{"slug": "sublime-text", "name": "Sublime Text", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "A fast, cross-platform proprietary text and code editor with a Python plugin API.", "recommenders": 32, "commenters": 58, "warners": 2, "score": 33.548, "rising": 2.8, "first": "2025-11-24", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "Loved for its native speed, smooth handling of large files and use as a quick scratch pad, along with multiple cursors and an extensible plugin ecosystem.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 32, "neutral": 22, "compare": 3, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 2, 5, 1, 1, 3, 0, 4, 6, 3, 7, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Speed", "Scratch pad"], "caveat": "Slow development", "short_quote": "To this day I always install Sublime on my new machines, it's the perfect text editor for my needs", "icon": true, "domain": "sublimetext.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.sublimetext.com", "pricing": "paid", "aliases": ["Sublime Text"], "verdict": [{"text": "Loved for its native speed, smooth handling of large files and use as a quick scratch pad,", "cites": [{"id": 756214336, "item_id": 47263396, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263396", "by": "muppetman", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I love Sublime Text.  It's so fast, it works so well.", "excerpt": "This is why I love Sublime Text. It's so fast, it works so well. It isn't trying to be AI, it isn't trying to evolve until it can read email or issue SSL certs via ACME. It's focused on one thing and it does it extremely, extremely well.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good software knows when to stop"}, {"id": 746463008, "item_id": 46653938, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46653938", "by": "pvtmert", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "since then, it has been really hard to beat sublime text. the speed and rendering of sublime is much better.", "excerpt": "i would 100% pay for non-electron/non-vscode ui (sublime text? anyone?) nothing specifically against vscode/electron/atom. i did use atom 10 years ago, then started sublime text 2, since then, it has been really hard to beat sublime text. the speed and rendering of sublime is much better. i also have been using zed, which can be considered cloud-code ui too in certain terms, zed is quite more resource-intensive than ", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Atom", "story": "Show HN: 1Code \u2013 open-source Cursor-like UI for Claude Code"}, {"id": 792513024, "item_id": 49532064, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532064", "by": "asabla", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Still find it to be a marvel when it comes to large  text files, and how well it still handles them", "excerpt": "I used sublime text over so many years. Still find it to be a marvel when it comes to large text files, and how well it still handles them", "context": "", "use_case": "editing large text files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 796664208, "item_id": 49791513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49791513", "by": "blacksmith_tb", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine.", "excerpt": "Different horses for different courses? I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine. I use all three, though my ST license was for a version or two back, so I have mostly switched to Zed for those giant-file-don't-need-any-bells-and-whistles tasks.", "context": "", "use_case": "giant files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796617872, "item_id": 49788617, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788617", "by": "piva00", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "To this day I always install Sublime on my new machines, it's the perfect text editor for my needs", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "scratch pad and text editing", "switched_from": "TextMate", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}, {"text": " along with multiple cursors and an extensible plugin ecosystem.", "cites": [{"id": 781757536, "item_id": 48859846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859846", "by": "gingerBill", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I could have done that in Sublime in a minute with multiple cursors", "excerpt": "That's not what I was saying. I used vim macros specifically as an example, not Vim as a whole. > I\u2019ve had people tell me how \u201cfun\u201d it was to build a macro to handle some one-off text-refactoring problem. But when I looked at what they were doing and how long it took, my honest reaction was: I could have done that in Sublime in a minute with multiple cursors, or just written a quick script. and > What baffles me is t", "context": "", "use_case": "text refactoring with multiple cursors", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781928160, "item_id": 48870510, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870510", "by": "MrMetric", "date": "2026-07-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime Text and its many cursors for the win!", "excerpt": "I've had to batch-rename files many times over the years. That means: 1. I do it manually over however many minutes. Works if there aren't too many (especially if the pattern is too complex to trivially automate). 2. I make a Python script for it. No way I'm renaming a thousand files by hand. 3. I don't do it. Too much work. The problem lingers forever. Or these days, 4. I make an AI datacenter eat another town's wat", "context": "", "use_case": "batch editing and renaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 796619936, "item_id": 49788746, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788746", "by": "kylebebak", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The super flexible plugin API and the huge package ecosystem is a powerful combo.", "excerpt": "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 t", "context": "", "use_case": "plugin-extensible editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is a slow pace of development", "cites": [{"id": 796615120, "item_id": 49788445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788445", "by": "listenfaster", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I had left ST when I felt that there wasn't the will or resources to address basic usability things", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "former user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 736522848, "item_id": 46032678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46032678", "by": "Klaster_1", "date": "2025-11-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Moved away from ST to VSCode a couple of years ago for similar reasons too.", "excerpt": "Moved away from ST to VSCode a couple of years ago for similar reasons too. Sublime Merge, though - I tried a couple of alternative solutions, but none of those felt like an improvement, so I still rely on it, but it has all the same drawbacks as ST, the most severe being glacial pace of changes (or total lack thereof). It's as if the dev team lacks capacity to deal with basic UX issues, year over year.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Stopped Using Sublime Text"}]}, {"text": " that leaves basic usability issues, such as sidebar ergonomics, unaddressed.", "cites": [{"id": 796846752, "item_id": 49802922, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802922", "by": "microflash", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise, really excellent editor.", "excerpt": "Unfortunately, still not much progress on improving the ergonomics of the sidebar. You still can\u2019t do drag and drop, cut and paste etc. Otherwise, really excellent editor. I use their Git client [1] daily and there\u2019s nothing like it. [1]: https://www.sublimemerge.com", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796615120, "item_id": 49788445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788445", "by": "listenfaster", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I had left ST when I felt that there wasn't the will or resources to address basic usability things", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "former user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Speed", "summary": "Commenters describe it as fast and snappy, and some prefer its native performance over VS Code and Zed.", "quotes": [{"id": 756214336, "item_id": 47263396, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263396", "by": "muppetman", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I love Sublime Text.  It's so fast, it works so well.", "excerpt": "This is why I love Sublime Text. It's so fast, it works so well. It isn't trying to be AI, it isn't trying to evolve until it can read email or issue SSL certs via ACME. It's focused on one thing and it does it extremely, extremely well.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good software knows when to stop"}, {"id": 746463008, "item_id": 46653938, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46653938", "by": "pvtmert", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "since then, it has been really hard to beat sublime text. the speed and rendering of sublime is much better.", "excerpt": "i would 100% pay for non-electron/non-vscode ui (sublime text? anyone?) nothing specifically against vscode/electron/atom. i did use atom 10 years ago, then started sublime text 2, since then, it has been really hard to beat sublime text. the speed and rendering of sublime is much better. i also have been using zed, which can be considered cloud-code ui too in certain terms, zed is quite more resource-intensive than ", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Atom", "story": "Show HN: 1Code \u2013 open-source Cursor-like UI for Claude Code"}, {"id": 767197681, "item_id": 47949855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949855", "by": "pier25", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Sublime for a decade and always missed its native performance", "excerpt": "I'm loving it. Just opened my current TS/TSX project and everything is working as expected. Performance is fantastic. I used Sublime for a decade and always missed its native performance after switching to VSCode due to needing first class Svelte, Vue, or Astro support. The only thing that bothered me is that it enabled the Tailwind LSP even though I'm not using TW and I couldn't stop it. Had to disable that LSP comp", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zed is 1.0"}]}, {"label": "Scratch pad", "summary": "Persistent unsaved buffers make it a popular place for notes, to-do lists and temporary text.", "quotes": [{"id": 796617872, "item_id": 49788617, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788617", "by": "piva00", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "To this day I always install Sublime on my new machines, it's the perfect text editor for my needs", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "scratch pad and text editing", "switched_from": "TextMate", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 752685488, "item_id": 47042843, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47042843", "by": "Maro", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love being able to Alt-Tab to Sublime, hit Ctrl+N to get a new \"file\" which is a temporary/ephemeral workspace for typing text", "excerpt": "Some thoughts, feedbacks, well-meaning critcism: - on non-supported browsers (eg. mobile) don't render the app, show a message instead - Shift + Home/End for selecting text doesn't work - Ctrl + N for a new page doesn't work - things like the above ^, while it may be trivial, will turn off people who will not spend more than 10-20s to evaluate - you're refer the simplicity of text files, but the editor is not fixed w", "context": "", "use_case": "scratch text drafting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Lightwave \u2013 Real-time notes app, 3.5 years of hand-rolled JavaScript"}, {"id": 739821425, "item_id": 46238839, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46238839", "by": "cpeterso", "date": "2025-12-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I now just use three text files open in Sublime Text", "excerpt": "I used Notational Velocity for years. I loved its free form approach to note taking and searching, but I needed a cross platform solution with files that could be shared using Dropbox. https://notational.net/ I now just use three text files open in Sublime Text: todo-today.txt, todo-this-week.txt, and todo-later.txt. I review them daily and promote todos to the next file when appropriate.", "context": "", "use_case": "todo text files", "switched_from": "Notational Velocity", "story": "My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file (2020)"}]}, {"label": "Lightweight", "summary": "Seen as a lean, focused alternative to Electron-based editors like VS Code.", "quotes": [{"id": 797707104, "item_id": 49856694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856694", "by": "tyfighter", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime did everything I needed otherwise.", "excerpt": "I use it daily as well. I know enough vim to get around, but not quickly. I never learned emacs. The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful, and Sublime did everything I needed otherwise. Except...I still love full Visual Studio for debugging, and perusing large code bases with Intellisense.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I am the only one who still uses sublime text daily?"}, {"id": 740618529, "item_id": 46288658, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46288658", "by": "djfobbz", "date": "2025-12-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime Text is still my go-to", "excerpt": "VS Code feels like nothing but bloat. Sublime Text is still my go-to, as I'm not very well-versed in Neovim yet. I'm also really digging the new C/Lua-based Lite XL - https://lite-xl.com. One of my New Year's resolutions is to learn Neovim properly.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "VS Code deactivates IntelliCode in favor of the paid Copilot"}, {"id": 744163856, "item_id": 46510241, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46510241", "by": "dv_dt", "date": "2026-01-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched from VSCode back to Sublime Text lol.", "excerpt": "I switched from VSCode back to Sublime Text lol. If I want AI involved I use claude-code or other cli in a terminal. Its been nicer and less distracting", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "VS Code", "story": "I switched from VSCode to Zed"}]}, {"label": "Plugins", "summary": "A flexible plugin API and package ecosystem let users customize it, even into a lightweight IDE.", "quotes": [{"id": 796619936, "item_id": 49788746, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788746", "by": "kylebebak", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The super flexible plugin API and the huge package ecosystem is a powerful combo.", "excerpt": "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 t", "context": "", "use_case": "plugin-extensible editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 744002544, "item_id": 46500159, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46500159", "by": "adonese", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime is quite good.", "excerpt": "Sublime is quite good. I have always been using sublime for quick edits, dumping notes etc. But lately I came to appreciate it more as a lightweight IDE. I use go (lsp and some plugins) and ST (sqltools) in addition to package manager and project manager. I like how fast it is, how well polished the editor is. And generally all plug-ins i use work nicely. Also claude helped a lot (eg writing some shortcuts for specif", "context": "", "use_case": "quick edits and lightweight IDE for Go", "switched_from": "", "story": "I switched from VSCode to Zed"}, {"id": 777540800, "item_id": 48596300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596300", "by": "mjmas", "date": "2026-06-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Sublime with the AutoProjects extension", "excerpt": "Or if your editor is happy to store them in a subfolder that is useful. I use Sublime with the AutoProjects extension and it puts .sublime-project snd .sublime-workspace under a .sublime folder that I can have a .gitignore * underneath.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": ".gitignore Isn't the Only Way to Ignore Files in Git"}]}, {"label": "Multiple cursors", "summary": "Multiple cursors are credited with making quick work of one-off text edits.", "quotes": [{"id": 781757536, "item_id": 48859846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859846", "by": "gingerBill", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I could have done that in Sublime in a minute with multiple cursors", "excerpt": "That's not what I was saying. I used vim macros specifically as an example, not Vim as a whole. > I\u2019ve had people tell me how \u201cfun\u201d it was to build a macro to handle some one-off text-refactoring problem. But when I looked at what they were doing and how long it took, my honest reaction was: I could have done that in Sublime in a minute with multiple cursors, or just written a quick script. and > What baffles me is t", "context": "", "use_case": "text refactoring with multiple cursors", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781928160, "item_id": 48870510, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870510", "by": "MrMetric", "date": "2026-07-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime Text and its many cursors for the win!", "excerpt": "I've had to batch-rename files many times over the years. That means: 1. I do it manually over however many minutes. Works if there aren't too many (especially if the pattern is too complex to trivially automate). 2. I make a Python script for it. No way I'm renaming a thousand files by hand. 3. I don't do it. Too much work. The problem lingers forever. Or these days, 4. I make an AI datacenter eat another town's wat", "context": "", "use_case": "batch editing and renaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781765632, "item_id": 48860352, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48860352", "by": "diabllicseagull", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I personally use it with vim shortcuts enabled. it lets me use vim motions on top of everything sublime offers.", "excerpt": "I'd like to pick on the word 'invisible': if the user can get into a flow state with a tool where work becomes the major focus. I can argue that you can get into that state with any tool with enough practice. And sometimes that's only possible if the tool is actually visible to you as in all graphical UI bits you need are exactly where you remember them to be, exactly where your motor reflexes immediately seek and fi", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}]}, {"label": "Large files", "summary": "Handles very large text and log files well.", "quotes": [{"id": 792513024, "item_id": 49532064, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532064", "by": "asabla", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Still find it to be a marvel when it comes to large  text files, and how well it still handles them", "excerpt": "I used sublime text over so many years. Still find it to be a marvel when it comes to large text files, and how well it still handles them", "context": "", "use_case": "editing large text files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 796664208, "item_id": 49791513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49791513", "by": "blacksmith_tb", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine.", "excerpt": "Different horses for different courses? I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine. I use all three, though my ST license was for a version or two back, so I have mostly switched to Zed for those giant-file-don't-need-any-bells-and-whistles tasks.", "context": "", "use_case": "giant files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Slow development", "summary": "Some users left because long-standing usability issues went unfixed and releases are infrequent.", "quotes": [{"id": 796615120, "item_id": 49788445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788445", "by": "listenfaster", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I had left ST when I felt that there wasn't the will or resources to address basic usability things", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "former user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 736522848, "item_id": 46032678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46032678", "by": "Klaster_1", "date": "2025-11-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Moved away from ST to VSCode a couple of years ago for similar reasons too.", "excerpt": "Moved away from ST to VSCode a couple of years ago for similar reasons too. Sublime Merge, though - I tried a couple of alternative solutions, but none of those felt like an improvement, so I still rely on it, but it has all the same drawbacks as ST, the most severe being glacial pace of changes (or total lack thereof). It's as if the dev team lacks capacity to deal with basic UX issues, year over year.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Stopped Using Sublime Text"}, {"id": 796846752, "item_id": 49802922, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802922", "by": "microflash", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise, really excellent editor.", "excerpt": "Unfortunately, still not much progress on improving the ergonomics of the sidebar. You still can\u2019t do drag and drop, cut and paste etc. Otherwise, really excellent editor. I use their Git client [1] daily and there\u2019s nothing like it. [1]: https://www.sublimemerge.com", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}, {"label": "Licensing friction", "summary": "Upgrade popups and version-specific licenses pushed some users to other editors.", "quotes": [{"id": 759598289, "item_id": 47474893, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47474893", "by": "smlee", "date": "2026-03-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Sublime Text for years, but the occasional upgrade popup eventually pushed me to try building my own editor", "excerpt": "I used Sublime Text for years, but the occasional upgrade popup eventually pushed me to try building my own editor a few months ago. I figured it would be simple \u2014 it wasn\u2019t. The result is Void Text: a fast, lightweight, general-purpose editor with a small footprint, clean UI/UX, and only the essentials. It\u2019s completely free, and built entirely in Swift to keep it native and snappy. I\u2019m not sure it matches Sublime in", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Void Text \u2013 a fast, native macOS writing app (~15MB, keyboard-first)"}, {"id": 795339441, "item_id": 49708715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708715", "by": "suby", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used the Sublime Text 3 flatpak for many years", "excerpt": "My problem with flatpak is that the underlying runtime has a limited lifespan. I used the Sublime Text 3 flatpak for many years, and it was deprecated a few months ago because the runtime it was using was no longer supported. This caused people to update the flatpak to Sublime 4, which is good, but I only have a license for 3. In the end I just downloaded the binary for 3 from their website, and it still just worked.", "context": "has license for Sublime Text 3", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"}, {"id": 796664208, "item_id": 49791513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49791513", "by": "blacksmith_tb", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine.", "excerpt": "Different horses for different courses? I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine. I use all three, though my ST license was for a version or two back, so I have mostly switched to Zed for those giant-file-don't-need-any-bells-and-whistles tasks.", "context": "", "use_case": "giant files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}, {"label": "Not an IDE", "summary": "Some see it as a better notepad, and some still use a full IDE for debugging.", "quotes": [{"id": 787496512, "item_id": 49218532, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49218532", "by": "0x073", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Pure sublime text is better, but still just a better notepad and no ide.", "excerpt": "Last time I used Sublime text with package control, the plugins created always after updates a new tab with changelog and some with textads. Pure sublime text is better, but still just a better notepad and no ide.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "They don't make 'em like Sublime Text anymore"}, {"id": 797707104, "item_id": 49856694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856694", "by": "tyfighter", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime did everything I needed otherwise.", "excerpt": "I use it daily as well. I know enough vim to get around, but not quickly. I never learned emacs. The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful, and Sublime did everything I needed otherwise. Except...I still love full Visual Studio for debugging, and perusing large code bases with Intellisense.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I am the only one who still uses sublime text daily?"}]}, {"label": "Plugin security", "summary": "Plugins are not sandboxed and Package Control is run by a volunteer, and some plugins show changelog tabs with ads.", "quotes": [{"id": 771500305, "item_id": 48218769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48218769", "by": "no-name-here", "date": "2026-05-20", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Sublime also has packages.", "excerpt": "Sublime also has packages. https://packagecontrol.io Sublime's de facto package control repository is handled by an Uber engineer and father of 5 in his spare time, not someone at Sublime per https://packagecontrol.io/about and his linked site. VS Code Marketplace seems to have a number of protections in place: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/extensions/extension-runtime-security#_marketplace-protections", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension"}, {"id": 787496512, "item_id": 49218532, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49218532", "by": "0x073", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Pure sublime text is better, but still just a better notepad and no ide.", "excerpt": "Last time I used Sublime text with package control, the plugins created always after updates a new tab with changelog and some with textads. Pure sublime text is better, but still just a better notepad and no ide.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "They don't make 'em like Sublime Text anymore"}]}, {"label": "Non-native feel", "summary": "Mac users say it lacks the native Mac feel TextMate had.", "quotes": [{"id": 796620224, "item_id": 49788764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788764", "by": "cosmic_cheese", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Sublime mostly these days", "excerpt": "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\u2019s missing the \u201cmacness\u201d that TextMate brought back in the day, which is the cost of being a cross-platform app I suppose.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "TextMate", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}]}], "who": [{"by": "coffeethursday", "context": "VC", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313325", "date": "2026-10-31"}, {"by": "pixeljam", "context": "NixOS user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788541", "date": "2026-09-21"}, {"by": "suby", "context": "has license for Sublime Text 3", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708715", "date": "2026-09-15"}, {"by": "teach", "context": "Linux user since early 2000s", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438886", "date": "2026-08-25"}, {"by": "reincoder", "context": "works for an IP API company, Windows user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48867406", "date": "2026-07-10"}, {"by": "bogwog", "context": "command line user for ~two decades", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48861102", "date": "2026-07-10"}, {"by": "zbentley", "context": "Arch daily driver for years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48605267", "date": "2026-06-19"}, {"by": "callumprentice", "context": "Prefers simple HTML/JS development", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477586", "date": "2026-06-10"}, {"by": "alsetmusic", "context": "Mac user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47948481", "date": "2026-04-29"}, {"by": "Kuyawa", "context": "lone coder", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47248090", "date": "2026-03-04"}], "tags": ["for quick edits", "for notes and to-dos", "for large log files", "for Vim users", "for Linux users"], "use_cases": ["text editing", "code editor", "code editing", "text editor", "editor", "note-taking in text files"], "compared": [{"slug": "visual-studio-code", "name": "Visual Studio Code", "co": 21, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 3}, {"slug": "zed", "name": "Zed", "co": 19, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 3}, {"slug": "vim", "name": "Vim", "co": 13, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "textmate", "name": "TextMate", "co": 4, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "emacs", "name": "Emacs", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "sublime-merge", "name": "Sublime Merge", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 796737168, "item_id": 49796073, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49796073", "by": "ben-schaaf", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We put a fair amount of effort into reducing our resource footprint", "excerpt": "We put a fair amount of effort into reducing our resource footprint, so I'm curious what you find lacking in our memory management. From a quick test we use a similar amount of memory to Zed.", "context": "works on Sublime Text", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49783932", "title": "Sublime Text Build 4213", "mentions": 10}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121", "title": "Good Tools Are Invisible", "mentions": 7}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498735", "title": "I switched from VSCode to Zed", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48643848", "title": "Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949027", "title": "Zed is 1.0", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313324", "title": "Show HN: How I take notes as a VC, and the app I built for it", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 3}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 5}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"compare": 1, "neutral": 1, "recommend": 3}, "2026-05": {"compare": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 6}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 3}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 3, "warn": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805013200, "item_id": 50313325, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313325", "by": "coffeethursday", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my notes lived in saved (and unsaved) text files in Sublime Text", "excerpt": "If it's not obvious from the title, I'm a VC and I spend a ton of time in meetings with founders. What's less obvious is all the other things. After treading water for at least a decade, I am deeply suspect of any VC's organizational capabilities. Mostly my own. Believe it or not, for the longest time, my notes lived in saved (and unsaved) text files in Sublime Text. At some point I've tried using TiddlyWiki, bandwag", "context": "VC", "use_case": "note-taking in text files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: How I take notes as a VC, and the app I built for it"}, {"id": 799669505, "item_id": 49979344, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49979344", "by": "hkchad", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "use sublime to open the odd file every so often", "excerpt": "Long time JB user here, and I mean long time. The past year I have been using claude in the JB terminal but nothing, and I mean nothing new has come of it in that year. Stuck in a tiny terminal window, opening files every so often. A couple months ago I switched back to iTerm2, full screen and use sublime to open the odd file every so often. So this makes 100% sense. They need to do a better job integrating with agen", "context": "", "use_case": "opening files", "switched_from": "", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 797707104, "item_id": 49856694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856694", "by": "tyfighter", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime did everything I needed otherwise.", "excerpt": "I use it daily as well. I know enough vim to get around, but not quickly. I never learned emacs. The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful, and Sublime did everything I needed otherwise. Except...I still love full Visual Studio for debugging, and perusing large code bases with Intellisense.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I am the only one who still uses sublime text daily?"}, {"id": 796846752, "item_id": 49802922, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49802922", "by": "microflash", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Otherwise, really excellent editor.", "excerpt": "Unfortunately, still not much progress on improving the ergonomics of the sidebar. You still can\u2019t do drag and drop, cut and paste etc. Otherwise, really excellent editor. I use their Git client [1] daily and there\u2019s nothing like it. [1]: https://www.sublimemerge.com", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796664208, "item_id": 49791513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49791513", "by": "blacksmith_tb", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine.", "excerpt": "Different horses for different courses? I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine. I use all three, though my ST license was for a version or two back, so I have mostly switched to Zed for those giant-file-don't-need-any-bells-and-whistles tasks.", "context": "", "use_case": "giant files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796620224, "item_id": 49788764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788764", "by": "cosmic_cheese", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Sublime mostly these days", "excerpt": "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\u2019s missing the \u201cmacness\u201d that TextMate brought back in the day, which is the cost of being a cross-platform app I suppose.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "TextMate", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796619936, "item_id": 49788746, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788746", "by": "kylebebak", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The super flexible plugin API and the huge package ecosystem is a powerful combo.", "excerpt": "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 t", "context": "", "use_case": "plugin-extensible editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796617872, "item_id": 49788617, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788617", "by": "piva00", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "To this day I always install Sublime on my new machines, it's the perfect text editor for my needs", "excerpt": "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", "context": "", "use_case": "scratch pad and text editing", "switched_from": "TextMate", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796616816, "item_id": 49788551, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788551", "by": "bpev", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I feel like Sublime is snappier and gives me better battery life.", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796616656, "item_id": 49788541, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788541", "by": "pixeljam", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "add it to my NixOS config without having to use `permittedInsecurePackages`", "excerpt": "Does this I can finally add it to my NixOS config without having to use `permittedInsecurePackages`? https://github.com/sublimehq/sublime_text/issues/5984 :)", "context": "NixOS user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796615776, "item_id": 49788486, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788486", "by": "boundless88", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The last time I used it was back in my freshman year of college", "excerpt": "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?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 796615120, "item_id": 49788445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788445", "by": "listenfaster", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I had left ST when I felt that there wasn't the will or resources to address basic usability things", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "former user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 795339441, "item_id": 49708715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708715", "by": "suby", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used the Sublime Text 3 flatpak for many years", "excerpt": "My problem with flatpak is that the underlying runtime has a limited lifespan. I used the Sublime Text 3 flatpak for many years, and it was deprecated a few months ago because the runtime it was using was no longer supported. This caused people to update the flatpak to Sublime 4, which is good, but I only have a license for 3. In the end I just downloaded the binary for 3 from their website, and it still just worked.", "context": "has license for Sublime Text 3", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"}, {"id": 792513024, "item_id": 49532064, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532064", "by": "asabla", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Still find it to be a marvel when it comes to large  text files, and how well it still handles them", "excerpt": "I used sublime text over so many years. Still find it to be a marvel when it comes to large text files, and how well it still handles them", "context": "", "use_case": "editing large text files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 791022178, "item_id": 49438886, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438886", "by": "teach", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I do pay for Sublime Text these days.", "excerpt": "I paid for WinZip and for Paint Shop Pro and used them a bunch in the late 90s. But I switched to Linux in the early aughts and by then the free software versions had caught up sufficiently that I didn't really need to pay for software for a while. I do pay for Sublime Text these days.", "context": "Linux user since early 2000s", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Trial is 40 days. Not until you're 40"}, {"id": 789408848, "item_id": 49338053, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49338053", "by": "krm01", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime still feels like the most natural extension of the mind", "excerpt": "Sublime still feels like the most natural extension of the mind (when it comes to writing code by hand). Though, I use it mainly as a 2do list and notepad these days.", "context": "", "use_case": "writing code by hand, notepad", "switched_from": "", "story": "Best code editor without AI?"}, {"id": 787679568, "item_id": 49229973, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49229973", "by": "monster_truck", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's still all I use. You know it's good because you can use it to crack itself", "excerpt": "It's still all I use. You know it's good because you can use it to crack itself", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "They don't make 'em like Sublime Text anymore"}, {"id": 787496512, "item_id": 49218532, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49218532", "by": "0x073", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Pure sublime text is better, but still just a better notepad and no ide.", "excerpt": "Last time I used Sublime text with package control, the plugins created always after updates a new tab with changelog and some with textads. Pure sublime text is better, but still just a better notepad and no ide.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "They don't make 'em like Sublime Text anymore"}, {"id": 786265793, "item_id": 49141612, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141612", "by": "tonyedgecombe", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Sublime Text[3] for editing", "excerpt": "I've got a 2015 MacBook Pro running Monterey which I can code on. It's offline (no DNS entries) but I can AirDrop[1] stuff to it. I use Dash[2] for offline documentation and Sublime Text[3] for editing. It's really just an experiment to see how little (software, hardware and internet) I can get away with. We are moving next year and I may not have space for the large desk and monitor I have now. [1] https://en.wikipe", "context": "", "use_case": "editing code offline", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Anyone still do work on Intel Macs?"}, {"id": 786187331, "item_id": 49136708, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49136708", "by": "murlax", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Maybe I should just go back to Sublime Text now lol", "excerpt": "This is basically what I did. In 2023 I moved from VS Code to Cursor. And in 2025 when Opus 4.7 (or was it 4.6?) did that big leap in December, I switched to Claude Code and VSCode for any edits. I come from Sublime Text so those shortcuts are hardwired in me (which was also the defaults in VSCode). When Cursor hijacked literally every CMD key combo, I got fed up and switched back to VSCode. Maybe I should just go ba", "context": "", "use_case": "fast code reader", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor removed cost information from the usage page and CSV export"}, {"id": 781928160, "item_id": 48870510, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870510", "by": "MrMetric", "date": "2026-07-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime Text and its many cursors for the win!", "excerpt": "I've had to batch-rename files many times over the years. That means: 1. I do it manually over however many minutes. Works if there aren't too many (especially if the pattern is too complex to trivially automate). 2. I make a Python script for it. No way I'm renaming a thousand files by hand. 3. I don't do it. Too much work. The problem lingers forever. Or these days, 4. I make an AI datacenter eat another town's wat", "context": "", "use_case": "batch editing and renaming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781878496, "item_id": 48867406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48867406", "by": "reincoder", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Currently, I have been using Sublime Text in Vintage mode for 4-5 years.", "excerpt": "Sometimes the limitation is not by design, but rather because users do not need or want to explore it. I work for an IP API company. We have been around for 15 years, and there are folks have just integrated our services in a day, years ago and never thought about it twice. To them, we simply return the public IP address or geolocation data. We are just a good, free tool that works for their needs, and that's it. We ", "context": "works for an IP API company, Windows user", "use_case": "text editor", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781809840, "item_id": 48863115, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48863115", "by": "rjbwork", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime just is the tool I want.  I install it and I use it.", "excerpt": ">He turned sublime into the tool he wanted. I think this also misses the point. Sublime just is the tool I want. I install it and I use it. Eventually I may install a handful of add-ons via the baked in package control. But primarily it just is the text editor I want.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781777632, "item_id": 48861102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48861102", "by": "bogwog", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "eventually I moved to Sublime and never looked back.", "excerpt": "I've been working with the command line for just under two decades. A couple of years of those were spent with vim as my primary editor, but eventually I moved to Sublime and never looked back. But I still use the command line heavily in all my work. I usually have a konsole window that I alt+tab into whenever I need to build or run tests, instead of using Sublime's \"build system\" support. The only time I use vim is ", "context": "command line user for ~two decades", "use_case": "primary editor", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781765632, "item_id": 48860352, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48860352", "by": "diabllicseagull", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I personally use it with vim shortcuts enabled. it lets me use vim motions on top of everything sublime offers.", "excerpt": "I'd like to pick on the word 'invisible': if the user can get into a flow state with a tool where work becomes the major focus. I can argue that you can get into that state with any tool with enough practice. And sometimes that's only possible if the tool is actually visible to you as in all graphical UI bits you need are exactly where you remember them to be, exactly where your motor reflexes immediately seek and fi", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781757536, "item_id": 48859846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859846", "by": "gingerBill", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I could have done that in Sublime in a minute with multiple cursors", "excerpt": "That's not what I was saying. I used vim macros specifically as an example, not Vim as a whole. > I\u2019ve had people tell me how \u201cfun\u201d it was to build a macro to handle some one-off text-refactoring problem. But when I looked at what they were doing and how long it took, my honest reaction was: I could have done that in Sublime in a minute with multiple cursors, or just written a quick script. and > What baffles me is t", "context": "", "use_case": "text refactoring with multiple cursors", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 781752113, "item_id": 48859507, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48859507", "by": "zaphar", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "He turned sublime into the tool he wanted.", "excerpt": "The article was not against a tool but a way of thinking. He didn't say anywhere that Sublime was better than Vim. He did say that he disagrees with the idea that a tools friction is a feature. I can take his entire thesis and use it to show that vim is the perfect editor for me precisely because vim is invisible to me when I use it. In part this is because I turned vim into the tool I wanted. He turned sublime into ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Tools Are Invisible"}, {"id": 778599729, "item_id": 48662483, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48662483", "by": "Kuyawa", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Brave, SublimeText", "excerpt": "Brave, SublimeText and Boss Bottled Elixir, nothing else.", "context": "", "use_case": "editor on new macOS install", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?"}, {"id": 778345641, "item_id": 48646602, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48646602", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-06-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GhostText for editing browser text areas with Sublime Text or other. (life-saver)", "excerpt": "Ublock-origin with Firefox, Audacity, Batch Photo Resizer, calibre, cardflow, Diffraction, Ejimo and Ultra Character Map (try finding emojis without them), Libre Office, Paprika Recipe Manager, Samurai Safe, SeaMonkey (who else edits HTML?) GIMP, Darktable, RawTherapee, Super Photo Upscaler, Sublime Text, VLC, Clearview (and why isn't epub supported natively?), PhotoSync (share photos with all platforms), GhostText f", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?"}, {"id": 778308002, "item_id": 48644250, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48644250", "by": "CobaltFire", "date": "2026-06-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SublimeText (https://www.sublimetext.com/)", "excerpt": "Heres my list: Transnomino (https://www.transnomino.com/) StillColor (https://github.com/aiaf/Stillcolor) SublimeText (https://www.sublimetext.com/) Homebrew (https://brew.sh/) VLC (https://www.videolan.org/) Macs Fan Control (https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control) Rectangle (https://rectangleapp.com/) NetBird (https://netbird.io/) Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/) Honestly its not huge and most are probably obvious", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?"}, {"id": 777684273, "item_id": 48605267, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48605267", "by": "zbentley", "date": "2026-06-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Today I have one: sublime-text-4.", "excerpt": "The AUR is not the Arch package manager or repository. The main Arch package repos are managed similarly to Debian, or Fedora, or whatever--caveat Arch's nature as a rolling release, but in terms of vetting and ownership/security, the approaches are similar. pacman installs from regular, real, vetted repositories by default. pacman will never install from the AUR. pacman is the official Arch package manager and the o", "context": "Arch daily driver for years", "use_case": "text editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "AURpocalypse now: a look at the recent AUR attacks"}, {"id": 777540800, "item_id": 48596300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596300", "by": "mjmas", "date": "2026-06-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Sublime with the AutoProjects extension", "excerpt": "Or if your editor is happy to store them in a subfolder that is useful. I use Sublime with the AutoProjects extension and it puts .sublime-project snd .sublime-workspace under a .sublime folder that I can have a .gitignore * underneath.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": ".gitignore Isn't the Only Way to Ignore Files in Git"}, {"id": 775641376, "item_id": 48477586, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477586", "by": "callumprentice", "date": "2026-06-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "give me a simple editor like Sublime and ask me to make a web page", "excerpt": "Excellent article but I am always torn when I read inspirational articles like this - it makes perfect sense to me and I love the idea of simple, non-nonsense sites that work well, load quickly and don't rely on the latest browsers to function. Then I start to wonder if that's just because I'm not smart enough to understand React or whatever the fancy technology of the day is. Feels like I have a hard understanding t", "context": "Prefers simple HTML/JS development", "use_case": "writing simple web pages", "switched_from": "", "story": "Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight"}, {"id": 774640386, "item_id": 48415024, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415024", "by": "Kuyawa", "date": "2026-06-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sublime Text and a DeepSeek plugin for file by file cosmetic fixes", "excerpt": "DeepSeek and Mecha-AI as CLI coding agent for general architecture [1] Sublime Text and a DeepSeek plugin for file by file cosmetic fixes Nothing else. With these tools I am building apps like never before in minutes instead of months [1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/mecha-ai", "context": "", "use_case": "file-by-file fixes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 771500305, "item_id": 48218769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48218769", "by": "no-name-here", "date": "2026-05-20", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Sublime also has packages.", "excerpt": "Sublime also has packages. https://packagecontrol.io Sublime's de facto package control repository is handled by an Uber engineer and father of 5 in his spare time, not someone at Sublime per https://packagecontrol.io/about and his linked site. VS Code Marketplace seems to have a number of protections in place: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/extensions/extension-runtime-security#_marketplace-protections", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension"}, {"id": 767300273, "item_id": 47956267, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47956267", "by": "Demiurge", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I was a fan of Sublime Text", "excerpt": "I love Zed. I was a fan of Sublime Text, and could never get used to VSCode. I thought I'd try Zed a try when it was still extremely raw, before the AI integration, and I loved the simplicity and speed almost immediately. When they added better python linting features, I switched, and haven't used anything else. I know that there are many anti-AI folks here, but I feel lucky that we they added the Zed Agent, and all ", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zed is 1.0"}, {"id": 767197681, "item_id": 47949855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949855", "by": "pier25", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Sublime for a decade and always missed its native performance", "excerpt": "I'm loving it. Just opened my current TS/TSX project and everything is working as expected. Performance is fantastic. I used Sublime for a decade and always missed its native performance after switching to VSCode due to needing first class Svelte, Vue, or Astro support. The only thing that bothered me is that it enabled the Tailwind LSP even though I'm not using TW and I couldn't stop it. Had to disable that LSP comp", "context": "", "use_case": "editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zed is 1.0"}, {"id": 767175696, "item_id": 47948481, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47948481", "by": "alsetmusic", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Sublime", "excerpt": "Yeah, that's not gonna hit. Non-native UI in an app that no Mac plain-text user asked for. I love Sublime, but TextMate was once king. There are already plenty of good options. I also love VIM for saving test to specific locations while I'm on the command line (I have an `sb` alias for Sublime but I don't want to switch away from my terminal window unless the corpus is large or complex).", "context": "Mac user", "use_case": "quick plain-text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Notepad++ Code Editor Comes to Mac After 20-Year Wait"}, {"id": 766467973, "item_id": 47904248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47904248", "by": "gverrilla", "date": "2026-04-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "t for sublime", "excerpt": "I use hyprland. And I navigate with ALT+? commands for the main apps I use, and alt+tab strictly to go back to previous workspace. I also have a task bar that I can also click to navigate when I need (on waybar). I love it. I'm never in some intermediate state like a view of all my workspaces, or holding alt tab to choose some workspace - it's always a single hotkey stroke. I also have 3 special workspaces that use a", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Niri 26.04 was just released (scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor)"}, {"id": 761954883, "item_id": 47622180, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47622180", "by": "bastawhiz", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I'll probably see what Nova is like, or what Sublime has been up to.", "excerpt": "The only reason I use Cursor is because I want an ide with agents sometimes. I do not want a gui for just agents. I already have Claude for that if I wanted it. If they're planning to get rid of the ide and make Cursor purely vibe coding, they've lost me as a customer. Quite honestly, I've turned off almost all of the LLM features in Cursor. No more tab completion. No more agents for little changes. This week, the on", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor 3"}, {"id": 756214336, "item_id": 47263396, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263396", "by": "muppetman", "date": "2026-03-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I love Sublime Text.  It's so fast, it works so well.", "excerpt": "This is why I love Sublime Text. It's so fast, it works so well. It isn't trying to be AI, it isn't trying to evolve until it can read email or issue SSL certs via ACME. It's focused on one thing and it does it extremely, extremely well.", "context": "", "use_case": "text editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good software knows when to stop"}, {"id": 746463008, "item_id": 46653938, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46653938", "by": "pvtmert", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "since then, it has been really hard to beat sublime text. the speed and rendering of sublime is much better.", "excerpt": "i would 100% pay for non-electron/non-vscode ui (sublime text? anyone?) nothing specifically against vscode/electron/atom. i did use atom 10 years ago, then started sublime text 2, since then, it has been really hard to beat sublime text. the speed and rendering of sublime is much better. i also have been using zed, which can be considered cloud-code ui too in certain terms, zed is quite more resource-intensive than ", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Atom", "story": "Show HN: 1Code \u2013 open-source Cursor-like UI for Claude Code"}, {"id": 736522848, "item_id": 46032678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46032678", "by": "Klaster_1", "date": "2025-11-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Moved away from ST to VSCode a couple of years ago for similar reasons too.", "excerpt": "Moved away from ST to VSCode a couple of years ago for similar reasons too. Sublime Merge, though - I tried a couple of alternative solutions, but none of those felt like an improvement, so I still rely on it, but it has all the same drawbacks as ST, the most severe being glacial pace of changes (or total lack thereof). It's as if the dev team lacks capacity to deal with basic UX issues, year over year.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Stopped Using Sublime Text"}]}