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BBEdit vs Sublime Text: What are the differences?
Introduction BBEdit and Sublime Text are both popular code editors used by professionals and developers. While they share similarities in terms of functionality, there are key differences that set them apart.
Customizability: BBEdit offers a high level of customization, allowing users to modify various aspects of the editor according to their preferences. It provides extensive options for customizing keyboard shortcuts, menu items, and toolbar buttons. On the other hand, Sublime Text takes customizability to another level. It allows users to modify almost every aspect of the editor, from key bindings and menu items to user interface themes and syntax highlighting. Sublime Text even provides a full-fledged command palette for easy access to all available commands.
Package Ecosystem: BBEdit has a limited number of plugins and extensions available through its ecosystem. While it supports some popular languages and comes with built-in features for tasks such as code folding and syntax highlighting, the range of available extensions is relatively small. In contrast, Sublime Text has a vibrant and extensive package ecosystem. It offers a wide range of third-party packages and plugins that enhance functionality for different languages, frameworks, and development environments. This extensive package ecosystem makes Sublime Text a powerful tool for developers seeking additional features and integrations.
Performance and Speed: BBEdit is known for its stability and fast performance. It is optimized to handle large files efficiently, making it suitable for handling massive projects with ease. Sublime Text, on the other hand, is renowned for its blazing speed. It is designed to provide lightning-fast responsiveness, even when dealing with extensive codebases. Sublime Text achieves this through its advanced rendering engine and optimized architecture, making it an excellent choice for developers who prioritize speed and efficiency.
Command Palette and Keyboard Shortcuts: BBEdit offers a command menu, accessible through the menubar, that provides quick access to various editor functions. However, it lacks a dedicated command palette, which can affect the ease and speed of accessing specific commands. Sublime Text addresses this with its powerful command palette. By pressing a single keyboard shortcut, users can access all available commands, making it faster to execute tasks and navigate the editor efficiently. The command palette feature enhances the productivity of developers working in Sublime Text.
Price and Licensing: BBEdit follows a traditional paid software model, offering a fully functional trial version and requiring users to purchase a license for continued use. It is available for a one-time purchase with free updates, making it an economical choice for long-term usage. On the other hand, Sublime Text offers a compelling licensing model. Although it comes with an unlimited evaluation period, users are encouraged to purchase a license to support the development and unlock additional features. The license is per-user and works across multiple platforms, providing flexibility to developers.
Interface and User Experience: BBEdit features a clean and straightforward interface that focuses on simplicity and ease of use. It provides a traditional text editor experience with a customizable toolbar, a single document interface, and a status bar at the bottom. Sublime Text, on the other hand, takes a minimalist approach with its interface. It provides a distraction-free environment by having minimal visible elements, allowing users to concentrate on their code. Sublime Text also brings a modern and polished look to its user interface, enhancing the overall experience for developers.
In summary, BBEdit and Sublime Text differ in terms of customizability, package ecosystem, performance, command palette and keyboard shortcuts, pricing and licensing, and interface and user experience. While BBEdit provides extensive customization options and stable performance, Sublime Text excels in its package ecosystem, speed, and productivity-enhancing features like the command palette. Additionally, Sublime Text offers a flexible licensing model, and its interface ensures a distraction-free coding experience.
Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.
Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.
Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark
I decided to choose VSCode over Sublime text for my Systems Programming class in C. What I love about VSCode is its awesome ability to add extensions. Intellisense is a beautiful debugger, and Remote SSH allows me to login and make real-time changes in VSCode to files on my university server. This is an awesome alternative to going back and forth on pushing/pulling code and logging into servers in the terminal. Great choice for anyone interested in C programming!
Pros of BBEdit
- Support for character encodings and file formats1
- Flexible project file management1
- Snippets functionality includes substitutions1
- Highly extensible (plugins, text filters, etc)1
- Superb regex find/replace1
Pros of Sublime Text
- Lightweight720
- Plugins652
- Super fast641
- Great code editor468
- Cross platform442
- Nice UI280
- Unlimited trial260
- Cmd + d is the best command ever153
- Great community92
- Package control, modules46
- Mac OS X support26
- Easy to get started with23
- Monokai22
- Everything you need without the bloat21
- Built in Python21
- Easy18
- Speed14
- Session & edit resuming12
- Package Control10
- Well Designed9
- Multiple selections8
- ALT + CMD + DOWN is the best command ever7
- Nice7
- Fast, simple and lightweight7
- It's easy to use, beautiful, simple, and plugins rule5
- So futuristic and convenient5
- ALT + F3 the best command ever5
- Great5
- Find anything fast within entire project4
- Easy to use4
- Free4
- Simple and clean design4
- Hackable3
- Pretty3
- UI + plugins3
- Sublime Merge (Git Integration)3
- Totally customizable2
- Color schemes and cmd+d2
- Material theme best theme forever2
- Const0
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Cons of BBEdit
Cons of Sublime Text
- Steep learning curve8
- Everything7
- Flexibility to move file4
- Number of plugins doing the same thing4
- Doesn't act like a Mac app4
- Not open sourced3
- Don't have flutter integration2
- Forces you to buy license2