Echoing similar sentiments that I'm optimistic for Zed to become more polished and stable.
Till then, Sublime Text 4 is still the best non-terminal text editor I've ever used and I continue to daily drive it. Sure its paid and non-FOSS, but its incredibly performant on Linux and Windows and its LSP extension + Sublime Merge fill the gap left by VSCode for me. Well worth the price tag IMO.
My only gripe with Sublime Text is that they've changed to a "semi subscription" license model, where licenses expire after 2-3 years, and you essentially need to buy it again after that time.
It's essentially the same model used by other editors like the Jetbrains suite, but unlike Jetbrains, updates to Sublime Text (and Merge) are few and usually don't contain much other than bugfixes.
I've faithfully purchased Sublime Text licenses since the initial versions (switched over from Textmate), but as my ST4 license recently expired, it has forced me to review just what i get for the money i pay.
ST was excellent when it first arrived, and it's still one of the fastest loading editors out there, but pretty much every other editor has more or less caught up, including free ones like Zed and VSCode, making a recurring cost harder to justify.
I'm actually using an expired ST4 license, but as another user already mentioned, you can continue using the versions available to you while your license was active. This is fine for me because I find Sublime Text to be a better experience than VSCode and Zed.
I'm in the same situation. The upgrade price for Sublime Text and Sublime Merge is $152 whereas the full license is $168. As you say, it feels more like a subscription model. I'd renew if the discount was bigger. I can of course continue to use the versions released while my license was valid, but it would be nice to get bug fixes and new feature while still supporting the developers.
I wouldn't mind the license fee as much if there was actually any development going on, but for the past 3-4 years, there has basically been 4-10 months between releases, and each release has been more or less bugfixes and rewrites [1]. There has been 4 updates in 3 years.
The issue tracker for ST has 1863 open issues, or 41% open vs closed issues [2], and the issue tracker for SM has 1055 open issues [3].
I have no problem paying for software, and i understand that most developers don't work for free, but with this software it doesn't even appear i'm paying for "work", and instead it appears to be more or less a passive source of income for the developer.
As i wrote earlier, i'm not entirely sure what i'm gonna do, but given the slow pace of improvements to ST, i guess i can easily wait a couple of years before updating, if ever.
I love ST4 but I need to do a lot of remote editing - that is, editing a project on a Linux server. VSC is the only tool I’ve used where the remote edit “works” and it also seems to constantly have problems. I’ve tried things like rmate or SSHFS but they don’t work well. Do you have any advice on a ST4 solution for this? Thanks in advance!
Till then, Sublime Text 4 is still the best non-terminal text editor I've ever used and I continue to daily drive it. Sure its paid and non-FOSS, but its incredibly performant on Linux and Windows and its LSP extension + Sublime Merge fill the gap left by VSCode for me. Well worth the price tag IMO.