Etherpad lite is a really-real time collaborative editor spawned from the Hell fire of Etherpad. We're reusing the well tested Etherpad easysync library to make it really realtime. Etherpad Lite is based on node.js ergo is much lighter and more stable than the original Etherpad. Our hope is that this will encourage more users to use and install a realtime collaborative editor. A smaller, manageable and well documented codebase makes it easier for developers to improve the code and contribute towards the project.
Etherpad Lite is optimized to be easy embeddable. It provides a HTTP API that allows your web application to manage pads, users and groups.