Ultra Edit is the most powerful text and binary file editor with a long honorable history. It's best feature is the binary file editing function in Hex mode. Its most function is implemented in binary method, so its processing speed is the fastest in all editors. It also have strong support of Regex in text mode. But it's not easy to use. First, it uses a special, not standard Regex syntax by default. We have to check to use Perl style Regex in option pane. All matches can be highlighted once by click a check box. But there's a fatal shortage of Ultra Edit, is cannot search across lines, each match must be in a line. Such as we cannot get a result span lines. And as it search in binary mode, unicode or double byted characters, such as Chinese character, will be processed as two single-byte characters. So it will be shown as unexpected result, such as if a double-byte character composed of A and B, then it will match when you search A. At last, it has a very fast replace in files function. But the replace is not always exact. Binary file will also be modified when you want to replace a word in text file if you forgot to specified the file extension. I ever encountered all image files in the same folder corrput when I do a HTML replacement for I didn't input a file extension limitation. And there's no backups in Files Replacement, so I lost all my image files. The reason is that Ultra Replace uses binary mode in search and replace, it matches bytes, not words, it's far away from common replace method, out of my expectation. So, Ultra Replace's mode is a dual-edged sword, fastest speed, power on binary files, but low acurracy and safty.
Edit Plus is an excellent text editor by a Korean company. But it's support of Regex is not so good. You can only search the result one by one, while all matches could not be highlighted at once. There's no batch replace for multiple files. And the Regex doesn't support escaped characters, such as \w,\d or \r.
Dreamwear is one of the best HTML page visual editor. But it's Regex support is very poor though there's also a Regular Expression checkbox in the panel of search and replace. It will halt when you input a complex expression.
OpenOffice is very famous now for it's a Open-source software, a flag of Open-source projects. But it's so huge in size to download and installation and it also needs Java Runtime, I would not download them both for an common editing and replaceing task for some text files. So I don't know it's power on Regex. But even it's very powerful, it's cost on spaces and CPU usage is very unacceptable. And I worries about its speed, for I've never seen an application on Windows satisfing in speed implemented by Java. Because the Java Runtime is too slow(at least compare to Win32 or even .Net), that's a fatal fault.
A good Replacing tool. Though it looks a little rough, it's powerful. But it's support for Regex is limited, no escaped characters support. Not file list view.
A simple replacer for HTML files. It doesn't support Regex at all.
The most powerful Regular Expression tool on Windows till now. Undoulbtly, it's the number one in visual Regex/GREP tools. The author is Jan Gorvyart, who have my respect. This software is based on PCRE Regex engine and implemented by Delphi. It supports almost all features of Regex, even with analysis on expression, such as colored view and syntax error assitant. So it has the highest price in all GREP tools at $149. But it's shortage is also obvious. It's not easy to use, it's too complex, some advanced feature we would never use. Most users may need a simple-to-use, tidy-on-sight, and rather cheap one.
A good GREP tool on Windows. it implements common Regular Expression features, with a simple-to-use user-interface, and a chaep price at $30. But, I don't know why, it doesn't support escaped characters. That means we have to write [a-zA-Z-0-9_] intead of \w, the convenience of Regular Expression is not fully implemented.
Another GREP tool on Windows, it's a little similar as Windows GREP, but it shows result in classical mode, which is not easy to read in many files searching or replacement. It also doesn't support escaped characters.
Other GREP tools are most run on non-Windows, with only command mode, not visual user-interface. I think they are tools for specialist, not for common users. I will not discuss them here.