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Software · Development

Kate

Kate is a text editor, available on Windows, macOS and Linux: code completion, syntax highlighting and built-in terminal.

  • Completely free
  • Windows, macOS and Linux
  • Open source
  • No account

Overview

Kate is a text editor, available on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Features described in its Flathub listing, on its official website and in its Winget manifest: code completion, syntax highlighting, built-in terminal and Git integration.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “Kate is a modern text editor built on the KDE Frameworks and Qt.” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “It features stuff like LSP (Language Server Protocol) support, projects, multiple cursors and selections, git integration, folder wide search, horizontal and vertical splits, vi mode, syntax highlighting for 300+…” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “It features stuff like LSP (Language Server Protocol) support, projects, multiple cursors and selections, git integration, folder wide search, horizontal and vertical splits, vi mode, syntax highlighting for 300+…” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “It features stuff like LSP (Language Server Protocol) support, projects, multiple cursors and selections, git integration, folder wide search, horizontal and vertical splits, vi mode, syntax highlighting for 300+…” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “It features stuff like LSP (Language Server Protocol) support, projects, multiple cursors and selections, git integration, folder wide search, horizontal and vertical splits, vi mode, syntax highlighting for 300+…” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “Extensible via plugins” — Flathub, 10 November 2026

At a glance

Kate is completely free: it is open source software, and every feature is available without paying or subscribing.

Its licence (LGPL-2.1+) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • No account needed
  • Commercial use allowed

About

Kate is a fast multi-document, multi-view text editor for programmers by KDE. It features stuff like LSP (Language Server Protocol) support, projects, multiple cursors and selections, git integration, folder wide search, horizontal and vertical splits, vi mode, syntax highlighting for 300+ languages, built-in terminal, dynamic word wrap and much more. It is available on Linux, BSD, Windows and MacOS. Features: MDI, window splitting, window tabbing Spell checking CR, CRLF, LF newline support Encoding support (utf-8, utf-16, ascii etc.) Encoding conversion Regular expression based find & replace Syntax highlighting for 300+ languages Code and text folding Multiple cursors and multiple selections Block selection mode Auto indentation Auto completion support Shell integration Wide protocol support (http, ftp, ssh, webdav etc.) Extensible via plugins Integrated terminal Scriptable using JavaScript Vi mode Intellisense support using LSP (Language Server Protocol) DAP (Debug Adapter Protocol) support Vertical tabs/document list Lightweight project support. Kate can open folders as projects Code formatting using native formatters such as clang-format, prettier etc Built in filesystem browser CTags support Project wide and folder wide search Git integration

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Winget (Windows Package Manager) (credit card, account, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Unspecified source (platforms) —
  • Facts collected from Official plan pages (pricing, licence, terms) (commercial use) —
  • Facts collected from Comptoir du Libre (source code) —
  • Facts collected from Homebrew (platforms) —
  • Facts collected from Wikidata (licence, platforms) —
  • Last technical check: 5 November 2026
  • Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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