Meet Lite XL: A Lightweight, Open-Source Text Editor for Linux Users
======
**Brief:** _Are you looking for a new _text editor_ alternative? You should try this lightweight,_simple_, fast, feature-filled, and extremely extensible one._
Sure, there are plenty of text editors or code editors that you can use. Some popular ones include Eclipse, [Visual Studio Code][1], [PyCharm][2], [Atom][3], [IntelliJ][4], and [Sublime Text][5].
But do you want to try something interesting that’s entirely focused on giving you a minimal experience?
Meet _**Lite XL**_ editor.
To be honest, I had no idea about it until last week. But, it managed to surprise me with its **minimalist design** and how **fast it was at coding**, but the most important fact was its similarity with Visual Studio Code.
So, before everything, let me tell you that if you’re a [Visual Studio Code fan][6], you should absolutely try _**Lite XL**_. It may not be an absolute replacement, but a lite edition of something that resembles the use-case.
![Showing how Lite XL looks][7]
### Lite XL: Lightweight Text Editor Written in Lua
Lite XL is an interesting open-source text editor written in Lua (particularly tailored to build lightweight applications).
It is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS as well. But, with all the available [modern text editors available][8], why Lite XL?
![Lite XL Customize Configuration][9]
Normally, we aren’t concerned about the resources that a text editor can consume on our system most of the time. However, at the time of creating bash, python, or any other type of script, you rely on a text editor, and the more resource-efficient it is, the better.
Of course, a text editor isn’t as resource-hungry as some other applications. But, if it matters to you, here’s what I observed:
Lite XL only uses **three megabytes** in your disk and consumes around **twenty megabytes** of physical memory, compared with the almost five hundred fifty megabytes (~550 MB) that Visual Studio Code uses.
**Can you see this wonderful difference between these similar editors?**
Not just the resource usage, it is highly customizable as well.
Note that the resource usage stats can vary for different system configurations.
### Features of Lite XL
![][10]
As per the official information available, some of its most popular features include:
* __Cross-Platform_:_** It currently works on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
* **Lightweight: ****As we described before, its usage hardly ever exceeds 10 MB in RAM.
* **Extensible**: Being a minimal offering doesn’t mean not being customizable. Lite XL can extend its functionalities thanks to several plugins available, for example, [VSC-like intellisense][11].
* **Multi-cursor editing**: It’s as wonderful as it sounds, inside Lite XL you can work with multiple cursors.
* **Integrated terminal**: Like Visual Studio Code, Lite XL implements its terminal.
* High DPI display support.
* Additional color themes are available.
* Supports hardware-accelerated rendering.
### How to Install Lite XL in Linux
Lite XL offers an AppImage file for Linux distributions. You can follow our [AppImage guide][12] to get started.
You can find the AppImage file on its [GitHub repository][13].
Once you head to its GitHub releases section, go directly to the Assets section and download the _**LiteXL_x86_64.Appimage**_ file.
![Downloading Appimage file][14]
An AppImage file will be downloaded into your download directory, so, before double-clicking on the file, verify it is allowed to execute as a program.
![Verifying execution permissions][15]
That’s right! Now you can double-click on the file and start using _**Lite XL**_ in your system.
[Lite XL][16]
If you’re interested in exploring Lite XL, you can get involved in its [GitHub repository][13], visit the official website, or join its [Discord community][17].
_What do you prefer to edit text and code? Do you focus on using a lightweight program, or is it irrelevant for your use case? Let me know your thoughts in the comments down below._
