When comparing Xi Editor vs BBEdit, the Slant community recommends BBEdit for most people. In the question“What are the best programming text editors?” BBEdit is ranked 31st while Xi Editor is ranked 77th. The most important reason people chose BBEdit is:
BBEdit is commercial software, the paid counterpart to their free application Textwrangler. Though BBEdit comes off as pricey, this allows for stable and consistent updates from the developers. BBEdit has been around since 1992.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Super fast
All editing operations should commit and paint in under 16ms. The editor should never make you wait for anything.
Pro Different editor front-ends available. Xi editor provides the editor back-end
Pro Stable development, been around for decades
BBEdit is commercial software, the paid counterpart to their free application Textwrangler. Though BBEdit comes off as pricey, this allows for stable and consistent updates from the developers. BBEdit has been around since 1992.
Pro Can open very large files
Pro Just about every feature is already built in
No searching for plug-ins that may or may not work.
Pro Great customer support
The developer is very responsive to bug reports and feature suggestions.
Pro Native application
Follows platform standards.
Pro Built-in FTP/SFTP browser
BBEdit can open files directly from, and save them to, any available FTP server. It can also open and save files directly via SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol).
Pro Great JAMStack environment
You can build the static site of your dreams without needing any external assistants. Although it does not process LESS, SASS, or SCSS files, BBEdit's includes are very powerful.
Cons
Con Under development
Con Featureless
Con Expensive
It's US$49.99 a single user license.