There is no doubt that Dreamweaver is the best Paid HTML editor. It has great plugins a great design view and very easy UI. Any beginner who is starting out coding Dreamweaver is money well spent. If you are looking for a free editor to start out with i would recommend NotePad++ as its also has a good UI. -Matt.
Dreamweaver - it is paid but it is well worth the money, we used it for our website and made everything easier than coding it manually, which takes forever.
It all depends on your html skills.If you are good, then you can easily use the simple notepad and move on to notepad++ and Dreamweaver as your skills diminish. There's no such thing as "The best" it all depends on what you expect from that program and what your skills are.
I used to use Textpad and that was fine. I then read about Aptana studio. I find its better then any editor i've ever used for HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and Adobe Air apps. Also its completely free. www.aptana.com
http://www.onlyfreewares.com/Web-Development/Html-Editors/CoffeeCup-Free-HTML-Editor.php CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor This is a feeware!
I agree with most people about dreamweaver. it's very user friendly, loaded with options, and easy to learn. but the code it produces often needs to be cleaned and optimized.
Free Notepad++ KompoZer - http://www.kompozer.net Amaya - http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/BinDist.html Bluefish - http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/ Paid Dreamweaver
I know several professional site designers and coders who use Aptana. It's free and easy to use with a lot of great funtions.
Dreamweaver may be powerful and easy-using! However, I always consider it would slow down the computer. So when it come to some simple design, I prefer to using Fronpage.