BBEdit vs. Overleaf vs. Sublime Text

I'm primarily a graphic designer who does occasional web development. For me, BBEdit works very well. I use it both for developer projects (editing code, editing system files) and for general text processing (cleaning up, formatting, or extracting text). I like that it offers real-time previews of edits to web project files. It comes with some nice editor themes and supports adding more or customizing them. I expect that for some coders, it will be inadequate. It is not an IDE. On the other end of the spectrum, someone who expects an experience more like Microsoft Word will be very disappointed; or if they wanted something more along the lines of Windows Notepad, they may find it to be overkill. It is an ASCII text editor with many advanced commands and tools built-in.

Incentivized

Overleaf is good to use in a lot of scenarios where something is to be written as a group. However, I believe that it is only good up to a certain amount of people working on the document at once. While I am unsure when it becomes too much, I got no doubt that there is a limit for when it is that good. Though normally, our group size of up to six people has been fine to work with in Overleaf.

Incentivized

My CMS has a small window in which I can edit custom HTML/CSS. It can be expanded some, but not as much as I would like. It also displays all code as dark text on a white background. On a page where I am doing extensive custom coding, it is helpful to see it in a larger window and in a color-coded display so that I don't have to strain my eyes as hard. Especially when I'm trying to scan for specific elements and target issues and so that I don't have to scroll endlessly in a tiny window.

Incentivized

• BBEdit remembers what I had open, so I never have to worry about losing work when I accidentally close the software. It will hold onto information almost indefinitely, so that the next time I open a program, I can access the information that I may have forgotten to save. Thankfully, its save function is also very simple to use, so I recommend still saving your work as needed.
• Scripts are the most important aspect of BBEdit for the company I work for. Being able to import scripts and create new ones all in the same location are great.

Incentivized

• Easy to get started and compile documents
• Collaborative scientific writing
• Latex documentation
• Built in templates
• Comments and chat features

Incentivized

• It is very light and boots up instantaneously.
• It has tons of plugins that will help you to customize sublime entirely according to your needs and thereby is not bloated
• Package control is really easy to work with and most plugins can be installed in 2 just clicks.
• Free version has nearly all the features of the paid version.
• Its User Interface is simple and makes it easy to located many features.
• It gives you a ton of control over your ide setting through User-settings where you can customize almost everything.

Incentivized

• The cost of this product has just become too much for the functionality that most people need. You can find free or $10 tools that do what most people need to do.
• The BBEdit program has lots of functionality, but could it be too much? Are there too many options?
• It seems that there are too many upgrades.

Incentivized

• IEEE benefits were removed
• Commenting system could be better
• Project organization could be better

Incentivized

• Plugins are easier to use and less complicated but transferring your license to a new computer isn't as simple as it sounds.
• Sublime has an automatic file comparison feature, but it's challenging to use and should be improved.
• Adding the ability to mark or highlight the text with different colors would be an excellent application.

I love this application. It has helped to improve my work. Also, I became so used to the shortcuts that It's hard for me to change to another editor.

Incentivized

It's easy to use for a variety of skill levels. It has most features you could want from an text editor and LaTeX editor. Collaboration is easy for all skill levels including for first time users. The UI is pleasant enough and the website is quick to load. All the packages you need are available.

Incentivized

This is a programmers tool. As such a lot of the features and benefits are lost on a non-technical user. To get the most out of the tool you need to have a basic crash course in how it works and what it can do. The documentation and community are good, but it takes a bit of time to get up to speed.

Incentivized

It has many handy hacks and shortcuts which enhances its performace.

Incentivized

I've been using BBEdit — no joke — for nearly three decades now. Believe it or not, I'm still getting "upgrade pricing" 13 versions later. Bare Bones' support has always been stellar, and pricing continues to be affordable compared to similar tools.

Incentivized

Never had to use their customer support before. There is ample documentation online so it's straightforward to find a solution to any problem you might encounter. For example, I needed to convert a string of HTML code to a properly formatted HTML file to "modify." Easy to do when there are so many users of the product who have needed to do that same thing before.

Incentivized

BBEdit wins over TextEdit every time. They are as different as chalk and cheese. I am so glad we moved to BBEdit.

Incentivized

Alongside Overleaf, we have tried using Microsoft Word and Google Docs to write reports. While they all let you write in the same document at once, Overleaf just works better for us. Microsoft Word locks the paragraph someone else is working on to avoid others messing with it before the original writer is done. However, it is often slow to open those paragraphs up for others to edit. Google Docs is the hardest one of them to make a good layout on, though with the app, it can be good for proofreading on the go.

Incentivized

We've used both Notepad++ and Atom; both are great but nothing really beats the Sublime Text UI; super intuitive and friendly and does everything you need without overwhelming you with stuff you don't. Other options are free, but for our organization, it was well worth the small license cost for the persistent use of a great product.

Incentivized

• It saves me time, not only with web projects, but even with design, when I want to strip out formatting in text, I bring it in to BBEdit to clean it up.

Incentivized

• Easier to collaborate with team members
• Easy reviewing of papers by colleagues
• Simple to use latex publishing which promotes the use of it

Incentivized

• Sublime Text has helped me to focus on specific tasks, cutting out the clutter that many other IDEs have. As such, it has helped me be a more productive employee because I don't get dazed by hundreds of buttons. I can focus on just the code.
• Sublime Text is so affordable that it's a no-brainer to have an extra tool in your toolset.
• The Search features of Sublime Text are so useful that it has saved me a great amount of time compared to using Find & Replace menus in Xcode, Android Studio, or Eclipse.

Incentivized