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BBedit: It's been around forever, but is it really still worth it?
October 21, 2019

BBedit: It's been around forever, but is it really still worth it?

Jason Smith, DPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with BBEdit

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.
Well, I have not had to deal with support very much over the years but when I did it was good. The reason that I did not give a rating like 9 or 10 was that the experience never knocked my socks off. However, it was not bad. It is above average.

Do you think BBEdit delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with BBEdit's feature set?

Yes

Did BBEdit live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of BBEdit go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy BBEdit again?

Yes

BBEdit is suited for a Mac environment where source code or text files need to be edited. BBEdit also has a nice function where you can edit files via SCP so it is good for doing remote editing. I can't really think of a scenario where it is less suited except for doing modern HTML editing. Know that this is not BBEdit's fault, it is just how HTML has become a mess these days.

Using BBEdit

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.