🌊 WaveEditor

A self-hosted, white-labeled rich-text editor for the web. Drop-in replacement for TinyMCE — without the API key, the external CDN, or the surprise bills.

🎯 v0.5.0 — Phase 1 closeout. Typing, formatting marks, headings (paragraph / H1-H6 dropdown), blocks, lists, alignment, links (with dialog), images (multi-tab Upload / From URL dialog, server upload via images_upload_url / images_upload_handler, drag-drop and paste of image files), source view, fullscreen, word count, paste sanitization. 339 unit tests + 54 e2e tests (18 × chromium / firefox / webkit), 93 KB gzipped. Phase 2 (tables, fonts, colors, code blocks, …) is next — see docs/phases/phase-2.md.

What WaveEditor is

WaveEditor gives web developers a rich-text editor that is owned by the people who use it:

• ✅ Drop-in replacement for TinyMCE — public API mirrors tinymce.init({...}) so existing codebases migrate with a find-and-replace
• ✅ Self-hosted — single JS + CSS pair, no external CDN, no API key, works offline and behind firewalls
• ✅ MIT-licensed open core — no GPL contagion, no recurring fees
• ✅ Brandable — full white-label support via CSS variables; ship it under your own product name
• ✅ Commercial-ready — clean separation between free core (Phases 0–3) and future paid tier (Phase 4)

Package

Published on npm as @waveeditor/core.

The unscoped waveeditor name is blocked by npm's anti-typosquatting policy (similarity to the unrelated wangeditor package), so we use the @waveeditor org scope — same convention as TipTap (@tiptap/core), Lexical (@lexical/core), CKEditor 5 (@ckeditor/*). Brand identity stays "WaveEditor" everywhere except the install command.

Quick start

Via npm

npm install @waveeditor/core

import { WaveEditor } from '@waveeditor/core';
import '@waveeditor/core/dist/waveeditor.min.css';

WaveEditor.init({
  selector: '#editor',
  plugins:
    'undo redo bold italic underline strikethrough subscript superscript ' +
    'heading blockquote bullet-list ordered-list indent outdent ' +
    'align-left align-center align-right align-justify ' +
    'link unlink image clear-formatting horizontal-rule ' +
    'source-view fullscreen word-count clipboard',
  toolbar:
    'undo redo | bold italic underline strikethrough | ' +
    'heading blockquote | bullet-list ordered-list indent outdent | ' +
    'align-left align-center align-right align-justify | ' +
    'link unlink image | source-view fullscreen',
});

Via CDN (drop-in, no build step)

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/@waveeditor/core/dist/waveeditor.min.css">
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@waveeditor/core/dist/waveeditor.min.js"></script>

<div id="editor"></div>
<script>
  WaveEditor.init({
    selector: '#editor',
    plugins: 'bold italic link image bullet-list',
    toolbar: 'bold italic | link image | bullet-list',
  });
</script>

Identical pattern to TinyMCE. Same config string format. Just tinymce.init → WaveEditor.init.

Currently shipped (Phase 1)

See docs/api.md for the full public API reference and docs/plugins.md for writing custom plugins.

Examples

HTML demos in examples/ that you can open via npm run dev:

• examples/basic.html — minimal hello-world drop-in (Phase 0 baseline)
• examples/full-toolbar.html — every currently-shipped feature
• examples/phase-1-preview.html — per-phase delivery record
• examples/tinymce-migration.html — TinyMCE and WaveEditor side-by-side, identical config strings (§1.16.2)
• examples/docs.html — designed developer guide with live demo

Testing

npm test           # 339 unit tests
npm run e2e        # Playwright e2e — 18 specs × chromium / firefox / webkit
npm run build      # produces dist/ — 93 KB gzipped
npm run license:audit  # fails on GPL/AGPL/SSPL

Roadmap

Documentation

Built on

• TipTap — editor engine (MIT)
• ProseMirror — underlying document model (MIT)
• Tabler Icons — icon set (MIT)
• Inter — chrome typeface (OFL)
• JetBrains Mono — monospace typeface (OFL)

Full third-party attributions: NOTICES.md.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the contribution workflow. The architecture rules and project conventions live in CLAUDE.md.

Security

Found a vulnerability? See SECURITY.md for the responsible disclosure process.

License

MIT — © 2026 Manish Patolia.

WaveEditor is built on MIT-licensed open-source components and is itself MIT-licensed. Commercial premium features (Phase 4+) may be offered under a dual-license model in the future; see docs/design.md §16.