Notepad Plus Plus

A little bit of history

I think Windows Notepad was among the first programs (back then we were using the word "program" more than "software" which lately evolved into an app, though this is not correct) I ever opened on a computer. Back in 1996-1997, all you had was that simple white window with no line numbers, no colouring and no tabs. It was fine for writing a quick note but anything beyond that was painful. If you accidentally opened a big file, it would freeze or crash. And forget about editing any kind of code or configuration file in it.

Actually Windows Notepad is the winner when it comes to typing something but losing all the work because auto-save didn't even exist or because of a sudden OS restart - any Windows 95 user reading this?

For years, I used whatever text editor came with Windows. But around 2004-2005, I started working with more and more configuration files, HTML pages and log files. Windows Notepad could not keep up for various reasons.

After so many years of frustration that is when I discovered Notepad++ and I never looked back.

Don Ho, a developer based in Paris, started building Notepad++ back in September 2003. He released it as free and open source software under the GNU General Public License. The current version at the time of this review is 8.9.2, released on 16 February 2026. That is over 22 years of continuous updates. And similar to 7-Zip, KeePass, CDBurnerXP and many other apps I reviewed on dAppCDN - Notepad++ puts functionality over everything else. I install it on every fresh Windows machine. It is one of my first steps after a new setup.

What Is Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and text editor for Microsoft Windows. You can use it to replace the default Windows Notepad but it goes much further than that. It supports syntax colouring for 78+ programming and scripting languages out of the box and if your language or format is not listed - you can create your own custom definition.

The developer wrote Notepad++ in C++ using the Win32 API and the STL (Standard Template Library). This matters because it means the software runs natively on Windows. There is no Electron framework, no Chromium browser engine running in the background and no heavy runtime. Just a small, fast executable that starts in less than a second on most machines.

You can run Notepad++ on Windows 10, Windows 11 and probably on the upcoming Windows 12. There is no official macOS or Linux version but many people run it on Linux using Wine without problems. Oh and I almost forgot - it has a portable version too. I keep one on my USB stick. Just copy the folder, plug it in any Windows PC and it runs. No installation needed, no traces left behind.

Why I Still Use Notepad++

A lot of people ask me - why would you need Notepad++ when Visual Studio Code is everywhere? Or when the default Windows Notepad now has tabs and Copilot AI stuck inside it?

So here is my personal opinion - you can of course disagree.

I tried VS Code. I really did. But that thing runs on Electron and if you do not know what Electron is - think of it as a full Chromium browser engine running behind every window. On a fresh start with nothing open, VS Code was eating about 280 MB of RAM on my machine. Notepad++ was sitting at 12-15 MB. I am sorry but that is ridiculous. I mean - I used to work with very large files when I first discovered Notepad++ after being frustrated by Notepad because it would get stuck and crash (CTRL+ALT+END or Windows restart was the only fix).

But let me tell you about the log file test that made me go back. I had a 500 MB production log from work - I dropped it into VS Code and waited. The interface froze (and the Notepad vibes were already in my head), the fans kicked in and after maybe 40 seconds it was still trying to index the file. I force-closed it. Opened the same file in Notepad++ - maybe 4 seconds and I was scrolling through it like nothing happened. The secret is something called memory-mapping in the Scintilla editing engine from what I've read about - basically it does not dump the whole file into your RAM.

I know people who code for a living and they use VS Code (and they will probably disagree with me) for their bigger projects. Fair enough - it has Git, it has the extensions, all of that - and yeah, I might be subjective here (the RAM usage is more because of other things such as IntelliSense, Git integration) as I used Notepad++ long before VS. But most of these guys still keep Notepad++ around. They open it when they need to check something fast, grep through a log, edit a config file at 2 AM and go back to sleep. I noticed more and more developers doing this in 2025 and 2026 - going back to Notepad++ as a second tool.

What About The Default Windows Notepad?

Microsoft updated the default Windows Notepad many times between 2024 and 2026. They added tabs, they added session persistence (so it remembers whatever files you had open the last time - this is something I actually liked as it traumatized me decades ago) and they even added Copilot AI in there for text rewriting and summarisation.

This is something I really disagree with. There are way too many AI integrations I don't want to see another one in Notepad.

Here is what bothers me though. By bolting all these features on top, Microsoft made Notepad slow. The thing now takes several seconds to start on a modern machine. Several seconds! For a text editor! Back in 1997, Notepad opened instantly because it did almost nothing. Now it does a lot more but it lost the one thing it was good at - speed.

But the real problem is something else - Windows Notepad still cannot do the things that matter for technical work. No regex. No macros. No plugins. No hex editing. No side-by-side comparison.

Notepad++ Features

• Syntax colouring: 78+ languages built-in, from C++ and Python to SQL and XML
• Tabbed editing: Open many files in tabs - switch between them fast
• Search and replace: Full regex (PCRE) support, works on single files or all open files at once
• Macro recorder: Record editing actions and replay them - I use this more than I expected
• Split view: Two files side by side, or two parts of the same file
• Auto-completion: Function completion for supported languages
• Code folding: Collapse sections of code - helps when the file gets long
• Zoom in/out: Ctrl+Mouse wheel - that simple
• Line bookmarks: Mark lines and jump between them, I use this a lot in log files
• User Defined Languages (UDL): Create custom syntax rules through a visual editor - no coding needed
• Column mode: editing Select and edit columns of text - great for CSV files
• File monitoring: Watches a file for changes and updates the view live - useful for log monitoring
• Encoding conversion: Switch between ASCII, UTF-8 and UCS-2
• Document map: Minimap on the right side - similar to what Sublime Text has
• Redact selection: New in 8.9.2 - block out selected text with special characters

The Interface

I have to be honest - Notepad++ looks like it belongs to an older version of Windows. But as I keep saying in all my reviews posted on dAppCDN - I choose functionality over design. Every time. The Porsche 911 design did not change much over the decades but it is still a great car. The same with Apple products - iPhone or MacBook - it looks the same but I still love it.

Notepad++ has a main window with a toolbar at the top. You see buttons for New, Open, Save, Find, Replace, Zoom and more. Tabs sit below the toolbar. The editing area takes up most of the screen. On the left side you can see line numbers and on the right you can optionally enable the document map.

Everything works as you expect. You right-click to get options. You drag and drop files into the window. You press Ctrl+F to search. If you need regex, just switch the search mode. If you need to search across all open files - there is a button for that too.

The learning time is about two minutes. If you used any text editor before, you will figure it out immediately.

The UDL System - Why Certain Industries Cannot Switch

UDL stands for User Defined Language. It lets you create custom syntax colouring rules for any file format. And you do not need to be a programmer to do it - there is a visual editor where you set up keywords, comment styles, operators and folding rules.

Why does this matter?

Because there are entire industries that work with proprietary or specialised file formats that no mainstream editor supports. Logistics companies parse warehouse management logs. Medical researchers work with script formats for laboratory instruments. Aerospace engineers work with CNC G-code variants and terrain configuration files. Telecom engineers read Cisco IOS and Juniper JunOS router configuration files.

Over 20+ years, people in these industries created hundreds of UDL definitions for their specific formats. They shared these definitions within teams, stored them in company knowledge bases and passed them on to new colleagues. The cost of moving all of this to a different editor would be enormous. So they stay with Notepad++.

If you want to add support for a new language in VS Code, you need to write a TypeScript extension and publish it. Ok, maybe I just said something stupid and this isn't true but yes, consider it a disclaimer based on my experience. In Notepad++, someone who does not write code can set up a new language definition in a few minutes using the visual editor. This is a big difference that most reviews do not talk about.

The Plugins I Actually Use

I mentioned plugins a few times already so let me go through the ones I actually have installed. Notepad++ has a built-in Plugin Admin - you open it from the Plugins menu, pick what you need and click Install. I wish more software would do it this way honestly.

ComparePlus - this one I cannot live without. I use it to open two files next to each other with synchronised scrolling. When something is different between the two files it marks the change right there in the editor. The older plugin went by the name Compare but it had issues - it messed up the undo history and it looked terrible in dark mode. ComparePlus fixed all of that and it also works with Git and SVN if you need it.

NppExec - honestly I do not use this one every day. But when I need it, I really need it. Last month I had to run a script on a dozen of text files and NppExec saved me from opening a separate terminal window. My brother in law connected NppExec to Aider (an AI command-line tool) to get code explanations right inside Notepad++. I thought that was clever - and the nice part? Nothing leaves your machine. No cloud, no subscription, no data going anywhere. People don't realize the luxury of "no cloud" option nowadays but whatever.

XML Tools - I personally never touch XML if I can avoid it but I know people who use this plugin every single day. It does validation, formatting (they call it Pretty Print which is a funny name) and XPath queries. For a free plugin that is a lot. Oh and one more thing I wanted to mention. There is a growing number of plugins that connect Notepad++ to local AI servers - Ollama being the popular one. So you can run AI code analysis on your own hardware. Your files never leave the building. I like this approach much better than paying for Copilot and having Microsoft read my code. Ok, I said - nothing personal with Microsoft - I wanted to say and having a third-party reading my code.

The 2025 Security Incident

I need to talk about this because it scared a lot of people, me included but I do take some security measures.

Here is what happened (from what I've read and of course my understanding - again to add this as another disclaimer). Between June and December 2025, a hacking group from China - they go by Lotus Blossom but also Billbug or Raspberry Typhoon depending on which security company you ask - managed to break into the hosting company that ran the Notepad++ website. Not the software. Not the code on GitHub. The hosting provider. They got in through there and took control of WinGUp, the update mechanism.

Now here is the scary part. They did not push the infected installer to everyone. They filtered by IP address. Only certain targets in Vietnam, the Philippines, El Salvador and Australia got the poisoned update. Government agencies. Telecom companies. Financial institutions. The rest of us probably never saw it. This was espionage, not a mass attack.

The backdoor they installed goes by the name Chrysalis. I read through the Kaspersky report and the Rapid7 analysis. This thing could open remote shells, run commands, grab files off the machine and then self-destruct when done. Like something out of a movie except it actually happened.

And here is the worst part - the attackers rotated their servers and changed their methods every month or so. Even after the hosting company kicked them off the servers in September 2025, they still had valid internal credentials. They kept redirecting update traffic until December 2, 2025.

Don Ho reacted fast once he found out. Version 8.8.9 came out on 9 December 2025 with signature verification for installers. Then version 8.9.2 on 16 February 2026 added what he calls a "Double-Lock" - two separate signature and certificate checks run before any update binary can execute on your machine. He also removed the libcurl.dll dependency from the updater to stop DLL side-loading and restricted plugin management to only accept programs signed with a matching certificate.

The main bug goes by CVE-2025-15556, CVSS score 7.7. There is another fix in the same version for CVE-2026-25926 (CVSS 7.3) - an unsafe search path issue when opening Windows Explorer from inside Notepad++.

My personal advice: please update to version 8.9.2 right now. And always - always download from the official website or from a third-party trusted source that can match the file signatures or it allows the main developer to upload a certificate - guess what? dAppCDN does this by default plus we also scan all the files before they are being uploaded.

IMPORTANT: NO method or system is 100% safe. However, what I do and also preach is to wait each time you see a new update. I usually wait for as much as possible, even one version behind. I also scan look and compare the file signatures, check the certificate (if its available) and I also upload it on other services such as VirusTotal or Jotti's malware scan. It is not fast, not convenient, not optimal BUT it reduces the chances of getting infected.

The Political Side of Notepad++

This is something you will not find in any other text editor review. Notepad++ comes with political statements. I am not joking. Don Ho has been naming his releases after political causes for years. Version 7.8.1 he named "Free Uyghur". Version 7.8.9 he named "Stand with Hong Kong". Version 8.3.2 said "Stand with Ukraine". Version 8.6.9 said "Support Taiwan's Independence" and the more recent 8.7.2 had a subtitle comparing Elon Musk with Volodymyr Zelensky - you can guess which one he preferred.

China blocked Notepad++ after that. Since 2020, if you try to access the download page from a Chinese browser like QQ or 360 Chrome, you get a warning about "illegal information". Imagine - a text editor blocked by an entire country.

Some users are not happy about this. They say a programming tool should stay out of politics. I get that argument. But I also think that Don Ho sacrificing the Chinese market for what he believes in says something about the kind of developer he is. You do not have to agree with him. But you have to admit it takes guts to do that when you have millions of users.

I do wonder if this is partly why the Lotus Blossom group targeted Notepad++ in 2025. Nobody has confirmed it but the timing and the origin of the attackers make you think.

Privacy

Notepad++ does not collect any data. Nothing. Zero. It does not call home, it does not log what files you open and it does not ask you to create an account or sign in. I tested the portable version with Wireshark once out of curiosity - it made zero outbound connections.

VS Code is different. The default installation collects pseudonymised data about which commands you run, what extensions you use and how your project looks. Microsoft says it is anonymised. You can avoid this by using VSCodium (the open source build without telemetry) instead. But most people do not know that.

The default Windows Notepad now ties into your Microsoft account. Session persistence saves your tabs and files. I am not saying this is evil but in some work environments where you handle sensitive documents, this is a problem.

If you work in a place with strict rules about outbound connections and data handling - hospital networks, military systems, air-gapped labs - then Notepad++ is probably the only mainstream text editor that meets those requirements.

Notepad++ Alternatives

I tested most of these over the years so let me give you my honest take.

First the paid Notepad++ Alternatives:

• Sublime Text: Paid ($99) Fast. Really fast. Multiple cursors, great search. But $99 is $99
• UltraEdit: Paid ($100/year) Does everything including FTP and column mode. But they switched to yearly subscription which I do not like

Second the free Notepad++ Alternatives:

• VS Code: The one everyone uses for coding - Git, extensions, all of that. But it eats 280+ MB of RAM doing nothing + the privacy thing related to some data being shared to a third-party server.
• Vim: Runs on everything and it is blazing fast. But I spent three days trying to learn it and gave up
• Notepad: Built into Windows now with tabs and Copilot. Still no regex, no macros, no plugins though
• Kate (KDE): Good on Linux. On Windows you need KDE libraries and it becomes annoying to set up

Final Thoughts

Notepad++ is 22 years old and the interface shows it. But I installed it on my current machine because it was and still is an alternative to other super popular editors - in my case it was Notepad but there are many others - so it fits in the category of - hmm, I need to install this, this and this on my new laptop after I finish installing Windows. That says enough I think. So in the end, Notepad++ is a legend. Free, clean and now even more secure and safer to use than ever because Don Ho patched the 2025 security mess quickly and the updater is stronger now because of it.

And finally - please be aware that Notepad Plus Plus was included in top 100 of the most appreciated and popular free tools consistently. 22 years is a lot and Don Ho, the author deserves our appreciation and recognition for his consistency and dedication to both a free world and for defending many noble causes. So, I am kindly asking you to consider a donation to him - I personally did it as soon as I typed this. Peace and love!

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