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
If you're doing any sort of text editing, you should consider Vim--once you climb the learning curve, you'll be faster and more efficient at everything you do. Also, Vim is my default search/replace tool--whenever I need to make changes throughout a document, most often, I'll copy and paste into a Vim window so that I can take advantage of regexp-based replacements. Vim isn't for the faint of heart, though--it's hard to learn and super complex. If you use a text editor once or twice a month, or just need a simple way to strip out formatting, Notepad will get you where you want to go without all the confusion.
I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.
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
The support is somewhat lacking; Vim doesn't really have support outside of its forums. The forums, while notably good, aren't equal to real support though, and the steep learning curve makes you wish there was a help desk that would assist with all of the basic questions. There are several handy books and guides that can be found, and most implementations of the product come with "vitutor" which walks you through its usage.
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 think it comes down to usability (and frankly, just preference). There's an old adage that Emacs is a good Operating System with a poor Text Editor! Jokes aside, when looking at different text editors, such as Emacs or Nano, Vim is the one that is usually always preferred because of how simple it is to learn. The learning curve of Vim compared to other text editors just makes it such a natural choice.
