Notepad++ isn't trying to shoehorn in AI for starters. It's clear Microsoft is praying the current gimmicky narrative of AI will let the masses not realize this is a privacy nightmare.

• Keeps your progress if you exit without saving
• Supports tabs so you don't have 5 separate notepad windows open
• syntax highlighting for programming languages and markdown format
• plugin support
• can handle extremely large text files (I've opened 50gb text files and used ctrl+f to find terms and it worked fine)
• superb tools for manipulating text (e.g., use reg expressions). Super easy and flexible in making mass edits.
• dark mode support. That alone makes it superior lol

If you just need a quick window open to make a note you might actually prefer Sticky Notes over Notepad!

Yes, it objectively is. And so are various other text editor options that are out there.

But just speaking about Notepad++, you can scale it down to a very simple text editor (like Notepad), it you can easily ramp it up to a much more feature rich one. And for me, the ability to have a vertical list of files is a big plus. As is its ability to optionally show line numbers.