BBEdit Comparison Chart

This chart shows what you get when you have an active BBEdit subscription in the Mac App Store, compared to the features available when you use BBEdit without a subscription after the 30-day evaluation period.

All of the highlighted features are available during the initial 30-day evaluation period.

This chart is not an exhaustive listing of BBEdit’s features. You can find an overview in the BBEdit Feature Tour.

See below for a list of the differences between TextWrangler and BBEdit (after the 30-day evaluation period has expired).

TextWrangler 5 BBEdit free mode
(free mode)		 BBEdit
Compatible with modern macOS versions (see details)   • •
Runs natively on Apple Silicon   • •
Use Dropbox or iCloud Drive to share plug-ins, scripts, and setup data between multiple computers   • •
Multiple Undo • • •
Multiple Clipboards • • •
Splittable editing windows • • •
Extensively configurable key equivalents • • •
“Commands” command presents a quick search of menu commands, scripts, clippings, and more for rapid access to anything you can do from a BBEdit menu.     •
“Repeat Last Command” to quickly re-select most menu commands, making it easy to repeat text transforms and other operations without a trip to the menu bar.     •
Show and hide individual menu items or entire menus • • •
Supports macOS Dark Mode, with automatic text color scheme switching   • •
Transparently reads and writes DOS/Windows, Unix, and legacy Mac line ending formats • • •
Transparently reads and writes gzip (.gz) and BZ2 (.bz2) compressed files • • •
Transparently reads and writes files stored within Zip compressed archives   • •
Powerful multi-file search and replace (even on files that aren’t open) with multiple simultaneous search and replace operations • • •
Extract found text into a new document from a single document, or multiple files and folders   • •
Automatic backup of files when saving (optional) • • •
“Document Rescue” recovers untitled documents that you’ve accidentally discarded   • •
“Quit” command saves the application’s state (including the contents of untitled or unsaved documents) and quits instantly; and picks up where you left off the next time you start up • • •
Periodic auto-save to protect against data loss from system crashes, power failures, and locust infestations • • •
Complete set of HTML Tools for fast, easy, and correct markup. Supports current standards including HTML5, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, and XHTML 1.1.

  • HTML Tools accessible from menu or floating palette

  • Innovative “Edit Markup” panel helps you write correct markup according to the standard in use

  • Context-sensitive tag and attribute completion while typing

  • Apply HTML markup from contextual (right-click) menus, or use built-in contextually aware completion for tags and attributes

  • Standards-based document and site syntax checking—check single pages or entire sites for compliance

  • Preview in BBEdit — automatically updates a preview as you edit, or preview in any installed browser

  • Built-in web-server support allows you to preview dynamically generated HTML

  • Close Current Tag command speeds and simplifies HTML element creation and editing

  • Powerful include and placeholder options for easier site maintenance

  • Easily create file and image links with drag and drop

  • Comprehensive HTML Entities palette for easy insertion of Latin-1, Symbol, Greek Letters, and other special characters

  • Configure web site projects for “one-click” deployment via FTP or SFTP

     •
Live preview HTML and Markdown documents without leaving the application   • •
Flexible ‘grep’ style pattern-based search and replace based on PCRE (the Perl-Compatible Regular Expression library) • • •
“Live Search” highlights matches in your document as you type a search string • • •
Use Grep patterns in “Live Search” for advanced searching on the fly   • •
Automatically highlight matches of a selected word throughout the document • • •
Advanced PCRE support, including named subpatterns and other grep goodness • • •
Pattern Playgrounds provide a safe environment for learning, building, testing, and experimenting with Grep patterns. Learn more.     •
Grep Cheat Sheets provide quick access to common Grep idioms   • •
Comprehensive AppleScript support: scriptable, recordable, and attachable • • •
Built-in file and folder comparison with Find Differences • • •
Find Differences displays word- and character-level differences • • •
Advanced single-window Find Differences presentation • • •
Rectangular/columnar text selections • • •
Open, edit, and save files in a wide variety of character sets (including UTF-8 and UTF-16) • • •
Automatic source-code language guessing • • •
Can be used as an external editor for Xcode • • •
Unix command-line access for opening and comparing files • • •
bbfind/twfind command-line tool provides integration of multi-file search with Unix scripts and workflows • • •
bbresults command-line tool provides integration with Unix command-line workflows   • •
Authenticated saves (for editing system-owned documents and other operations requiring administrator privileges) • • •
Emacs key-binding support • • •
Instantly highlight and navigate occurrences of an indicated word (or selected text) in the active document • • •
“Notes” feature supports rapid creation and organization of self-named, self-saving documents, accessed via a central Notes window     •
Offers the Scratchpad, a convenient place to make quick notes and temporarily store text without having to create a document on disk     •
Extensive FTP and SFTP support

  • Open and save text files located on remote FTP/SFTP servers

  • Supports use of alternate ports

  • FTP/SFTP Browser provides persistent view of remote site directories

  • Bonjour discovery of local servers

 • • •
Integrated support for file transfers through Interarchy, Transmit, Fetch, and other third-party clients with “Edit in BBEdit” commands • • •
Open files and view directory listings with Disk Browser • • •
Disk Browser features hierarchical folder listing and file filters for advanced control • • •
Explore contents of Unix tar and Zip archive files in disk browsers without needing to extract them first • • •
Function-navigation and syntax-coloring support for more than 20 programming languages, including HTML, JavaScript, Java, Perl, C++, Objective-C, & more • • •
Function-navigation and syntax-coloring support for R, Rust, Go, Swift, Lisp-family languages, and Pixar USD   • •
Function-navigation and syntax-coloring support for Ruby, object-oriented JavaScript, and SQL • • •
Built-in support for editing Markdown, including syntax coloring and navigation • • •
Live preview Markdown documents without leaving the application   • •
Enhanced coloring options, including factory-supplied color schemes • • •
Loads and saves color schemes (including import from the bbcolors format) • • •
Text completion, using ctags, clippings, document symbols, and language keywords as data sources     •
Enable advanced code completion, code index navigation, in-window issue display, context-aware function parameter help, and language-sensitive formatting via the Language Server Protocol. Learn more.     •
Support for Universal Ctags (a powerful tool for indexing and navigating source code), providing easy access to indexed symbols by means of contextual (right-click) menus and the Find Definition command     •
Control editor behavior and display settings on a per-language basis • • •
Code folding • • •
Powerful Clippings system:

  • Store and insert frequently used text items and custom tags

  • Menu-driven and key-bindable item selection

  • Language-sensitive switching of clipping sets

  • Download additional sets from our web site for free

     •
Run Unix scripts and filters (including Perl, Python, Ruby, and shell script) from a built-in menu • • •
Check spelling as you type to catch embarrassing typos • • •
Integrated support for Git and Subversion version control systems; work with source files from multiple repositories     •
Optionally skip Git ignored files when processing for multi-file search, Open File by Name, and other operations   • •
Built-in EditorConfig support to control editor behavior and settings within a working copy   • •
Shell worksheets run Unix commands from an editable window (just like MPW worksheets, for you old-timers)     •
Create worksheets to have conversations in-app with ChatGPT, Claude, and Ollama     •
Use BBEdit’s legendary text processing power in any Automator workflow   • •
Use Automator workflows as “text filters” for transforming document contents     •
Create and run Text Factories—apply any number of powerful text transformations to multiple files without programming     •
Combine text factories, scripts, text filters, and Automator workflows into “packages” for easy distribution and installation     •
Open multiple documents per window:

  • Each window presents a list of all of the documents that are open in that window

  • Navigation Bar contains a popup menu with a list of all of the documents open in the window

  • Previous Document and Next Document commands speed navigation using keyboard, menu, or mouse

 • • •
Ponies   • •
Create Codeless Language Modules to add syntax coloring and function navigation for additional languages without writing any code • • •
Use Projects to organize your projects, grouping files into a single browser without regard to their location     •
Comprehensive PDF user manual provided • • •
Price Free Free US$59.99
Discounted upgrade pricing from previous BBEdit versions n/a n/a (info)
64-bit application   • •

Differences between BBEdit “free mode” and TextWrangler

After BBEdit’s 30-day evaluation period expires, some of its exclusive advanced features remain available. These features are not present in TextWrangler.

TextWrangler 5 BBEdit
(free mode)
30-day evaluation period; “free forever” unpaid use   •
Purchase a license to access BBEdit’s full feature set   •
64-bit application   •
Runs natively on Apple Silicon   •
Compatible with modern macOS versions (see details).   •
Automatic color scheme switching for macOS Dark Mode   •
Use Dropbox or iCloud Drive to share app support items   •
Optionally skip Git-ignored files during batch operations   •
Live in-app preview of HTML and Markdown documents   •
Built-in EditorConfig support   •
Use BBEdit’s text processing power in Automator workflows   •
bbresults tool for integration with command-line workflows   •
Use Grep patterns in “Live Search”   •
Give your brain a break with Grep Cheat Sheets   •
Extract found text into a new document   •
Transparently read & write within Zip archives   •

Back to top