Comments on: Is BBEdit worth the price?

By: Mac Web Design » MacTheWeb » BBEdit 8.5 a major upgrade

Mac Web Design » MacTheWeb » BBEdit 8.5 a major upgrade — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:57:58 +0000

[...] A while ago I wondered publicaly if BBEdit was worth the high price of $200 that Bare Bones Software was charging. It appears that I was not alone in my thinking. A new version of BBEdit came out this week that not only offers new features but comes with a new lower price tag of $125. The upgrade price dropped too. [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:57:12 +0000

I am sticking with version 7 until something really compelling comes along. I think they took their cue from Apple on this–charging full price for an upgrade, that is.

By: Margo Esquandolas

Margo Esquandolas — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:19:53 +0000

I agree with Fred, and would add that if my project involves other apps, I’m as likely as not to use Automator instead… or, if no other apps maybe just TextFactory inside BBEdit… but no matter how sliced BBEdit’s automation makes it cheap at twice the price.

If you just use the grep, then maybe you are a TextWrangler person. There are several things I didn’t know would save me so much time until BBEdit put them in, so there’s the “staying on top of things” part that I use but isn’t a feature. I use the HTML palette, the glossaries, the preview server particularly for heavily templated stuff, the scripting (in all three forms)…

for a tool I use every day, slicing up two digits is slicing things too thin… plus there’s real documentation… besides, there are other price points, about 1/2 price for the paying-attention discount crossgrade price, or about 1/4 price for students/teachers.

By: michael

michael — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 19:19:35 +0000

Your point is well taken Fred, The last time I had to do an extensive AppleScripted project I used Tex-Edit Plus. I didn't even think of BBEdit.

By: Fred Gans

Fred Gans — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 19:04:40 +0000

There’s no comparision between the AppleScript support of BBEdit and TextMate. BBEdit not only has an extensive dictionary, it is also recordable! My company recently adapted thousands of pages to work with the new IE7 plugin requirements, by using BBEdit and AppleScript. It’s worth the price difference alone.

By: michael

michael — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:37:55 +0000

Hi Chris.

It’s not a matter of missing features. TextMate is a great editor. No argument. My point is that BBEdit used to be alone as the only polished professional programmers editor. (Alpha is powerful but verrrry clunky) With their monopoly position, Bare Bones could charge as much as the market would bear. With TextMate as competition, I’m hoping that the price of BBEdit drops to something in the same ball park.

I have 10 years of using BBEdit; anything else just isn’t the same, whether it has comparable features or not. My preference for BBEdit could be just laziness on my part, not taking the time to relearn. Or it could be that different people produce best with different work flows. Or maybe I just like to bitch. ;-)

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:04:13 +0000

What features from BBEdit do you find missing in TextMate? (I know about some, but there are replacements for some that you may not be aware of; also, if it’s something MacroMates isn’t aware of, I’m sure it could be added.)