Comparison of XML editors
 | This article or section possibly contains synthesis of material which does not verifiably mention or relate to the main topic. (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
This is a list of XML editors. Note that any text editor can edit XML, so this page only lists software programs that specialize in this task. It doesn't include text editors that merely do simple syntax coloring or expanding and collapsing of nodes.
Desktop applications
| Name | Latest release | Active | Software license | Type | Windows | macOS | Linux | XML diff/merge | Payment model | Full-featured free trial period | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe FrameMaker | 2022 | Yes | Proprietary | Standalone | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | |
| BaseX | 2023 (10.7) | Yes | BSD-3-Clause | Standalone | Yes | Yes | Yes[1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | via add-on module | N/A | N/A |
| CAM Editor | 2015 (3.2.2) | No | MPL-2.0 | Standalone | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? | No | Yes | No | N/A | N/A | ||
| GNU Emacs/ nxml-mode |
2023 (29.1) | Yes | GPL-3.0-or-later | Major mode | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (Ediff) | N/A | N/A |
| GNU Emacs/ psgml-mode, xml-mode |
2023 (29.1) | Yes | GPL-2.0-or-later | Major mode | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | sgml-show-structure | No | No | dtd-mode | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (Ediff) | N/A | N/A |
| MadCap Flare | 2019 | Yes | Proprietary | Standalone | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Perpetual and Subscription | Yes |
| Liquid XML Studio | 2020 (18.0.4) | Yes | Proprietary | Standalone + Visual Studio Plugin | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes |
| Oxygen XML Editor | November
2025 (28.0) |
Yes | Proprietary | Standalone + Eclipse Plugin[2] Web-App | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Perpetual and Subscription | 30 days |
| Stylus Studio | 2014 (X15 R2) | Yes | Proprietary | Standalone | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | |
| Xeditor | August 2023 (6.15) | Yes | Proprietary | Web-app | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | via add-on module | Subscription | Yes |
| Xerlin | 2005 (1.3) | No | Open Source | Standalone | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | N/A | ? | ||
| XMetaL | 2021 (16.0) | Yes | Proprietary | Standalone | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | ? | Yes |
| XML Notepad | 2023 (2.9.0.7) | Yes | MIT | Standalone | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | ||
| XMLSpy | 2026 | Yes | Proprietary | Standalone Eclipse Plugin, Visual Studio Plugin |
Yes | No[3] | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Perpetual | Yes |
See also
Commentary
Spring Tools Suite and Eclipse have a variety of built-in and free plugins matching or exceeding the quality of the paid versions. They come with a content assist tool that completes tags and can search for classes in any java classpath. They also include validation, bean creation, and commit tools.
A plugin for Notepad++ named XML Tools is available.[4] It contains many features including manual/automatic validation using both DTDs and XSDs, XPath evaluation, auto-completion, pretty print, and text conversion in addition to being able to work on multiple files at once. Other tools are available to edit XHTML.
References
- ↑ Also BSD
- ↑ Older Eclipse plugin versions work in current (Indigo) Eclipse.
- ↑ Plugin version
- ↑ "Notepad++ Plugins - Browse /XML Tools/XML Tools 2.4.2 r1057 Unicode at SourceForge.net".
Further reading
- Doyle, Bob (19 June 2006). "XML Editors Review". CMS Review. Adapted from Doyle, Bob (13 June 2006). "XML Editors Review". EContent Magazine.
- Harvey, Betty (2007). "XML Authoring". In Endsley, Kezia. Advanced XML applications from the experts at The XML Guild. Boston, MA: Thomson Course Technology. ISBN 978-1-59863-214-9. OCLC 560505279. Search this book on
External links
- XML Editors on Wikidata
This article "Comparison of XML editors" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Comparison of XML editors. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
