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It is not Notepad++ but you can still run Sublime Text or BBEdit and others (like Zed) on Macos. No need for VS Code.

There is also PSPad on Windows which is similar to Notepad++.

Closest Notepad++ alternative I found on Mac was CotEditor - https://github.com/coteditor/CotEditor. Has all the basic features apart from plugin support.

I consider Textmate the notepad++ for MacOS (it's great, but then again I can't stand working on windows).

You could run it via wine if that is really your own hangup from switching to mac.