TinyMCE is a powerful JavaScript plug-and-play rich text editor (RTE) with a pre-styled UI that is simple to use and can integrate into any web application in a few minutes. It’s a proven robust and secure application component that is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant. TinyMCE powers thousands of web apps around the world, and it’s currently used by over 1.5 million developers.
TinyMCE is quick and easy to integrate into your app, and has native libraries to support React, Angular, or Vue.js, and many more popular JS frameworks. Speaking of native features, TinyMCE has over 50 plugins that range from fonts to fully optimized media handling. You won’t have to duct tape dependencies together because the advanced plugins that meet your users’ needs are already part of the TinyMCE ecosystem.
TinyMCE has supported content creation on the web for twenty years, and is trusted by developers and product managers alike. Let’s take a deeper look at what TinyMCE is, what it’s used for, and why someone would choose this lightweight open source RTE with big capabilities.
Is TinyMCE open source?
Yes, TinyMCE is an open source RTE with a GPLv2 license. It’s free to use if your application requires only 1,000 loads or fewer per month. After that, you’ll need to purchase a premium plan.
You may also need a premium plan if you need TinyMCE features like AI Assistant, Suggested Edits, or Revision History. To learn more about which features are paid and which are open source, check out the official TinyMCE plugins documentation.
What is TinyMCE used for?
Flexible enough to plug into many types of web applications, TinyMCE provides a host of functionalities, including:
- Collaboration: TinyMCE’s collaboration features include user Comments and Mentions, Suggested Edits with feedback threads, Revision History for content versioning, and an AI Assistant that connects to a half dozen AI providers.
- Media optimization: Features like Enhanced Media Embed and Image Optimizer, offer instant media optimization and editing capabilities right inside the RTE.
- Productivity: The list of productivity features in TinyMCE is long, from Autoresize to Templates to Autosave to Math Equations to Enhanced Tables and beyond.
- Content conversion and embedding: TinyMCE users can paste rich content that converts accurately into the WYSIWYG editor, import and export PDFs and Microsoft Word documents, use Markdown, and embed HTML and media content.
Why use TinyMCE?
Whether you’re building a complex enterprise app or a sleek startup MVP, TinyMCE consistently earns its place in the developer toolbox as flexible, easy to setup in a few minutes, and capable of robust functionality with its library of native features.
Strong framework flexibility
Because TinyMCE is a JavaScript component, it integrates with any JavaScript-based framework. The editor works not only with vanilla JavaScript but also with major frameworks, including React, Vue.js, and Angular. TinyMCE provides official native components for all three of these popular frameworks.
TinyMCE also integrates with:
- Laravel
- Svelte
- Blazor
- Bootstrap
- Node.js
- Rails
- Django
And several more! You can check out the full list of supported frameworks on the TinyMCE frameworks integration page.
TinyMCE puts developers first
TinyMCE has a host of developer resources. Here are a few highlights of TinyMCE’s resources:
- A dedicated Developer Relations Manager.
- The TinyMCE Developer Center with tutorials and developer insights.
- Regular TinyMCE webinars available on YouTube after they’re live.
- Comprehensive TinyMCE documentation kept up-to-date.
- Sponsorship and presence at developer conferences year-round.
TinyMCE puts developers first by constantly creating new resources to support the different learning styles of developers around the globe, opening doors to developer feedback, and keeping topics relevant to developer needs and requests.
Go to market faster with advanced features for any use case
TinyMCE has an ecosystem of over 50 plugins ready to integrate and use in your RTE when you need to, some within just a few minutes. No matter what you’re building with a rich text editor, TinyMCE has the flexibility to plug most new features right in without a lot of dependencies and installation steps.
Content management systems
A rich text editor in a content management system must be capable of handling media embedding, maintaining content quality when users are pasting from other apps, and allowing users to collaborate without leaving the editor. TinyMCE does all of the above, but also handles advanced features like AI assistance, user comments and mentions, tracking changes, image optimization, and templates with its extensive library of plugins developed by the TinyMCE team. Because TinyMCE has so many advanced CMS features, developers can drop this RTE into any CMS and have what they need in one editor.
Email and messaging platforms
An RTE inside an email or messaging system (EMS) has to handle complex HTML templates, use merge tags for reusable data, and optimize media for consumption on recipient email clients and platforms. TinyMCE includes all of these features, but goes further with advanced EMS capabilities like image optimization, merge tags, inline CSS support, and full HTML page control. TinyMCE’s library of plugins caters to EMS needs with these features and more.
Document management systems
In a document management system, an RTE needs to support templates, import and export functionality, handle media embedding, be accessible, allow document history, and include user collaboration. TinyMCE meets all of these requirements, and goes further with AI assistance, accessibility checking, user comments and mentions, document history, tracking changes, and more. These are just a few of the long list of useful DMS features that are part of TinyMCE’s native ecosystem.
Customer relationship management apps
If you’re developing a customer relationship management app, the rich text editor inside it will need to be SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and support merge tags, templates, and collaborative review between multiple users. It will likely also need quality control built-in, like an accessibility checker for WCAG web standards, or a spell checker. In addition to meeting all of the standard needs of a CRM, TinyMCE offers AI provider integration, image optimization, and autolinking to make managing customer relationships easier for your users. All of these important CRM features are available both open source and premium as TinyMCE plugins.
Learning management systems
Learning management systems require that a strong RTE inside them operates smoothly while users write complicated math equations, create courses with templates, insert images into lessons, include comments so educators can leave feedback on homework, and check content for maximum accessibility. In addition to the standard RTE functionality, TinyMCE offers robust content collaboration, and supports communication between instructors and students. Additionally, Tiny provides plugins to support basic and advanced math and equation formatting. These key LMS features are part of TinyMCE's native plugin library.
Internal and SaaS apps
Internal SaaS tools usually need an RTE to handle any number of content needs: bug reports, product documentation, process notes, and more. Features like Markdown support, document conversion, media embedding, and role-based editing control are necessary for internal tools, not to mention security and content sanitization. These are all critical capabilities that are available in TinyMCE, plus document history, complex math equation support, code support, and full HTML page editing. These robust internal app features are all built into TinyMCE’s ecosystem.
Workflow and collaboration
In workflow and collaboration apps, it’s critical to have a rich text editor that includes a host of tools already available for a multi-user environment, so that your development team doesn’t have to cobble multiple dependencies together. The RTE will need commenting, document history, user mentions, and tracking changes, just to name a few necessary features. TinyMCE has all of these features and goes even further with AI assistant integration, image optimization and storage management, templates, app-to-app content quality control, and more. These advanced workflow app features are all available in TinyMCE.
The User Lookup API
All of these use cases have one thing in common: they’re applications that will have dozens, hundreds, or potentially thousands of users, all with varying permissions. Managing these permissions is enough of a task. TinyMCE 8.0 makes it a little easier with the new User Lookup API. The User Lookup API works with the Suggested Edits, Comments, and Mentions features of TinyMCE.
It’s worth noting that none of this is the limit for how you can use TinyMCE. This powerful, yet compact RTE is elastic enough to fit almost anywhere that you need a powerful plug-and-play WYSIWYG editor.
What’s next? Try TinyMCE for yourself
If you’d like to try it for yourself, it only takes a few minutes to set up a local instance of TinyMCE in vanilla JS with a single index.html file and a few npm commands. All of the premium features mentioned are available in the free 14-day trial of TinyMCE.
Check out some of our tutorials on premium features and customizations that take TinyMCE further:
- How to Configure Google Fonts in TinyMCE
- How to Add an Emoji Picker to a React Rich Text Editor
- How to Build a CMS with React and TinyMCE: A Complete Guide
- Amazon Bedrock Integration for TinyMCE AI Assistant
Got questions about how TinyMCE fits into your app’s needs for an RTE? We’ve got the answers. Send TinyMCE a message to talk to a real human.
