code search engines
• Most Useful 20+ Visual Studio Add-ins
  
• Let's have a break - Programmer's Life
• Tech and Programming cheat sheets and quick refere
• Essential firefox add-ons for web programmers
• Open source .NET libraries you should be already using
  
• J2EE vs ASP.NET vs PHP
• ASP.NET AJAX Resources, Samples, Articles, Tutorials

Checkout;
Programming is an integral part of web development. All successful web developers emphasize on coding and programming as much as they focus on email marketing programs, ppc campaigns, and finding most sought out domain names.