BBEdit Comparison Chart

This chart shows what you get when you buy a BBEdit license, compared to the features available when you use BBEdit without a license 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 licensed
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   •

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