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BBEdit, a popular code editor and text editing tool, is highly valued by a diverse range of users including software developers, …
Overview
What is BBEdit?
BBEdit is a text editor from Bare Bones software headquartered in Massachusetts.
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What is BBEdit?
BBEdit is a text editor from Bare Bones software headquartered in Massachusetts.
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- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details
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What is BBEdit?
BBEdit Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
BBEdit is a text editor from Bare Bones software headquartered in Massachusetts.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.7.
The most common users of BBEdit are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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- Pros
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- Recommendations
BBEdit, a popular code editor and text editing tool, is highly valued by a diverse range of users including software developers, strategists, and architects. Its fast and scriptable text manipulation features make it a go-to choice for developers who need to process raw data files before importing them into a database. Many Mac users rely on BBEdit for its functionality and familiarity, making it their preferred text editor.
Freelance web designers use BBEdit to ensure clean code without hidden formatting, while departments utilize its free option and script functions to semi-automate text processing tasks for publishing work. Sports departments specifically depend on BBEdit for processing text related to rosters, schedules, and other sports information. It is widely recognized that BBEdit outperforms default text editors on both PCs and Macs, making it the ideal choice for various text editing tasks.
Users appreciate BBEdit's comprehensive functionality and regard it as worth the investment. Its capabilities as a note-taker, code editor, and scratch-pad are highly useful with features like auto-save and macro functionality. It is especially reliable for working with CSV files, allowing users to make bulk changes efficiently and search for specific information seamlessly. In summary, BBEdit serves as an indispensable tool for many professionals in different industries thanks to its powerful features and unparalleled performance.
Efficient Multi-File Search and Replace: Several users have praised BBEdit for its powerful multi-file search and replace features, which are comparable to those found in UNIX command-line tools. This indicates that the software is highly capable and efficient when handling complex tasks.
Beneficial Source Control and Compiler Integration: Reviewers have mentioned that BBEdit offers source control and compiler integration, making it a valuable tool for software developers. This feature caters to the specific needs of this user group, enhancing their workflow efficiency.
Convenient Scripting and Macro Features: Users appreciate the scripting and macro capabilities offered by BBEdit, as they help streamline repetitive tasks. By providing automation capabilities, the software allows users to save time and increase productivity.
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Limited Markdown Support: Some users have expressed disappointment that BBEdit does not offer the same integration with browsers for HTML preview to markdown files. This feature limitation has been mentioned by multiple reviewers, hindering their ability to efficiently work with markdown files within the software.
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High Cost Relative to Functionality: Several reviewers have stated that they find the cost of BBEdit to be too high considering its functionality. They mention that there are free or low-cost alternatives available in the market that provide similar features, making it difficult for them to justify the expense of purchasing BBEdit.
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Overwhelming Options and Upgrades: A number of users feel overwhelmed by the numerous options and frequent upgrades offered by BBEdit. They question whether all the functionality provided is necessary for optimizing code and improving efficiency, suggesting that a streamlined version might be more user-friendly for those who prefer simplicity in their coding experience.
Users of BBEdit have provided several recommendations based on their experiences with the product. The three most common recommendations include:
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Trying BBEdit: Many users recommend giving BBEdit a try, especially for Mac users who need a powerful tool for manipulating raw text and coding. Users suggest trying the free version of Textwrangler or the BBEdit trial to see if it meets their needs. Some users even mention that BBEdit is the best text editor on the market and has been for more than two decades.
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Exploring Features and Tutorials: Users highlight the abundance of features in BBEdit and consider it essential for teams that frequently work with text. They believe that BBEdit can significantly boost the development of business systems due to its functionalities. However, some users suggest going through text selection tutorials before using BBEdit in production to fully take advantage of its capabilities.
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Pop-up Issue: While many users appreciate the features of BBEdit, some have expressed frustration with pop-ups that appear while using the application. These users hope that future updates will address this issue, as they find it disruptive to their workflow.
In summary, users recommend trying BBEdit, exploring its features, and taking advantage of tutorials. While many praise its power and simplicity, some would like to see improvements regarding pop-ups.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-3 of 3)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
January 14, 2020
BBEdit: The Text Wrangler We Know and Love
BBEdit is our go-to software for wrangling text into a usable form for our publishing work. Our department is the main user of this software, and we find it excellent because of its free option and its variety of script functions to semi-automate our process to get text from many sources to adhere to our singular standards. We run scripts in BBEdit multiple times a day to process text for rosters, schedules and other sports information.
- 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.
- One slightly annoying thing about BBEdit is the Currently Open Documents sidebar. If you open a second document, all documents are now tabbed with this column on the left, making you need to adjust your window to return to the window size you were using. Even closing all but one document will not remove the sidebar; it is only fixed when you close the software and open it again. Not a big issue, but worth mentioning.
- Many of BBEdit's best tools are behind a paywall. We do not need most of these functions for our work, so I cannot speak on them from my limited use during the program's free trial period.
- BBEdit is the only way we can manage the quick turnaround required with stats and sports information for the NCAA championships, because it allows us to quickly adjust text into the spacing and style we need.
- Without BBEdit scripts, we would have to work much later hours on championship deadlines, first structuring our information and then triple checking. With BBEdit, we save hundreds of hours of work each year.
BBEdit holds a spot on my computer dock because of its reliable, functional and straightforward uses in text management and script processing. While a computer's default text program, such as TextEdit, has some of the same abilities as BBEdit, TextEdit lacks the appearance features and tools that BBEdit provides when running scripts, saving files and editing code. Text Wrangler is the older version of BBEdit, so we retired its use after our latest office computer upgrade. There are very few differences between these two besides that BBEdit is still supported, while Text Wrangler may be out of date or at risk. Additionally, it is not practical to open a large web designing program when you only need to update a line or two of coding, making BBEdit a better fit for us than Adobe web programs like Dreamweaver or Muse.
December 04, 2019
BBEdit: Three Decades of Blistering Speed
Our team is roughly 75% software developers; even strategists and architects need to be savvy enough to dip into the source code on occasion. Although full-fledged IDEs are common on the team, BBEdit is a popular swiss army knife that proves its worth as a code editor and a general-purpose text editing tool. When it comes time to process raw data files before they're imported into a database, BBEdit and its fast, scriptable text manipulation features can shave off days of troubleshooting and tool-tweaking.
- Multi-file search and replace features that rival the most powerful UNIX command-line tools.
- Source control and compiler integration for software developers.
- Scripting and macro features that speed repetitive work.
- It integrates with browsers for HTML preview, but it's a shame it can't do the same for markdown files.
- BBEdit has literally saved product launches by speeding the process of scrubbing and prepping large-scale data imports.
- It's eliminated hours per week of waiting for "full-featured" IDEs.
- IntelliJ WebStorm, Visual Studio IDE and Komodo IDE
As a pure software IDE, BBEdit is showing its age. It's got things like syntax highlighting, source control support, and integration with command-line compilers… but popular features like automated refactoring and debugger integration have left it behind. On the other hand, you'll be able to launch BBEdit, grep through your codebase, fix a bug, and check in your changes before those other IDEs have finished opening a project. It's hard to overstate what a difference that speed makes; I often find myself keeping BBEdit open in the background for quick tasks even when I'm using other IDEs.
For the data manipulation and text processing tasks where it really excels, I'm not aware of any alternatives. It's possible to build similar functionality with custom shell scripts, open-source command-line tools, and so on… but in the meantime, BBEdit is here, its engine rumbling and ready to go.
For the data manipulation and text processing tasks where it really excels, I'm not aware of any alternatives. It's possible to build similar functionality with custom shell scripts, open-source command-line tools, and so on… but in the meantime, BBEdit is here, its engine rumbling and ready to go.
No
Bare Bones Software's "standard" level of support is already good — I've never felt the need for anything above and beyond their normal responsive service.
Yes
I ran into a fairly extreme edge case trying to combine complex search-and-replace functionality with an external script to do additional processing on large data files. I wasn't sure if I'd encountered a bug or just hit the limits of the product's features, but support explained the details of the feature I was using, and helped me work around the limitation.
Later, additional functionality was added to BBEdit making the workaround unnecessary. Can't beat that!
Later, additional functionality was added to BBEdit making the workaround unnecessary. Can't beat that!
It's hard to pin down a specific incident — I've been using BBEdit long enough that a lot of the challenges I encountered were more than a decade ago; it's been problem-free for me longer than many competing programs have even existed. One case that stands out, though, was transitioning from a Mac App Store purchase to a direct purchase from Bare Bones. Because "full" BBEdit offers tools that directly integrate with the file system and other OS features, the Mac App Store version is missing a few key capabilities. I contacted Bare Bones asking about a "sidegrade" to the non-sandboxed version and it was done within fifteen minutes.
BBEdit has been around for ages. At one time you could say that it was the go-to text editor for those on the Mac platform. The basic problem that BBEdit addresses is that Mac OSX lacks an easy to use text editor that has lots of functionality. For example, TextEdit is too basic and vi (via the command line) is too hard to use for most users. Most of our developers use BBEdit because they have always used it, so it is familiar, and they know how it works. Is BBEdit the best? I would say it used to be the best text editor for the Mac, but not so much anymore.
- Easy to use, anyone can use BBEdit.
- Highly configurable and it is easy to create automated tasks.
- The internal help function is really good!
- The company is committed to BBEdit.
- 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.
- No negative impact, as we are talking about a $49 investment.
- Positive, well it lets folks get their work done in an environment that they are comfortable in.
- Yes, we achieve our ROI!
We have, and also use, Atom, Notepad++, and BlueFish which are all OpenSource. BBEdit is quickly losing ground to some of these other programs. Most of the time we end up switching to one of these other programs is because we are on a new computer and we know we can just grab it off the internet. With BBEdit, we always have to mess around with a license and that takes time.
50
Editing text files, html, or other code,
We do not offer support. If you know what BBedit is then you should know how to use it.
- Edit source code.
- Edit text files, configs and xml
- Edit html
- None
- Not sure there is. BBedit is a niche tool.