Sublime text is what notepad++ wished to be. There are many tasks that do not require a full IDE, not even vscode and sublime just works. Always, consistently, reliably works, is fast and a joy to use.
Zed pretty much copied everything over from Sublime, so it's pretty much on par.
Sublime was one of the first editors to have an uncluttered UI without toolbars, but with advanced features, like multi-cursor editing and the command palette.
As a long time sublime users, it still feels superior as it gets lots of small details right, like for example when I do Cmd+P to search for files and scroll through the files it will show a preview, Zed doesn't show a preview until you actually select the file.
Technically correct. However, for the majority of humans, their first encounter with these features and behaviors could never be TextMate, and instead would be Sublime Text. TextMate never growing to be cross-platform is a major reason for Sublime Text's early growth.
Yup, I used TextMate a lot back in the early 2000s, and Sublime from around 2010 and bought a license maybe a year later.
To this day I always install Sublime on my new machines, it's the perfect text editor for my needs: fast and snappy, buffers are persistent so I can use as a scratch pad without having to save files, can customise with plugins if needed, the command palette gives quite a bit of power user features.
I mostly use it as a scratch pad nowadays, like if I'm debugging something, collecting a bunch of text from different places to reference quickly, nothing too advanced (nor directly related to coding) and is still one of the most satisfying programs to use on my day-to-day. It's basically always open, just waiting for a new buffer.
I use Sublime mostly these days but I still have a soft spot for TextMate. Sublime is the closest that exists to its spiritual successor, but it’s missing the “macness” that TextMate brought back in the day, which is the cost of being a cross-platform app I suppose.
Sublime Text doesn't automatically download and run language servers without your consent. Zed does, and last I looked there's no way to turn that behavior off (the devs said it's an intentional decision to make things easier for users). I am personally of the opinion that it isn't acceptable for software to start pulling in other software without my consent, so I avoid Zed like the plague. The Gram fork of Zed is pretty good, though.
If anyone is following along in the forums and understands the health of the team behind the product, could you give us a read on the prospective longterm health of the product? Most in my circle thing ST is dead or abandoned.
Not very much following the forums, but the pace they are producing things is fine. What is "basic usability thing" for you, might be something unimportant for the rest. How the team sets the priorities might be just fine for a lot of users..
Does ST support opening a repo on a remote server? The last time I used it was back in my freshman year of college, and I haven't touched it since. Does anyone happen to know?
The headline changes in this release are related to the Python plugin host:
- Upgraded Python 3.8 to Python 3.14
- Python 3.3 is now disabled by default
By default, Sublime plugins now all run under the Python 3.14. The 3.8 plugin host was removed (Python 3.8 reached EOL in Oct 2024), and the 3.3 plugin host is deprecated, and will be removed in a future release.
This is great for plugin devs. They get improvements to syntax, performance, type hints, the standard library, etc, and they can depend on modern versions of Python packages. Many packages no longer receive updates for 3.8 (e.g. https://github.com/psf/requests), let alone 3.3, and many others simply don't run on these older python versions (e.g. https://github.com/xberg-io/tree-sitter-language-pack).
Like the plugin systems for Emacs/Neovim/VS Code (and unlike the sandboxed systems for e.g. Zed and Helix), Sublime's plugin API has low-level access to the editor, and the runtime has full OS access.
I think Sublime was smart to bet on Python for the plugin system. They released the plugin system in 2009, before Python was everywhere. The super flexible plugin API and the huge package ecosystem is a powerful combo.
What are some reasons to pick Sublime Text over Zed for someone not familiar with either?
Sublime text is what notepad++ wished to be. There are many tasks that do not require a full IDE, not even vscode and sublime just works. Always, consistently, reliably works, is fast and a joy to use.
If you're using AI to write code, IDE features don't really seem that important anymore.
Also, LSP can turn Sublime Text into almost an IDE (but much more performant).
If you need to ask this question, that means there is no difference for you. Just choose one and commit.
Zed pretty much copied everything over from Sublime, so it's pretty much on par. Sublime was one of the first editors to have an uncluttered UI without toolbars, but with advanced features, like multi-cursor editing and the command palette. As a long time sublime users, it still feels superior as it gets lots of small details right, like for example when I do Cmd+P to search for files and scroll through the files it will show a preview, Zed doesn't show a preview until you actually select the file.
cough textmate
Technically correct. However, for the majority of humans, their first encounter with these features and behaviors could never be TextMate, and instead would be Sublime Text. TextMate never growing to be cross-platform is a major reason for Sublime Text's early growth.
Yup, I used TextMate a lot back in the early 2000s, and Sublime from around 2010 and bought a license maybe a year later.
To this day I always install Sublime on my new machines, it's the perfect text editor for my needs: fast and snappy, buffers are persistent so I can use as a scratch pad without having to save files, can customise with plugins if needed, the command palette gives quite a bit of power user features.
I mostly use it as a scratch pad nowadays, like if I'm debugging something, collecting a bunch of text from different places to reference quickly, nothing too advanced (nor directly related to coding) and is still one of the most satisfying programs to use on my day-to-day. It's basically always open, just waiting for a new buffer.
I use Sublime mostly these days but I still have a soft spot for TextMate. Sublime is the closest that exists to its spiritual successor, but it’s missing the “macness” that TextMate brought back in the day, which is the cost of being a cross-platform app I suppose.
For me? I already have Sublime Text installed, it works great, and has never not worked great.
Ditto
Sublime Text is not aligned with an 'any minute now' pivot to enshittification.
And whatever it does, it does better than Zed, debatably.
Don't have any metrics or anything, but I use both, and anecdotally, I feel like Sublime is snappier and gives me better battery life.
Sublime Text doesn't automatically download and run language servers without your consent. Zed does, and last I looked there's no way to turn that behavior off (the devs said it's an intentional decision to make things easier for users). I am personally of the opinion that it isn't acceptable for software to start pulling in other software without my consent, so I avoid Zed like the plague. The Gram fork of Zed is pretty good, though.
I miss ST but I can’t go back after working almost exclusively in VSC for a year. ST is for serious DIYers
First release in over a year! I had left ST when I felt that there wasn't the will or resources to address basic usability things like https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_text/issues/328
If anyone is following along in the forums and understands the health of the team behind the product, could you give us a read on the prospective longterm health of the product? Most in my circle thing ST is dead or abandoned.
Not very much following the forums, but the pace they are producing things is fine. What is "basic usability thing" for you, might be something unimportant for the rest. How the team sets the priorities might be just fine for a lot of users..
Does ST support opening a repo on a remote server? The last time I used it was back in my freshman year of college, and I haven't touched it since. Does anyone happen to know?
Curiosity is killing my cat here. How are we supposed to know when your freshman year of college was? Was it a year ago, 8?
Does this I can finally add it to my NixOS config without having to use `permittedInsecurePackages`?
https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_text/issues/5984 :)
The headline changes in this release are related to the Python plugin host:
- Upgraded Python 3.8 to Python 3.14
- Python 3.3 is now disabled by default
By default, Sublime plugins now all run under the Python 3.14. The 3.8 plugin host was removed (Python 3.8 reached EOL in Oct 2024), and the 3.3 plugin host is deprecated, and will be removed in a future release.
This is great for plugin devs. They get improvements to syntax, performance, type hints, the standard library, etc, and they can depend on modern versions of Python packages. Many packages no longer receive updates for 3.8 (e.g. https://github.com/psf/requests), let alone 3.3, and many others simply don't run on these older python versions (e.g. https://github.com/xberg-io/tree-sitter-language-pack).
Like the plugin systems for Emacs/Neovim/VS Code (and unlike the sandboxed systems for e.g. Zed and Helix), Sublime's plugin API has low-level access to the editor, and the runtime has full OS access.
I think Sublime was smart to bet on Python for the plugin system. They released the plugin system in 2009, before Python was everywhere. The super flexible plugin API and the huge package ecosystem is a powerful combo.