Free HTML Editors for Macintosh

Komodo Edit is hands down the best free XML editor available. It also includes a lot of great features for HTML and CSS development. Plus, if that isn't enough, you can get extensions for it to add on languages or other helpful features (like special characters). It's not the best HTML editor, but it's great for what you pay, especially if you build in XML.

Aptana Studio community edition is an interesting take on Web page development. Instead of focusing on the HTML, Aptana focuses on the JavaScript and other elements that allow you to create Rich Internet Applications. One of the things I really like is the outline view that makes it really easy to visualize the DOM. This makes for easier CSS and JavaScript development. If you are a developer creating Web 2.0 applications, Aptana Studio is a good choice.

KompoZer is a good WYSIWYG editor. It is based on the popular Nvu editor - only it is called an "unofficial bug-fix release." KompoZer was conceived by some people who really liked Nvu, but were fed up with the slow release schedules and poor support. So they took it over and released a less buggy version of the software. Ironically, there hasn't been a new release of KompoZer in over a year.

Nvu is a good WYSIWYG editor. I prefer text editors to WYSIWYG editors, but if you don't, then Nvu is a great choice, especially considering that it's free. I love that it has a site manager to allow you to review the sites that you're building. It's surprising that this software is free. Feature highlights: XML support, advanced CSS support, full site management, built-in validator, and international support as well as WYSIWYG and color coded XHTML editing.

SeaMonkey is the Mozilla project all-in-one Internet application suite. It includes a Web browser, email and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and composer - the Web page editor. One of the nice things about using SeaMonkey is that you have the browser built-in already so testing is a breeze. Plus it's a free WYSIWYG editor with an embedded FTP to publish your Web pages.

Amaya is the W3C Web editor. It also acts as a Web browser. It validates the HTML as you build your page, and since you can see the tree structure of your Web documents, it can be very useful for learning to understand the DOM and how your documents look in the document tree. It has a lot of features that most Web designers won't ever use, but if you're worried about standards and you want to be 100% sure that your pages work with the W3C standards, this is a great editor to use.

EditX Lite is a free version of EditX for non-commercial use. If you need to manipulate XML or XHTML, this is a fine product. You can use it to write valid XHTML documents, but it's major strength is in the XML and XSLT functionality.

Arachnophilia is not free - it's "careware", but just because you don't have to pay cash for it doesn't mean it's not a good product. In fact, it's a great text HTML editor with a lot of functionality. The color coding makes it easy to use. It has a Windows native version and a JAR file for Macintosh and Linux users.

NetBeans IDE is a Java IDE that can help you build robust Web applications. Like most IDEs it has a steep learning curve because they don't often work in the same way that Web editors do. But once you get used to it you'll be hooked. One nice feature is the version control included in the IDE which is really useful for people working in large development environments. If you write Java and Web pages this is a great tool.

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.