Is CotEditor Free and How Can I Get Involved in Its Development?

CotEditor is free to use, and it is developed as an open-source project that anyone can contribute to. According to the official site, it is "The Plain-Text Editor for macOS" and is described as "free," "light-weight, neat, yet powerful." If you want to use it, you can download it for macOS; if you want to get involved, the project points you to its GitHub project page and its issue tracker.

What "free" means here

The official page states plainly: "It's free!" There are no pricing links or payment platforms listed on the page, so the supported statement is simply that the editor is free to use. The page does not describe paid tiers, subscriptions, or license fees, so nothing beyond "free" should be assumed from the available material.

How the project is structured

CotEditor is not a closed product. The site says:

• "CotEditor is developed as an open-source project that allows anyone to contribute."
• There is a "Project Page on GitHub" linked from the site.
• Feedback is welcomed: "Please don't hesitate to report any bugs or feature requests to our issue tracker."

So the two main involvement paths described are the GitHub project page (for the source and project activity) and the issue tracker (for bugs and feature requests).

Ways to get involved

Based on what the official page describes, involvement can take these forms:

The page frames contributions broadly — "anyone can contribute" — without listing specific roles, so the concrete entry points it names are the project page and the issue tracker.

What you get as a user

Knowing it's free and open source, it helps to see what the editor actually offers, since that's part of why contributing makes sense. The official feature list includes:

• Syntax highlighting for more than 60 pre-installed major languages such as HTML, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Markdown, with the ability to create your own settings.
• Powerful find & replace using the ICU regular expression engine.
• Settings via clicks — no complex configuration files; syntax definitions and themes are handled in a standard settings window.
• Auto backup of documents while editing.
• Outline menu that extracts specified lines using the predefined syntax and lets you jump to the corresponding line.
• Split editor to view different parts of a document at once.
• Character inspector for Unicode character data of selected characters.
• Scriptable macros in Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP, UNIX shell, AppleScript, or JavaScript.
• Incompatible characters checking against a desired encoding.
• CJK language friendly encoding estimation, vertical text mode, and correct line height.

A practical way to start

If your goal is to use it: download CotEditor for macOS and start writing — the site emphasizes rapid launch so you can write immediately.

If your goal is to contribute: go to the GitHub project page to see the project, and use the issue tracker to report bugs or request features. The page explicitly invites both.

One thing the page does not specify is a formal contribution process (such as coding guidelines or a contributor agreement). For that level of detail, the GitHub project page is the place the site directs you to.