RichTextEditor vs Plate
Looking for a Plate alternative? The closest thing to us in the React world - and it is not a subscription either. A factual comparison for teams shortlisting a rich text editor in 2026 — pricing model, AI, collaboration, and when each option is the right call.
EUR 299-799 once (Plate Plus) vs $129 once - the same shape of deal
Side by side
| RichTextEditor | Plate | |
|---|---|---|
| License | Perpetual, per-domain, from $129 one-time | Open source core; Plate Plus EUR 299 per developer / EUR 799 per team, one-time |
| AI features | Built-in AI Toolkit (Ask AI, AI Chat, AI Review) with BYOK - no add-on fee | AI menu with streaming responses and ghost-text suggestions |
| Real-time collaboration | Per-node Yjs CRDT engine included | Through a Slate/Yjs integration you wire yourself |
| Self-hosting | Fully self-hosted; no phone-home, no load counting | Client-side library; self-hostable |
| Stacks supported | Plain JS, ASP.NET Web Forms / MVC / Core, Blazor, PHP, React, Vue, Angular, Svelte | React only, on Slate |
| Document model | HTML document with a node type registry layered over it | Slate's JSON node tree, user-extensible by design |
| Component library | One editor, themed; framework wrappers around it | 100+ React components whose source you own, shadcn-style |
| .docx import / export | Both directions in-browser, library-free | DOCX import including comments, and DOCX export |
| Review workflow | Track changes, revision history and comments as finished features | Suggestions and comments as text marks, which you assemble into a workflow |
| Long-document features | Pagination, footnotes, legal lists, TOC, mail merge, accessibility checker | Not provided as built-in features |
| Accessibility | WCAG 2.2 AA self-assessment across all 55 criteria, findings published | No published audit; the UI you assemble is yours to test |
| Time to production | Hours | Days - the components are built, the editor is still assembled by you |
Choose Plate when…
- You are building a React product and want to own the component source, Tailwind and all.
- Your documents need node types Slate can express and ours cannot - an architectural reason, not a feature gap.
- Your team is comfortable assembling an editor from components and maintaining it.
Choose RichTextEditor when…
- Your stack is ASP.NET, PHP, Blazor, Angular, Vue or plain JavaScript - Plate is React only.
- You want track changes and revision history as finished features rather than marks to build a workflow from.
- You need an accessibility position you can hand to a procurement team today.
Frequently asked
Is Plate cheaper than RichTextEditor?
It depends how many developers you have, and it is closer than any subscription competitor. Plate Plus is a one-time EUR 299 per developer, or EUR 799 for a team of up to five; our licence is per domain from $129 once, whatever the team size. For a single developer the two are comparable; for five, EUR 799 against $129 for one domain. Both of us are arguing the same thing against the subscription vendors: you should be able to buy an editor once.
Plate has 100+ components and we have one editor. Why choose us?
Because they answer different questions. Plate gives a React team parts to assemble, with the source in your repo - genuinely appealing if React is your world and you want that control. We give you a finished editor that runs in ASP.NET Web Forms, PHP, Blazor or plain JavaScript as readily as in React, with Word round-trips, pagination, track changes and a published accessibility assessment already inside it. If your app is React and your document is a web document, Plate is a fair choice; if your document is Word-shaped, or your stack is not React, it is not a contest.
Competitor details reflect public pricing pages and documentation at the time of writing and may change; see source notes. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners.