Which Doom level editor do you recommend to a newcomer?

I want to start playing around with map creation. But, I've noticed there is a lot of available editors.

-Doom Builder 2

-GZDoom Builder

-Ultimate Doom Builder

-SLADE 3

Those are the ones I am aware of. (And God knows how many I ain't aware of.) So, yeah, which one is recommended for a complete newcomer to mapping?

Slade is different from the other editors in that it focuses on an entirely different aspect of the WAD. It technically has a map editor, but I think it's pretty barebones. The main use of Slade is custom content management, i.e. graphics, music, text, etc. So generally you would use it in conjunction with another editor. All the other editors are based on the same original program so I assume they'll be fairly similar, you'd have to play around with them yourself to figure out which works best for you.

Doom Builder 2, GZDoom Builder (and the bugfix fork) are all no longer in development or supported. You can still use them, but any bugs in them will never be fixed. Ultimate Doom Builder succeeds GZDB and is actively supported.

Slade is actively developed and has an map editor but I don't know if anyone still uses it for actually building maps, it's much more useful for editing wad data. So I'd say unless you have a good reason, go with UDB.

Ultimate Doom Builder and Doom Builder X is the newest ones I can recommend use it. Most of old tutorials you can see on youtube or elsewhere still apply on them. Slade 3 is more map lump editor for textures, music and any other addition you need include map. Of course, Slade 3 has map editor, you could try it too. Doom Builder 2 and Gzdoom Builder are discontinued, yes they still work as intended, but the most of important updates are in Ultimate Doom Builder and Doom Builder X, also if you want include new things - Slade will be important addition. 

Here's Eureka map editor, but I'm not familiar with it. 

11 minutes ago, Misty said:

Ultimate Doom Builder and Doom Builder X is the newest ones I can recommend use it. Most of old tutorials you can see on youtube or elsewhere still apply on them. Slade 3 is more map lump editor for textures, music and any other addition you need include map. Of course, Slade 3 has map editor, you could try it too. Doom Builder 2 and Gzdoom Builder are discontinued, yes they still work as intended, but the most of important updates are in Ultimate Doom Builder and Doom Builder X, also if you want include new things - Slade will be important addition. 

Here's Eureka map editor, but I'm not familiar with it. 

I guess I'll give Ultimate Doom Builder a shot.

Personally, I would recommend Doom Builder X for newcomers. Ultimate Doom Builder is likely to have a lot of extraneous features that newcomers won't ever touch. Doom Builder X would probably be easier to learn, and it has everything you could ever want for making maps.

55 minutes ago, Misty said:

Here's Eureka map editor, but I'm not familiar with it

That is my default editor. Mainly because IMHO it is the best on Ubuntu (DBnn only supported on Windows).

I like Eureka. It's not as polished as UDB and does not support UDMF, but once you get used to it, it is perfectly capable.

If you are on Windows, you have a good choice - I'd play with a few and see which you like.

Snapmap of course!

Or just use Ultimate Doom Builder.

Ultimate Doom Builder. It's the most feature-rich map editor.

UDB or Doom Builder X, Slade3 for all-in-one tool stuff, Whacked4 for Dehacked patches, VULD for auto loading/conversion of vanilla mods.

I highly recommend DEU 5.0.

It's a level editor made by reptile humans with 900 iq.

On a more serious note, ultimate doom builder is a pretty good editor.

Good luck level editing!

Here's a more in-depth breakdown of most popular map editors lying around:

• Doom Builder 1/2 - The classics, although they are no longer maintained now. They are still competent for map making, but you will be missing out lots of neat features (e.g visplane explorer), and you will have to install certain plug-ins to access these.
• SLADE 3 - As other has said, it is more like a jack-of-all-trades of Doom. It has a map editor, though not as advanced as Doom Builder and might feel a bit strange to use. Follow this tutorial if you are interested in messing around with it later. Best used for other stuff relating to Doom, like modding and texture arrangement.
• Doom Builder X - The successor to Doom Builder 2. It features a Lua scripting editor that you can use to achieve impressive effects in your map. (see here for a clearer explanation), and comes with important plugins/features (check your map for statistics, automated stair builder and more) that will come in handy if you are mapping for most formats that is not GZDoom. Recommended for beginners. Active development.
• GZDoom Builder - Another fork of Doom Builder 2, tailored for GZDoom mappers (slope builder, curving tools), but is a solid choice if you just want to map. Due to how advanced GZDoom is, there are quite a few features mentioned that could easily intimidate you. Abandoned, twice.
• Ultimate Doom Builder - The successor to GZDoom Builder, with even more QOL additions (proper sky renderer in 3D, missing textures much more pleasing on the eye), but is as complicated as GZDoom Builder. Active development.

In the end, use whatever that suits you most, and have fun mapping!

This is good to know. Last time I was making maps Doom Builder 2 was still maintained.

I would recommend Ultimate Doom Builder, most of the extra features can be easily ignored and a lot of the guides for Doom Builder 2 still apply to it just fine. SLADE 3 is more of a resource editing tool so you shouldn't wouldn't worry about it until you decide to go for the slightly more advanced things like modifying or adding your own textures or sprites.