When comparing Sublime Linter vs Terminal.app, the Slant community recommends Sublime Linter for most people. In the question“What are the best plugins for Sublime Text?” Sublime Linter is ranked 8th while Terminal.app is ranked 28th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Helps you find errors in the code
Pro Supports pretty much every language
Pro Default terminal on Mac
Since it is already installed by default, you don't need to worry about finding and installing another terminal.
Pro Light on System Resources
Terminal.app lighter uses less system resources than iTerm having the same number of windows, tabs and processes going on.
Pro Great compatibility
Works with everything.
Pro Easily open man pages
By right clicking on a highlighted string you can easily search through the man pages for that string and the man page will open in a nice pop up window.
Pro Excellent xterm emulation support
Pro Beautiful
Terminal has nice colors and font options.
Cons
Con Tends to cause Sublime Text to run slowly
With Sublime Linter installed, dialog boxes warning that the plugin is running slowly can become a common occurrence, depending on the types of files you regularly work with.
Con Many default linters require installing Node.js
Javascript, CoffeeScript, and even the CSS linter require installing Node.js to function
Con Updates are released rarely
Terminal usually gets an update when any new MacOS version is released, which is every couple of years.
Con Tab names are volatile
The tab names never stick -- it's imperative that this should work.
Con Background images are stretched rather than clipped
Con Occasionally crashes
Working remotely with a full buffer may cause complete terminal app crash.