KWrite is more than a text editor by KDE. It is meant to be a programmer's editor, and could be considered as at least a partial alternative to more powerful editors. It may be best used in conjunction with Konqueror or Dolphin for source file browsing for different languages. KWrite also works very well as a simple text editor. One of KWrite's main features is the colorized syntax, customized for many different programming languages such as: C/C++, Java™, Python, Perl, Bash, Modula 2, HTML, and Ada. KWrite has a single document interface (SDI) allowing you to edit one file at the time per window.

KWrite is a simple interface to the KatePart component also used by Kate, KDevelop, and other applications from KDE that require advanced text editing. Therefore, complete documentation for all the features of KWrite can be found in the KatePart Handbook.