# Sublime Text 184 Hacker News commenters recommended Sublime Text and 40 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 15 years (6 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended as a fast-launching, lightweight editor that stays simple and free of bloat, with standout multiple cursors; critics say its plugin ecosystem is stagnating and many packages are abandoned. ## Why people recommend it - Fast startup and performance (9 comments): "Sublime has great search and instant startup time, which makes it perfect for doing small patches around AI-written code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49984398)) "Sublime does everything I need it to do and it does it faster and cleaner and just better than the alternatives." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532200)) "Sublime just doesn't get in your way, it's super fast, super configurable and has the perfect amount of features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47953584)) - Stays simple, no bloat (8 comments): "Sublime just doesn't get in your way, it's super fast, super configurable and has the perfect amount of features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47953584)) "it isn't a resource hog, runs fast, launches fast, and it doesn't try to be anything but a text editor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47951742)) "Huge thanks to the people behind Zed and Sublime for actively pushing in the opposite direction!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46506063)) - People keep coming back (4 comments): "I never stopped using Sublime, I've tried all sorts of new/modern text editors and always revert back." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49511137)) "It was so nice recently to come back to ST after several years of increasingly bloated IDEs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49795340)) "Even though Sublime Text is my primary editor and I have no intention to change" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49794818)) - Powerful multiple cursors (2 comments): "I've found multiple cursors a really powerful tool for ad-hoc transformations on snippets of semi-structured text" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566055)) "Multiple cursors were the killer feature that got me to start using Sublime Text back in ~2010." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47566564)) ## What people warn about - Abandoned, aging plugin ecosystem (5 comments): "its ecosystem died five ish years ago, its package repository is a lot of "last updated 10 years ago"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46500413)) "it was deprecated a few months ago because the runtime it was using was no longer supported" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708715)) "Sad about the slow plugin host churn- given how relatively unpopular the host app is, a lot of plugins will are abandoned" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49796427)) - Product seen as stagnating (3 comments): "There is some market for highly optimized apps like e.g. Sublime Text, but you can clearly see that the companies behind them are struggling." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46862945)) "a product that never compromises but also never evolves is indistinguishable, to the world, from one that simply gave up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47376163)) "which is old, and a pain in the ass, but at least is not being actively enshittified" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49825854)) - Paid upgrade prompts and fixes (2 comments): "the breaking straw was how they'd silo off critical bug fixes in new versions that were pay-only" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46857060)) "i get a popup every time i try to do anything telling me i must upgrade and pay again" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950983)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Zed](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed.md): 700 recommend - [GNU Emacs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/emacs.md): 648 recommend - [Vim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vim.md): 513 recommend - [Visual Studio Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio-code.md): 485 recommend - [Neovim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neovim.md): 295 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.sublimetext.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Sublime Text", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sublime-text/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).