BBEdit vs TextPad

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Read full review

Michael Prewitt

Creative Director

It Is Written, Inc.Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees

View all 7 answers on this topic

I like the macro feature for transforming text. For example, taking a CSV file of data and quickly turning it into a set of SQL "insert" statements. Also, useful for this is the find/replace feature using regular expressions such as taking a URL QueryString and breaking all the parameters into separate lines and perhaps sorting them for review.

Read full review

Gary Davis

Director

Alliance EntertainmentWholesale, 201-500 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Pros

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.

Read full review

Courtney Birnbaum

Senior Publications Specialist

Learfield IMG CollegeMarketing & Advertising, 1001-5000 employees

View all 7 answers on this topic

Quick to load.
Very fast searching algorithm for finding and replacing text.
Macros are very useful.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Insurance Company, 501-1000 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Cons

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.

Read full review

Jason Smith, DPA

Instructional Technologist

Pomona CollegeHigher Education, 201-500 employees

View all 7 answers on this topic

I would like a "delete non-bookmarked lines" so I can skip the "invert bookmarks" step.
The "Compare Text Files" could be streamlined to compare text in 2 tabs without going through the save steps.

Read full review

Gary Davis

Director

Alliance EntertainmentWholesale, 201-500 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

—

Support Rating

BBEdit 9.7

Based on 14 answers

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.

Read full review

Jeff Eaton

Senior Digital Strategist

LullabotInternet, 51-200 employees

View all 14 answers on this topic

TextPad 8.8

Based on 4 answers

I never had to use support, so I can't answer this. I would hope that it is good though.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Insurance Company, 501-1000 employees

View all 4 answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

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

Read full review

Kevin O'Grady

Founder

The World of Empowerment OrganizationPublishing, 1-10 employees

View all 7 answers on this topic

When you want to quickly edit a file, TextPad starts up quickly and has many features over Microsoft Notepad. Visual Studio Code is an alternative in that it is full-featured and will edit text files but is slower at startup. I prefer the macro feature in TextPad due to its simplicity.

Read full review

Gary Davis

Director

Alliance EntertainmentWholesale, 201-500 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Return on Investment

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.

Read full review

Audrey Hoffman

Owner, Graphic and Web Designer

617 Graphic DesignDesign, 1-10 employees

View all 7 answers on this topic

Made my job easier, so I would say it had a positive return on investment. Especially for it's overall low cost.

Read full review

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Insurance Company, 501-1000 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

BBEdit

TextPad

Attribute Ratings

Likelihood to Recommend

BBEdit

TextPad

Support Rating

BBEdit

TextPad

Pros

Cons

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

Support Rating

Alternatives Considered

Return on Investment

Add comparison