Free HTML editors are often considered the best kind. They offer flexibility and power without an outlay of cash. But beware, if you're looking for more features and flexibility, there are many reasonably priced HTML editors available. Find the best HTML editor for you.
Like vi, Emacs is found on most Unix systems and Mac systems which makes it easy for you to edit a page even if you don't have your standard software. Emacs is a lot more complicated than vi and so offers more features, but I find it harder to use. Feature highlights: XML support, scripting support, advanced CSS support, and a built-in validator, as well as color coded XHTML editing.
Creatext is intended to be an XHTML editor that goes along with your WYSIWYG editor. First you build your pages in the WYSIWYG editor, and then you use Crea:text to modify it so that it looks good in every browser. Feature highlights: Advanced CSS support, built-in validator, and international support as well as color coded XHTML editing.
jEdit is a text editor written in Java. It is primarily a text editor, but includes things like support for unicode, color coding, and allows for macros to add-in features. Feature highlights: XML support, scripting support, advanced CSS support, and international support as well as color coded text XHTML editing.
Xeena is a free XML editor from IBM. It can be used to edit Web pages as well as XML. You need to get an IBM account to download.
Vim is an extended version of vi. It has all the benefits of vi plus some improvements. It's not as readily available on Linux systems as vi is, but when it's available it can really help streamline your Web editing. Vim is not specifically a Web editor, but as a text editor it's one of my favorites.
One of the best things about vi is that it is ubiquitous. If you build a Web page on Unix or Macintosh servers vi will be available for you to edit with. It can be hard to learn and doesn't offer a lot of extra features, but the fact that it's everywhere makes it very useful to know. Feature highlights: text editor, some versions have color coding.
More than just an HTML editor Emilé is actually an XML editor for the Macintosh. It isn't optimized for the PowerPC, but it does work well, and functions as an XHTML editor as well.
Netscape Composer is a simple little Web page editor that comes included with Netscape. There isn't a lot to recommend it other than that it's free and is built-in to your Web browser. Feature highlights: WYSIWYG XHTML editing.
Alpha is primarily a text editor that allows Tcl scripting to enhance it's functionality. It does support XML as well as HTML editing. Feature highlights: XML support.
TextEdit is the free text editor that comes with Macintosh OS X systems. It doesn't have a lot of features specifically for Web development, but if you want to start quickly writing HTML and don't want to have to download anything, this is a great place to start.
Would you buy one if you could afford it?