Sublime Text 2 Review

A few months ago, I started looking for a lightweight editor specifically for writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Prior to this, I primarily used Notepad++, which was fantastic for getting the job done. However, I wanted to explore more modern alternatives, so I narrowed my choices down to two editors: Sublime Text and PhpStorm.

Both are cross-platform, and both performed well during my trials. Ultimately, I decided to go with Sublime Text 2.

Here is why Sublime Text 2 stands out to me:

First, the licensing model is extremely flexible. While both PhpStorm and Sublime Text 2 are licensed software, Sublime Text offers an unlimited evaluation period. PhpStorm restricts you to a strict 30-day trial.

Second, Sublime Text 2 is incredibly memory-efficient and lightweight. This is often the first thing people praise about it. In my experience with PhpStorm, the editor would occasionally become unresponsive when I loaded up heavy templates like the HTML5 Boilerplate. In contrast, Sublime Text 2 never hangs, regardless of the project’s memory size.

Third, Sublime Text 2 dramatically increases your coding speed once you learn its core keyboard shortcuts. It also includes an excellent Distraction Free Mode, which hides the UI chrome so you can focus entirely on the code—something PhpStorm lacked natively at the time.

Finally, Sublime Text 2 supports almost every programming language out of the box. I’ve seen many developers in the community transition from dedicated PHP IDEs directly to Sublime Text. It also supports modern tooling like LESS and CoffeeScript, and there is a massive ecosystem of open-source plugins and customizations available on GitHub.

In the past, I also tried Microsoft WebMatrix. However, even the latest versions of WebMatrix couldn’t compete with the speed and flexibility of Sublime Text. For my specific requirements, Sublime Text 2 is the absolute best fit.

If you are looking for a fast, solid, and reliable text editor to learn new technologies, I highly recommend giving Sublime Text 2 a try. You can download it directly from sublimetext.com.

Thanks for reading!