WYSIWYG HTML editors, short for “what you see is what you get,” allow users to create and format web content. They differ from basic text editors in that they show users how the final form of the content will look. For example, you can insert links, italicize text, or embed images without ever touching a line of code.

These editors bridge the gap between content creators and developers, helping teams produce rich, styled content directly within web platforms. But recently the best of these editors are offering a lot more than simple formatting. They’re now capable of supporting AI, media workflows, accessibility standards, and even real-time collaboration.

In this article, you’ll discover six major trends that define what makes the best WYSIWYG HTML editor today. From modular architecture to clean HTML output, each trend points towards a more efficient, inclusive, and scalable editing experience. Let’s get started!

Key Takeaways

• WYSIWYG HTML editors allow users to create and format content visually without writing code.

• AI-powered editors now support content creation with autocomplete, grammar checking, and formatting suggestions, among others.

• Modular plugin architectures let developers load only necessary features, improving performance and extensibility.

• Native media and file management integrations streamline workflows for image-heavy content.

• Aligning with these trends can help ensure that your editor remains usable and modern while delighting your users.

1. AI-Assisted Content Creation and Formatting

Artificial intelligence (AI) is steadily reshaping how users interact with content editors. Instead of relying solely on manual input and formatting, users now benefit from smart features that help generate, refine, and organize content. The best WYSIWYG HTML editors incorporate features that suggest headings, improve paragraph structure, and generate paragraphs based on a prompt.

But just how important is the AI trend for content creation in the coming years? To answer that, here are some findings from the 2024 State of Marketing AI Report by the Marketing AI Institute:

• 78% of their responders believe that AI will automate more than 25% of their marketing tasks in 3 years.

• As of 2024, 51% of marketers have started adopting and running AI.

• When it comes to AI’s benefits, most respondents are most excited about how it helps them boost productivity and efficiency.

Here are the most common ways HTML editors leverage AI:

Intelligent Autocomplete

AI-powered autocomplete goes beyond simple word prediction. It understands context and can suggest entire phrases or even sentence completions based on what the user is writing. This can help speed up content creation and even coding while ensuring consistency, especially for repeated structures.

Grammar and Spell Checks

Syntax and semantics matter, especially for blog posts and professional environments. The best WYSIWYG HTML editors make use of AI to help users proofread their work’s correctness as they type. This way, users don’t have to rely on external spellcheckers. Moreover, AI-powered checkers can suggest better wordings, improve content structure, and even change the tone based on intent.

Alt Text Generation

Alt text, or the text that takes an image’s place if it’s not viewable, matters more than people might think. Both accessibility and SEO benefit significantly from proper alt text for images. WYSIWYG editors can use AI to generate meaningful alt text by detecting and analyzing the content and context of images. This ensures better compliance with accessibility standards like WCAG while improving search engine visibility, which you’ll explore more later.

Text Summarization

If you’re an active user of social media, forums, or messaging platforms, chances are you’ve already encountered AI in HTML editors. Modern applications use this feature for content previews, meta descriptions, building group chat summaries, and more without manual rewriting.

Real-Time Refinement

Advanced editors often leverage AI to offer continuous content improvement suggestions as the user types. This AI “co-writer” assistant adjusts sentence clarity, eliminates redundant phrases, and reformats content into proper structure. In turn, this real-time feedback streamlines editing, reduces post-writing cleanup, and polishes the final draft of the content.

AI transforms the WYSIWYG editor from a passive tool into an active writing (or coding) partner. Because of its ability to help users write better, faster, and more confidently, it’s sure to stay as a trendy feature. However, it’s best to use it thoughtfully as a helpful supplement to your user’s content creation process rather than a replacement for careful content creation.

2. Modular Plugin Architectures for Customization

Not every user needs the same editor features, and the best WYSIWYG HTML editors acknowledge this through modular plugin architectures. Instead of bundling every feature into the core product, modern editors allow developers to load only the components they need. This results in both improved performance (lighter bundles help the application load faster) and maintainability.

For example, if your users only need text formatting and media embedding, you don’t have to include tables or Markdown. These features, however, remain available as plugins that developers can integrate once the need arises later on. This gives developers more control over the UI and UX based on their users’ needs.

Additionally, this trend improves developers’ workflows. Since plugins communicate via APIs and have abstracted methods, developers will have an easier time building or integrating features.

Whether for chart builders or “find and replace” features in your editor, plugins enable innovation without bloating the application. This makes plugins ideal tools to speed up your web apps without sacrificing functionality.

Modular architectures also make integrating WYSIWYG editors in modern frameworks like Angular and React much more manageable. Because you can load these editors as components and configure them via APIs, you can easily slot them in without complex workarounds.

Because modern applications aim for performance and scalability, plugin-based architecture will remain popular for HTML editors.

3. Native Integration with File and Media Management

Content creation isn’t limited to words, as teams often work with images, PDFs, videos, and design assets. As a result, the best WYSIWYG HTML editors now support native file management integrations. These include built-in upload features, cloud storage support (e.g., Google Drive), and internal asset libraries.

Additionally, in-editor file management solutions offer advanced features, such as filters, overlays/watermarks, and even SFW (safe for work) checking. These features can help blogs, internal tools, or learning management systems (LMS) accelerate their users’ workflow right within the editor.

An example of an in-editor native file management solution, which performs an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) task after upload

Native file management also eliminates the need for external dependencies, which can introduce friction, especially in collaborative or enterprise environments. When the editor already comes with a full media experience, productivity improves and users stay focused within a single interface.

Although very few visual HTML editors currently offer native file management, this capability is quickly turning into a differentiator. As teams demand faster, more unified content workflows, editors that streamline both text and media handling gain a clear edge.

4. Accessibility-First Features

Accessibility is just as important as the UI, and it’s a standard expectation for any web-based tool. The best JavaScript WYSIWYG editors embed accessibility compliance deep into their foundations. For instance, they should follow initiatives such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure all users, including those with disabilities, can access content.

Key accessibility features include keyboard navigation, which allows users to move through the editor and toolbar without a mouse. Additionally, inline HTML editors implement ARIA labels (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) to provide context for assistive technologies like screen readers. This ensures that buttons, inputs, and content are clear to users who rely on these tools.

What sets great editors apart is how seamlessly these features work. The best ones should contain keyboard shortcuts, allow alt text editing, run well in high contrast mode, and so on. This proactive approach to accessibility makes content more inclusive while helping meet legal compliance requirements.

Although not directly contributing to SEO, accessibility significantly helps by improving UX and making content more understandable for search engines. Since UX is a priority for engines like Google, accessible sites can indirectly lead to better SEO eventually. Because of its importance in both SEO and inclusivity, accessible editors will most likely continue to stay trending.

Tip: Want to test your editor’s accessibility compliance? W3’s Web Accessibility Initiative lists some accessibility evaluation tools that you can use. These tools give you information such as a score and the number of failed checks according to WCAG.

If you need a quick way to measure accessibility, you can also try Google Lighthouse. It will score your site (the closer to 100, the better) and offer suggestions (e.g., add image alt text). From there, you can follow the advice from these tools to bolster your accessibility score.

5. Structured and Clean HTML Output

Behind every WYSIWYG editor is one crucial output: HTML. However, not all HTML is equal; for example, older editors often generate bloated, deeply nested tags and unnecessary elements. These can weigh down the page, harm SEO, and make long-term content maintenance difficult.

Modern editors, on the other hand, aim for semantic HTML, which refers to using the right tags for the right content. For example, use “<h1>” for main headings, “<article>” for independent content, and “<figure>” for images and other self-contained elements. This is in contrast to using generic tags such as “<div>” for everything.

Clean HTML is easier for search engines to crawl, and it improves accessibility and ensures better performance across devices. Since this checks out at least two trends on this list, having structured HTML goes a long way.

Structured code is especially important for content management systems (CMS), where users may repurpose, syndicate, or dynamically render articles. Editors that generate readable and standardized HTML reduce the chances of formatting errors or broken pages. Over time, this helps keep your content ecosystem lean, organized, and adaptable.

6. Enhanced User Experience with Real-Time Collaboration

Since 2020, remote and distributed teams have become the norm, and demand for real-time collaboration within content editors has surged. Just think about platforms like Google Docs, Trello, or Canva, and how they helped users streamline work through real-time collaboration. Today’s editors offer similar features, where multiple users can edit one document, add comments, and track changes concurrently.

This functionality transforms the editor from a solitary tool into a collaborative content platform, further enhancing the user experience. Instead of exchanging files and links many times to collaborate on content, users can use just one editor simultaneously. Whether it’s marketing copy, internal documentation, or LMS content, teams can work together more efficiently without versioning issues or endless email chains.

This trend signals a shift that WYSIWYG editors are not only about presentation but also about collaborative productivity.

Conclusion

The best WYSIWYG HTML editors are far more than rich text fields nowadays. They’re intelligent, modular, accessible, and fast tools that empower users to create high-quality content without touching code. The trends that shape them, as discussed in this article, are now the new baseline.

If you’re evaluating a new editor for your web app, CMS, LMS, or internal tool, use these trends as a guide. They should help you choose a solution that’s both user-focused and modern. And if you’re building an editor yourself, these trends are where you should invest your attention.

As user expectations continue to rise, so must the capabilities of the tools we build. And this is especially true for a modern WYSIWYG editor.

This article was originally published on the Froala blog.