Tommi's Scribbles
Best macOS Code Editors 2023
- Published on 2023-10-29
When working with code, the tool you use has a massive impact on your productivity. When I left the Windows world and the gentle bosom of Microsoft Visual Studio, finding a decent code editor for Mac was a big priority for me. After going through probably all that are available, I thought I would save you the trouble and share the top code editors for macOS.
BBEdit
BBEdit has been around for ages. This age shows in maturity and stability. You can easily throw massive files to BBEdit and it barely flinches. This is a massive boon to productivity. BBEdit works with speed and poise, and as native for macOS: It is one of the few good options available through the App Store.
While BBEdit is old, that doesn't mean it is lacking. It has CTAGS and LSP support, you can hook AI interactivity to it, and it is immensely scriptable and extendable. You get a built-in pattern playground and scratchpad, theming, VCS integration, clippings, quick command palette, and all the other things you would expect.
Now that is not to say BBEdit is perfect. The theming support is limited (e.g. no background color changing for keywords). Not everybody likes the lack of tab bar and underline and block cursors. Some will dislike the lack of "a package store" to easily add new functionality.
Still, BBEdit is still the best code editor for macOS in 2023.
Zed
Zed is a new editor heavily inspired by Sublime Text. It is currently available in beta. The beta doesn't mean Zed isn't usable. It just means it is not fully featured yet.
Zed shows a lot of promise. It has built-in integration for LSPs. GitHub Copilot and GPT assistant are also built in, as is collaborating with other users. Zed is also native, so it runs super fast compared to the popular Electron based junk people edit on.
I envision Zed overtaking BBEdit as the best editor in the future, but the in development status is really hurting it to be the best right now. There is no theming support and the built-in themes are quite bad. Configuration is the same ugly archaic way Sublime Text has (though at least the LSP integration helps). There's also no idea on what the business model for Zed will be once it launches.
As a young product, it is also possible for the development to easily go wrong. Some big company might acquire Zed and turn it in to junk. Features might take priority over stability. Or the monetization model might not make any sense.
Still, Zed is an intriguing modern product that should be on your radar for good code editors for macOS.
Sublime Text
An oldie but goldie, Sublime Text has been around for a long time. I remember many coworkers running Sublime Text back in 2015. Since then, the popularity of Sublime Text seems to have waned, despite the launch of Sublime Text 4 and the great git client Sublime Merge.
That is not to say Sublime Text isn't still a solid editor. From the get-go, Sublime Text's focus has been speed and productivity. While not as great as BBEdit, Sublime Text copes well with large files, and runs fast and stable. The new indexer introduced in Sublime Text 4 does a great job even without plugins, and the editor is as extendable and configurable as ever.
Sublime Text is also the goto editor if you need to work on different platforms as it is the only editor on this list that has a solid Linux and Windows version available. This reduces the hit in productivity if using different editors on different platforms, as the shortcuts, settings, and such can be synced between platforms.
The reason Sublime Text only finds itself third on the list for best Mac code editors for 2023 is simple: the project seems to be struggling a bit. Many have moved to the inferior Visual Studio Code, and the package ecosystem is no longer the thriving selling point for Sublime Text it once was. The package manager itself seems to have started to have some issues with macOS upgrading libraries and package manager as a separate project depending on old ones.
Still, most packages are backwards compatible, and there seems to be some active development going on. However, if you don't need the multiplatform capability, currently the cost seems tough to justify given the hint of struggle going on.
Xcode
No macOS best editor list would not be complete without Xcode. Apple provides Xcode for free to anyone with a macOS, and unlike the first three editors listed before, Xcode is a full blown IDE instead of a code editor with IDE like capabilities.
That means Xcode comes with a whole slew of tools meant for building, debugging, testing, and publishing your projects. Also, while Xcode's code is Swift and Objective-C development for Apple devices, Xcode actually copes well with Python, Javascript, and other main stream languages. Xcode is also extensible through extensions the same way Safari is.
Now, while Xcode can cope with the other languages, being an IDE also makes this coping a lot more cumbersome. Setting up projects and build steps when all you want to do is whip a few quick cloud functions is overkill. Lots of folk also complain of Xcode being slow, misbehaving, and whatnot. I personally have never experienced such issues, though it is equally easy to bust a project file as it is in Visual Studio. With great power comes great responsibility, and I could see modifying something seemingly conspicuous having heavier consequences.
Xcode has also definitely improved over the years, and it is possible a lot of Xcode's bad rep dates back several versions. For a free full blown IDE available on Mac AppStore it is still very good value.
Conclusion
So there you have it. The best code editors for macOS. While BBEdit currently holds the top spot, it will be interesting to see if BBEdit ever gets a version 15 and if so what it might bring. Meanwhile, young Zed is also an intriguing editor. Whatever your choice from this list, coding on macOS has never been more fun.