Bluefish

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Freedom report

Three barsScore 6.5

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely3 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Bluefish is ranked #17 of 44 in code editors on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, macOS, Windows. There is a free plan.

Bluefish plans and pricing

All plans

Bluefish Free GNU GPL software · desktop editor bluefish.sourceforge.io · 4 Oct 2026

Compared on code editors

Free plan: Yes
Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
Extension support: Yes
Remote development: Yes
Editor type: desktop

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The record

Purpose: Bluefish is a lightweight editor for programmers and web developers to write websites, scripts, and programming code.
License: Bluefish is an open source project released under the GNU GPL license.
Languages: Bluefish supports more than 30 markup and programming languages.
Documents: Its multiple document interface can open 1,000 or more documents; the features page says more than 10,000 were tested simultaneously.
Projects: Project support restores settings for each project automatically.
Remote files: Using gvfs, Bluefish supports remote files over FTP, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, WebDAV, CIFS, and other protocols.
Editing tools: Features include regular expression search and replace, code folding, auto-completion, and auto-tag-closing.
External tools: Users can integrate external programs such as make, lint, weblint, xmllint, tidy, and javac, or run custom programs and scripts.
Platforms: The project says Bluefish runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD; installers are listed for Linux distributions, macOS, and 64-bit Windows.
Flatpak limitation: The Flatpak build's strict security blocks integration with system tools such as make, pylint, weblint, and the web browser, while internal functionality works as expected.
Support: Community and support are volunteer-run through a mailing list and bug tracker; the project says commercial support can be requested by contacting its project manager.
Security: The project page describes the Flatpak build's strict security restrictions but does not state a security certification or compliance standard.
History: The project history says Bluefish was started by Olivier Sessink, Chris Mazuc, and Neil Millar in 1998.
Founded: 1998
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Code Editors in 2026#17 of 44
Best PHP IDEs in 2026#6 of 23

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Sources

bluefish.sourceforge.io· checked 4 Oct 2026
bluefish.sourceforge.io/features.html· checked 4 Oct 2026
bluefish.sourceforge.io/install.html· checked 4 Oct 2026
bluefish.sourceforge.io/community.html· checked 4 Oct 2026
bluefish.sourceforge.io/news.html· checked 4 Oct 2026