I’ve been using Sublime Text for quite a while now, and honestly, I still keep coming back to it even after trying other editors like VS Code and a few newer tools.
There’s just something about the speed and simplicity that feels hard to replace. It launches instantly handles large files really well, and doesn’t feel bloated at all. At the same time, I do feel like some modern features (especially around AI tools, debugging, and integrations) are a bit behind compared to other editors.
I’m curious how are you all using Sublime these days?
Is it still your main editor or more of a secondary tool?
What packages or setups are you using to make it more powerful?
Do you think Sublime still has a strong future or is it slowly becoming more niche?
Would love to hear different perspectives from the community
I will respond. I like questions like “the emperor has no clothes”.
I view Subl very favourably since it is easy on my octogenarian eyes. I like the “look and feel” and functionality but there is too much debate about the engineering works, inner cogs, key bindings, packages and the like. Not every user is a programmer. How can authors use it? How to build to deliver to Scribus as one example. Or Jupyter notebooks. And … Claude et al.
This recent discussion was similar.
My engineer’s instincts are to aim for n+1 architecture. What would I do if the plug was pulled?
What do I mean? Never be boxed into a corner as I once did by backing Atom editor before it was “sunset” by GitHub. Now sunset can be for example … taken over by MicroSoft. Tectonic plates shift.
Therefore, I build a community of tools.
Today I can “build” within Subl ecosystem other tools to take the contents of snippets as batons and run with them. I use an external tool Albert to inject “staging” Snippets into Subl ecosystem. Zed editor is of interest as a member of the party. Origins Atom+Rust. And there others I am playing with. Integrating into a team.
So think of Subl Text as one member of a team. If it goes down as a team member you can reconfigure the team play.
Answering questions from my perspective
it is still the centre forward player in my team
other players are recruited (depending on Ubuntu/Windows/Mac - I am on Ubuntu)
no future can be predicted as Atom showed … plan n+1 for survival. Man down.
This depends on your how broad you want to go. I have just embedded an open source CherryTree editor and since it is XML syntax I can edit and import/export nodes … within Subl Text ecosystem. This expands Subl to run countless tasks. Just look at the range of syntaxes in CherryTree (codeboxes). All XML elements accessible from within Subl. For my part I want to UI automate the Subl engine. To run in this way requires just two Packages installed into Subl. For compatibility with embedded Apps. These are … Actionscript3 and Exalt. Next challenge is to map keybindings. Incidentally I have parked Zed for another day. The themes are unfavourable on my eyes. Subl is softer and is my main writing engine, co-Apps being satellites. Even Claude as OP raises. A one stop scribing tablet.
It’s my main editor, my second editor is Zed (but still Zed can’t replace the feeling that I have with Sublime Text)
My sublime text setup is almost perfect (I’m an advance user)
LSP (typescript projects)
Pi agent with Deepseek + Gemini (that’s all I need)
Terminus (for running pi)
A bunch of shortcuts that make the difference for parallel tasks with AI
I run it on a netbook with 12 hours of battery and 2GB ram and Sublime Text is great there. Only found it because I’m a huge Sublime Merge user.
I evangelized Sublime Merge across my company. One feature could give both ST and SM a big leg up in resource-constrained environments: “remotes”. VS Code let’s me edit code on a server as if it were local. This feature would be HUGE to have in the sublime family, and would help keep the tools in use, especially as more and more environments are ram-constrained.
I am prototyping that way of working right now. In last few days I run a partner app within Sublime Text and Subl can edit and run the app including posting to a zerotrust environment. Mind you I am a sole experimenter and early days but it works. So in summary changes in server are reflected into Subl. And sync vice versa.
Moving to, actually, beyond even sticking with. While it’s early days, I’m actually a (recent) convert to Sublime. It had been a backup editor to VSCodium for me for quite a while, and since I was very, very new to development when I started using codium I found sublime a bit overwhelming to set up to my liking. But as microsoft has shoved more and more AI bloat into vscode with frequent and often breaking ‘updates’, and dramatically reduced trust in opting out of said AI tools having any effect, I’m working on making sublime my daily driver for my long-form prose/daily notes writing along with it being my main text editor. Early still, but thus far it very much feels like Sublime is what I have spent the last couple years trying to mold vsc into.
my daily driver for my long-form prose/daily notes writing along with it being my main text editor.
Exactly what I am doing. Pairing Subl with CherryTree et al. And developed a protocol to securely shuttle CherryTree betwixt Subl users. Including shared AI work. All within Subl ecosystem. Have to be careful though since there is a risk of being flagged in forum when daring to “think out the box”. I have collected several flags. But consider pairing strategies provided that the other partner is XML compatible. For example you can pair with Scribus desktop publisher. Posting content from Subl into (say) Scribus SLA template. Subl becomes the primary editor configuring XML templates. Thus Subl snippets can be posted to Scribus SLA template. This is just one example in my thinking. There are multiple apps which use XML. Adobe for one. Subl hacking Adobe? Search in browser …
“list of applications using xml”.
But the biggest breakthrough is pairing with AI Claude …safely, securely. Think teaming.
I predominantly use VS Core, but for very large files you can’t beat Sublime for its sheer performance. It can still handle syntax highlighting and code folding even when the file is megs in size. It’s light weight and always very fast to open which is a big plus for me. In short I’m still a big fan.
I appreciate Sublime Text as much as I do the terminal, though I would not describe myself as exclusively committed to terminal-based or Linux-only tools.
I find VSCode unappealing, as are other monolithic all-in-one platforms. What I prefer is a lightweight, fast, native editor that is straightforward to configure, minimal in its interference with other tools, yet sophisticated enough to support customisation of build systems, keyboard shortcuts, and syntax highlighting.
Sublime Text inherits substantially from TextMate, which I used extensively alongside Alpha, an earlier single-author editor that was eventually discontinued. By contrast, VSCode exemplifies Microsoft’s characteristic all-encompassing strategy: a unified platform engineered for universal adoption. This approach does not appeal to me.
It is my main gui editor (I use micro from a terminal). This is primarily because I have found no other editor with the plugin for markdown editing that so seemlessly integrates with pandoc. It just works. And has been working (same plugin with multiple versions of ST and pandoc) for at least a decade on both Windows (when I used it at work) and Linux (my personal computers). I’ve looked at Atom, VSCode, Notepad++, KEdit - none of them have the integration I want.
I use it all the time. I have tried others, but I come back to ST. My old eyes can’t take the colors and font sizes on other editors. ST is soft and relaxing. I like clean and simple. My code is clean and simple, mostly CF on Lucee. I would like to see it integrated with my server so I did not have to FTP constantly. I started using it around 2018, 8 years now. My AI assistant has learned how I like my code structured, which is very helpful. Hoping Sublime Text out lives me.
There is one that I used earlier … and still have it in Ubuntu … zettlr … but I am settling into Subl as sole scribing tool since it is easy on my eyes. But my approach now is to weave Subl into Ubuntu rich choice of tools to pair with. That works very well. And I might even pair Subl with Zettlr as a trial now that I am reminded. For example I use Krusader and view /sublime-text-3/Packages/User in one of the two panels. I have a file Tutorial.md sitting there. I can open with … Subl or other apps such as Zettlr. In fact I have just done that as a test. Zettlr launches the Tutorial.md I started in Subl. Now I can try both worlds.
P.S. Try quarto (*.qmd) in parallel with *.md. I have a quarto build option in Subl.
P.P.S. I now envisage Subl sitting in a Venn Diagram of overlapping ecosystems. That is how I now manage my Ubuntu desktop estate. I use Subl to edit the “innards” of other collaboratng Apps where I place them under /Packages/User/_Gateway (my innovation) and in Packages/User/_Gateway I include Apps, Services, you name it, all subject to Subl Editing regime. A Venn diagram. A “one stop scribing environment”. Just like the old Atom editor model with electrons whizzing around a core Proton. But that is my metaphorical side working again which earned some flags. Works nicely minimising need for Packages/Plugins to communicate with outside world in this Venn Diagram Model.
Later edit. I have just installed BoxySVG in my “Venn Diagram” framework. Now I can edit the SVG code in Subl and View the output in BoxySVG renderer. I can pull in SVG snippets from Subl snippets to merge with SVG. Just one example. No Packages or Plugins needed.
