Sublime Text vs. Vim

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sublime Text
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Sublime Text is a highly customizable text editing solution featuring advanced API, Goto functions, and other features, from Sublime HQ in Sydney.
$80
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Vim is an open source configurable text editor.N/A
Pricing
Sublime TextVim
Editions & Modules
Business
$80.00
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sublime TextVim
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Sublime TextVim
Considered Both Products
Sublime Text
Chose Sublime Text
Visual Studio Code is nice from a development standpoint in that it offers many of the features of Sublime Text with the addition of an integrated terminal. Brackets likewise offers some of the benefits of Sublime Text with some added HTML specific tools. Both of these …
Chose Sublime Text
Even if Vim is a must use for every programmer, [especially] if you work with server files via ssh or similar, for daily use its learning curve is big and difficult. Instead, sublime requires almost no knowledge to start using it and, in a local instance, their performance is …
Chose Sublime Text
Sublime text stacks up very well against other text editors as it is lightweight, is very well established and has a large user base, and has a number of plugins that allow for customization. Depending on the language being used, there may be an editor that is more suited for …
Vim
Chose Vim
It is hard to compare Vim to many other packages in the developer's stack of tools. It mainly does one thing, edit text, and does it better than anything else. For instance, you can't really compare it to Visual Studio Code because VS actually has a Vim plug-in so you can …
Chose Vim
Vim is a text editor that strives for simplicity. It does that well, but when you need something at the next level, take a look at the above two. Visual Studio Code is a fantastic, free code editor that makes most of my workflow easy.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Sublime TextVim
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 8.2 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Sublime TextVim
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(56 ratings)
10.0
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(4 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.3
(11 ratings)
6.0
(5 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Sublime TextVim
Likelihood to Recommend
Sublime HQ
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.
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Open Source
I would recommend Vim in any scenario where text files have to be viewed, created, or edited on GNU/Linux computers. Regardless if you need to quickly change a few things in a configuration file, or you need to write up a full document, Vim is great. I wouldn't use Vim to view, edit, or create anything that requires "rich-text". In other words, if you need to format the text (bolding, font colours, word-art, etc), then Vim isn't the tool to use.
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Pros
Sublime HQ
  • 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.
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Open Source
  • The efficient modal editing makes it very fast to write/edit code as I think of it.
  • The customization and wide range of plugins let me do very specific things and automate parts of my workflow.
  • The fact that it runs inside a terminal simplifies my window management and just becomes another Tmux window in my workflow.
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Cons
Sublime HQ
  • 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.
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Open Source
  • Without a doubt the hardest program to learn. It is a completely different paradigm of thinking compared to other editors
  • By default it doesn't have lots of fancy features you would find in larger IDE programs like code completion and linking
  • It lives in the command line so a user has to be comfortable with this interface
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Likelihood to Renew
Sublime HQ
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.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Usability
Sublime HQ
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.
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Open Source
I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.
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Performance
Sublime HQ
It has many handy hacks and shortcuts which enhances its performace.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Sublime HQ
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.
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Open Source
There is no commercial support for Vim. Thus, it will not get a mark beyond 5. However, community support is very good. You can easily find solutions for most of the problems in the community.
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Alternatives Considered
Sublime HQ
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.
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Open Source
Vim's keybindings are a lot more complex than Notepad++. With that, comes a whole bunch of capability that Notepad++ just can't match. Emacs is comparable, in terms of capabilities--because Vim is built into so many unix systems, I chose to learn it instead of Emacs. Knowing both probably isn't a bad idea, but there's enough to learn in either camp to keep you busy
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Return on Investment
Sublime HQ
  • 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.
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Open Source
  • It always increases productivity.
  • Sometimes feature discovery is not easy. It could be documented well like how to install a plugin and if it supported well or not.
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ScreenShots