Brackets vs Sublime Text: Compared and Contrasted

Coding is one of the most versatile skills one can acquire. The world is switching to the World Wide Web for communications, retail and many other big business interactions. Picking up coding now almost certainly guarantees you a job in the future, and the sooner you learn, the more earning potential you have. The first thing you’ll need to decide is which programming language(s) you want to master. This will depend on a couple factors: what are you hoping to do with your abilities? What incomes are you hoping to make? What are the needs of the marketplace right now? The answers to these questions will help shape your decision.

Once you choose a  language, you’re going to need a platform on which you can learn and practice it. That’s where a text editor will come in handy. There are many different types of text editors on the market — some specialized for specific languages, some adaptable to many languages, and there are some called IDEs that not only function as text editors, but also debuggers and compilers. If you’re looking at Sublime Text and Brackets as possible options, you’re looking at text editors that can work with a multitude of languages.

The criterias to consider when choosing a text editor is to find one that is not only fast and efficient but also that suits your coding style. You want something that doesn’t bog down your computer or overload your memory while still providing strong functional elements, great extensions and plug-ins, and quick editing. Let’s take a look at Sublime Text and Brackets and see if one meets your needs more effectively than the other.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text was established in 2008 by John Skinner and has seen a quick rise in popularity. It is full of functional elements and navigational features that make for quick editing. It has a feature called “GoTo Anything” which allows you to jump anywhere in the code in just a matter of seconds, no matter how large a project you’re working on. The program also offers auto-completion and syntax highlighting, making editing an even faster process. Sublime users confirmed the software is a lightweight program that still runs at an impressively high speed. Out of the box, Sublime Text is considerably barebones. 

As stated in Dunebook, Sublime requires that its users install a package manager before beginning to dive into coding. This approach does, however, allow you to fully customize the text editor to your style and liking. Also, since the editor is so powerful, you can install most packages without having to restart the editor, which makes building and shaping your experience a smooth process. Perhaps, the most useful feature in Sublime is the multi-line editing option. This means you can highlight a variable and change it and Sublime will intelligently locate all other places in the code that utilize that variable and synchronize the changes as well.

In spite of its amazing features, Sublime Text isn’t perfect. As stated in an official review on Elegant Themes, Sublime is not the easiest to learn. The settings panel is not very intuitive, requiring the use of “true” and “false” for file navigation to reach the setting you would like to manipulate. Another difficulty that may not affect you at first but will likely be a little troublesome later on, is its development time. 

Sublime Text has a relatively small development team, which means changes and ideas come rather slowly to the software. As you may have guessed by now, it is not open-source. Although it runs multi-platform (meaning Linux, Windows, or Max), the full license costs $70. They do have an option to download Sublime Text and “evaluate” the software, with no time constraint, but the only way to use the program continuously requires a loophole. This loophole reduces the money going towards the development of the text editor, which in turn increases the time between new developments.

Overall, Sublime Text is a very fast and efficient text editor that boasts consistency and stability. Although it may take some time to learn, Sublime Text is a versatile and powerful text editor that allows for quick editing on large projects. It is a rather hefty price tag for an area that is mostly open-source, but it may be well worth it as a software for you to grow into. 

Brackets

Brackets is relatively new to the market, developed in 2015 by Adobe. The text editor is heavily focused on front end development, which makes sense since it was developed by the company using JavaScript. Brackets is ready-to-go out of the box with amazing features directly integrated into the software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Dreamweaver. Brackets also allows users to have a live preview with a direct connection to your browser, meaning you can see the changes you’re making in real time. All this makes for a very visually-oriented experience with Brackets. Brackets also handles large files with relative ease. Atop all this, Brackets’ open-source nature allows for new extensions, developments, and libraries added to the program. As a final bonus, Brackets is completely free.

So why wouldn’t you choose Brackets? For one, Brackets may be able to handle multiple files, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most powerful on the market. Brackets is capable, but doesn’t quite meet the speed or power seen in other text editors such as Sublime Text or Atom. Since it is a little slower, Brackets may not be the best for larger or more complex projects. Plus, its features are further set on front end development with visual orientation, which doesn’t give a boost to those looking to work on the back end or the server side of web development. 

Choosing Brackets would be a wise choice when working with C++ or JavaScript since those are its native languages and they work well with Adobe and the Adobe plugins available. However, if you want to focus more on the server side, Brackets may not be the best option on the market.

Sublime Text or Brackets: Which Shot to Call?

Choosing between these two text editors relies mostly on your goals as a programmer. Are you looking to become a front end web developer with clean cut designs and easy-to-use interfaces? If so, you’ll want to pair with Brackets for amazing JavaScript integrations and Adobe plug-ins. These two perks together allow you to add interactive Java applications into your code and keep an aesthetically appealing approach to the front end of your websites with live view to ensure everything you do is easy on the eyes. 

If, however, your goal is to master the back end of websites by creating dense, interlacing networks of code that are highly functional and perhaps even high security for the server side of web development, Sublime Text will suit you best. Sublime text is powerful and designed to edit large amounts of code quickly and efficiently. The price tag is a hefty one, but well worth it for the sheer amount of power you get with the software.

Whichever you choose, don’t forget to have fun and enjoy the process! Don’t be afraid to try a little bit of everything and really nail down what it is that you want to do, not just what you think you should do. The projects, clients, and money will follow if you just keep plugging away at the keys.