Visual Studio Code vs. Sublime Text: Which code editor should you use?
In my comparisons of JavaScript editors and JavaScript IDEs, my top recommendations often include Sublime Text (as an editor) and Visual Studio Code (as either an editor or an IDE). Neither is restricted to JavaScript, or even JavaScript plus HTML and CSS. If you step back and look at the bigger picture, Sublime Text and Visual Studio Code are two of the best multi-language, multi-OS programming editors—Sublime Text for its speed as much as its convenient editing features, and Visual Studio Code for even better features and speed that is almost as good. Both products run on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
In 2024, the field expanded: Zed and Cursor both improve on Visual Studio Code, albeit in different ways. In addition, there are multiple plug-ins for Visual Studio Code that add AI code completion (beyond IntelliSense) and code generation powered by large language models (LLMs), starting with GitHub Copilot in 2021.
You can use Visual Studio Code for free forever, and it is mostly open source. You can evaluate Sublime Text for free, but the code is proprietary, and if you use Sublime Text continuously you should buy a user license for $99, and possibly a Sublime Merge license as well for a combined price of $168. If you don’t license Sublime Text (or Merge) you’ll see an occasional nag screen. (I’m not the only Sublime Text user who doesn’t bother to enter the license on every machine I have—the nag screen is easily dismissed.)
