I've done some tests some time ago, and Sublime Text, which is a native app, also takes a lot of memory. Plugins also do take lots of memory.

JetBrain's IDEs are extremely slow and memory intensive - well beyond VSC and ST - and yet, complaints are always directed at VSC.

I like to be able to edit new text files instantly, and the simple, pragmatic solution, is to keep an editor always open in the background.