[canada_dry]

Just tested that premise with a 300MB text file... Kate loaded it no problem in about 3secs... textadept didn't load the file, gave an error.

From textadepts FAQ:

Q: Why can’t Textadept handle HUGE files very well?

A: Textadept is an editor for programmers. It is unlikely a programmer would be editing a gigantic log file. There are other tools for that case.

[kingosticks]

I can't speak to the FAQ, I guess by 'gigantic' they mean tens of GBs. I use it for what i consider large files all the time, I just opened a 2GB file to check I am not going mad and it worked just fine. It took around 10 seconds to open so I agree it's not the quickest to start but at least it does. I'm running Textadept 10.7 on a decent Linux machine.