TextMate has a very vocal following. I was convinced to try TextMate on a project for a few months last year and I grew to like it. I even bought a license.

But after extensive comparisons, I ultimately returned to BBEdit and concluded that it is still the better tool. I haven't seriously used TextMate since.

First of all, BBEdit follows long-standing Mac paradigms: text dragged onto BBEdit's icon opens in a new window, events trigger on mouse up rather than mouse down, renamed open files are automatically updated, text selection feels more natural, undo is chunked rather than performed on each individual character, etc.

Second, BBEdit provides several features that are amazingly absent in TextMate: split window editing, tabbed editing OUTSIDE of a project, multi-file search and replace OUTSIDE of a project, ability to open very large files (>250MB) and function reliably, spell checking by right-clicking on a word, single click selection of multiple lines, ability to assign a key combination to just about anything, complete AppleScript support (so the application itself can be scripted not just the text in a document), GUI file comparison showing character-level differences, synchronized scrolling between multiple windows, optional display of all non-printing characters, optional display of tab stops, search for the current selection with a single key press, double-click to balance, named markers (a.k.a. bookmarks), ability to jump to previous insertion points, Text Factories, etc.

And third, BBEdit's implementation of key features is often superior to TextMate's: code folding triggers on mouse up rather than mouse down, opening and closing fold markers are easier to distinguish, BBEdit allows multiple arbitrary folds on the SAME line (useful for very long lines of code), folded blocks can be selected/copied/pasted/dragged, clippings auto-completion is easier to use and doesn't require remembering obscure strings coupled with a tab to complete, BBEdit's tabbed-editing makes it easier to work with more open documents (easily handles 40 or more) and with longer filenames because "tabs" are displayed vertically rather than horizontally, tabbed documents can be dragged between multiple windows, ALL unused features can be turned off (resulting in an interface I personally find less cluttered and easier to navigate), BBEdit's File Groups makes it easier to work with multiple projects simultaneously because they are displayed in separate windows, more fully-featured grep search/replace, visual feedback when looping on a quick search, line numbers are NOT part of the text view and don't scroll out of view when scrolling horizontally, a better organized and more fully-featured function menu, BBAutoComplete (a free BBEdit plug-in) allows arbitrary word completion based on text in the current document or in all open documents or from the system's spelling dictionary, etc.

Of course, TextMate has a few nice features: more control over syntax coloring and style, excellent scope system, slightly nicer column editing. But I can easily live without those considering all the advantages of BBEdit.

The bottom line is TextMate is a nice editor and it's less expensive than BBEdit, but it's also significantly less capable. If I used TextMate, I'd still need BBEdit to have all the capabilities I want. However, I could easily live entirely in BBEdit and never even miss TextMate. If you make your living writing code or working with text, and you want the best tool available on the Mac platform, the choice is clear: BBEdit.