Bluefish is a lightweight and powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdevelopers, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages. See features for an extensive overview, take a look at the screenshots, or install it right away. Bluefish is an open source development project, released under the GNU GPL licence.
Bluefish runs on most desktop operating systems including Linux, Mac OSX, Windows, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
A regression was found in the Bluefish 2.2.18 release. This is fixed in the Bluefish 2.2.19 release. The only other change is that the the dynamic menu shortcut changing feature that was re-introduced in 2.2.18 for the main menu is now also working for
the snippets menu.
October 30, 2025 - Bluefish 2.2.18 release
Bluefish 2.2.18 has much better CSS language support. The color editor now also supports hsl() and rgb() style colors. This Bluefish release also shows colors by just hovering the mouse over a color code. This version does also support the feature to dynamically change a shortcut key by hovering the mouse over a menu item and pressing a new shortcut key again. This feature was present in all gtk2 applications and has not been working for bluefish gtk3 builds until now. For Windows users the build has some important fixes, most important it can start external commands again such as preview in browser. This release removes the infobrowser from the build since it no longer compiles with new libxml versions. This plugin was already deprecated and disabled by default for years.
Bluefish is incredibly fast, it starts in milliseconds and easily loads 1000+ files. It supports 30+ markup and programming languages. It is highly customizable. It has project support, can load and save files from servers, supports Zencoding/Emmet, has a advanced search and replace enige with Regex support. And much more.
Many tips on features that improve your speed and efficiency when working in Bluefish, and tips how to customize Bluefish to your liking. Showing new features of Bluefish 2.2.3 (watch on youtube)
Bluefish, a robust code editor built for programmers and web developers, has been helping users boost efficiencies since 1997. The open-source software supports multiple languages, allowing users to speed development — even when working with large codebases. Over the years, contributors have polished Bluefish to near perfection and now focus on making small improvements based on user feedback.(https://www.hostingadvice.com/)
Bluefish is by far the most powerful among the HTML editors we tested. It is probably the most potent editor for Linux in general. (retrieved from www.suse.com)
GPL-licensed Bluefish has become an excellent 'production tool' for those of who earn our living writing for Web sites, full of little 'speed you up' features [..] It is an excellent example of how a multinational group of talented programmers can produce a piece of work under the GPL that is at least as good as any commercial program (newsforge.com)
The Bluefish HTML editor is an excellent example of of how good open source programs can be. It is feature rich, with lots of time saving tools for experienced coders and friendly enough for newbies to be productive in little or no time. (retrieved from www.linuxorbit.com)
If you've ever longed for an HTML editor that is easy to use, yet doesn't try to do everything for you, Bluefish is just the editor for you. It has a wealth of features that will make your programming easier, but in the end you retain total control of the HTML. (retrieved from software.linux.com)
Bluefish marries the best of GUI's and traditional text editing into a customizable, useful package.(retrieved from www.linuxplanet.com)
One of the most powerful editors for Linux + Supports many programming and markup languages + Lots of time saving tools for experienced users + Friendly enough for beginners + Its wealth of features will make your programming easier + While letting you maintain control over your code (www.lindows.com)
