[nicoburns]

> I love Sublime, but I don't want to pay to upgrade from 3 to whatever version it is now

I don't know what your financial situation is, but given that the upgrade is an $80 one off payment (a new license is $99), that it's a per-user license (not per-machine), and that there were 8 years between Sublime Text 3 (2013) and Sublime Text 4 (2021) (only major versions require a new license), I personally think it's very reasonably priced.

[Meekro]

Agreed-- Sublime is asking $99 right now, which is quite reasonable for something that you're going to use for hours a day in your professional work. Somebody gave many years of their life to make that tool the best it could be, and as a well-paid professional, I feel it's more than fair. In other high-end professions (like the legal field), I've heard of law firms paying a lot more than $99 for certain software licenses.

That said, there are a lot of reasons why someone might be struggling with money. If I was the creator, I wouldn't object to someone using an unlicensed copy forever in that case.

[GuB-42]

It is "one time" in the sense that it will never stop working, unlike a subscription model.

You are however limited to 3 years of updates, so if you want to keep up to date, it is $80 for 3 years. Which if fine for me, it is the one piece of software I used the most except for the browser and OS, I even use it to make money, $80 / 3 years is not much.

It is also the kind of software I like to support. It is... respectful in that it isn't a resource hog, runs fast, launches fast, and it doesn't try to be anything but a text editor. No ads, no subscription, no cloud, no AI, no slop, no dark patterns, no enshittification. Just an executable that does what it say it will do, and does it well. I wish it was open source, but it works well enough out of the box to not need it.

[nicoburns]

Ah, you are correct. I thought a renewal was only required for a new major version after 3 years. But it's actually any update after 3 years. Which is still pretty reasonable (but not quite such a good deal)!

[albedoa]

I also thought that it was perpetual. Maybe they changed it. Either way, the three-year subscription is news to me.

[nicoburns]

It's perpetual for the version you buy. 3 years of updates.

And tbh, Sublime Text is pretty stable and the kind of program you could probably get away without updating for some time if you wanted to. Things like LSP support are in 3rd party packages (that are open source, not subject to the license), so you'd get updates for those anyway.

[gozzoo]

I'm using the latest free/unregistered version (4200) and I haven't experienced any limitiation so far

[ziml77]

There isn't any other than the occasional message when you save that tells you to buy the product. It's about as close to freeware as a paid product can get.

I do suggest people pay though, it's cheap for a one-time purchase. The only reason I've ever seen the message at all is because I spent months being too lazy to dig up the license key to send to my work email. (That should also say something about how little I was being bothered by the message too)

[8note]

on paid 3, i get a popup every time i try to do anything telling me i must upgrade and pay again, so i've steadily just stopped using sublime. Didn't install it on the new computer

[pverheggen]

I don't like that it upgrades to ST4 without telling you, but there's a simple workaround if you want to continue using your ST3 license. Download the latest stable build of ST3 from their website:

https://www.sublimetext.com/3

And then add

  “update_check”: false

to your user settings.

[giancarlostoro]

I can't justify upgrading Sublime if I don't even find myself using ST3 I just don't see what 4 offers that would entice me, and compared to Zed, I get way more out of it.