# subethaedit/SubEthaEdit

General purpose plain text editor for macOS. Widely known for its live collaboration feature.

Repository: https://github.com/subethaedit/SubEthaEdit
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/subethaedit
Homepage: https://subethaedit.net
Language: Objective-C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: cocoa, objective-c, text-editor, mit-license, collaborative-editing, collaboration, html, developer-tools, creative-writing, macosx, macos, desktop-application, shell, syntax-highlighting, regular-expressions, osx, appkit, mac, ide, code
Last push: 2025-11-09T15:30:33+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 46/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 51, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2869, "days_push": 297, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_readme
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1431, forks 115 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:42.428777+00:00)

## What it is
SubEthaEdit is a free, open-source plain text editor for macOS written in Objective-C, known for pioneering live collaborative editing. It offers syntax highlighting for many languages, regex search, block editing, code folding, a command-line tool, and AppleScript support.

## Use cases
- collaboratively edit documents with others in real time
- edit code with syntax highlighting on macOS
- write HTML with live web preview
- edit multiple lines at once with block editing
- use a terminal-integrated editor via the see command
- write meeting minutes or creative writing with friends
- search and replace with regex across documents

## When to choose
- you are on macOS and want a native editor with real-time collaboration
- you need a lightweight code editor with regex search and folding
- you want an open-source editor with AppleScript automation support

## When to avoid
- you need a cross-platform editor
- you require a full IDE with debugging and refactoring
- you need plugin ecosystems like VS Code's

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: editor, developer-tools
- domain: text-editors, developer-tools, operating-systems
- platform: -
- tags: collaborative-editing, syntax-highlighting, objective-c, cocoa, regex-search, applescript, command-line-tool, live-web-preview, macos, desktop

## Member repositories
- subethaedit/SubEthaEdit (main) score 46

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:42.428777+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:37:08.835309+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - homepage: https://subethaedit.net (fetched 2026-08-29T11:48:31.689637+00:00, sha c710eaf512f3)
  - site_page: https://subethaedit.net/faq.html (fetched 2026-08-29T11:48:31.692639+00:00, sha 6533c3b4327b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.