BBEdit's free version is great as an update to the group's previous product Text Wrangler, which, as that name implies, allowed us to manage any text to remove odd formatting and adjust the text to our specific needs as a publishing group. The paid version, which I am less familiar with, has considerably better tools if you are seeking BBEdit for coding purposes, as its HTML ability is much better than the free version I use more regularly. If you are looking for a word processor or other more polished text files, this is unlikely to suit. But if you want a simple program with surprisingly complex uses for preparing text for another program or writing code, this may be the program you need
Overall, a great tool for handling large files. Code formatting is very nice and customizable making it very easy to write scripts or SQL or any other language. It is easy to navigate and it remembers files and keeps them in context when shut down and relaunched. My analysts and programmers all use this editor every day.
As a program UltraEdit comes ready to use out of the box and requires very little setup for it to be extremely useful. It's flexibility among a wide array of tasks and files makes it a go-to for all our troubleshooting and data viewing needs. Timely updates and great support.
Updates are frequent and I can't recall any issues with broken programs or vulnerabilities. The team behind BBEdit is also generous with its free trials, allowing long-term free users to have multiple chances to sample its full software. I am unsure if I had issues how the support would be, only because I have not needed them
Compared to Brackets, BBEdit feels faster, leaner, and has more utility value. Brackets feel oriented towards coders specifically, whereas BBEdit is like a toolbox of text tools for a wide array of needs. I feel like the same is probably true for Visual Studio Code, but I have barely used it. Visual Studio Code is used by my company's IT department, and from observation, it seems like a very capable coding application. I expect to dig into it further when I have time.
I have evaluated Notepad++ as an alternative to UltraEdit. In some cases, such as loading time, Notepad++ is a superior product. However, in terms of editing existing macros, and editing very large text files UltraEdit is a much better product.
