What are the best programming text editors with VIM key-bindings?

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Nov 23, 2023

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NeoVim vs Vim vs Kakoune

vs Emacs (spacemacs) vs Atom (vim-mode-plus) vs Vis vs Oni editor vs Emacs (evil-mode) vs Lapce vs Visual Studio Code vs VS Code

Specs

Platforms

Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android

License

Apache

Extension language

Any

Bracket Matching

Yes

Error Markup

Yes

Supported remote file editing protocols

scp, ftp

Column selection

Yes

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License

Vim License

Extension language

Vim

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Linux, macOS, Android

License

Unlicense

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD

License

GPL-3.0-or-later

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

License

MIT

Extension language

JavaScript

Bracket Matching

Yes (plugin)

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

FTP (plug-in); SSH (plug-in)

Column selection

Plug-in

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes (plugin)

Source Control Integration

Git

Plugin Manager

Built-in

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Code Templates

Yes (plugin)

Collaborative editing

Plug-in

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Microsoft Windows®; macOS; Linux

Cross Platform

Yes

Export

HTML

Preview

Live side-by-side

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

License

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Linux, Windows, MacOS

License

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Yes

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Unix-like, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License

GPL-3.0-or-later

Extension language

Emacs Lisp, C(Emacs modules)

Bracket Matching

Yes

Error Markup

Yes

Supported remote file editing protocols

FTP; HTTP; SSH; WebDAV

Column selection

Yes

Supported keybinding styles

IBM CUA; OSX; Vi; Emacs; Pico; WordStar; WordPerfect; Brief

Price

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Source Control Integration

Yes (package)

Plugin Manager

Package, built-in

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

Yes

RTL

Yes

Bidi

Yes

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Yes

Interactive Console

Yes

Interactive Debugger

gdb (for C)

Go to Definition

Yes

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

License

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Windows, macOS, Linux

License

MIT, Proprietary (official builds)

Extension language

JavaScript

Bracket Matching

Yes

Error Markup

Yes

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Yes

Auto Complete

Yes

Source Control Integration

Git

Plugin Manager

Yes

Integrated Debugger

Yes

Code Templates

Yes

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Platforms

Windows, Linux, Mac

License

Extension language

Bracket Matching

Error Markup

Supported remote file editing protocols

Column selection

Supported keybinding styles

Price

Multi Language Support

Auto Complete

Source Control Integration

Plugin Manager

Integrated Debugger

Code Templates

Collaborative editing

RTL

Bidi

Dev platforms

Cross Platform

Export

Preview

GUI

Refactoring

Interactive Console

Interactive Debugger

Go to Definition

Pros + Cons

Pro
Opens a 3Gig Text File in a few seconds

Not many editors can open such a large text file so quickly.

Comment

Pro
Still Vim but with upgraded features and some issues fixed

NeoVim was a complete rewrite of Vim, with new features added and underlying issues resolved thanks to the Vim code base. The keybindings and configuration are the same as Vim, so the switch can be pretty simple.

Comment

Pro
Terminal mode is very convenient for testing code in a split window.

[add description]

Comment

Pro
UI Agnostic

The core functionality is handled apart from the UI, meaning that Neovim can be embedded into any other GUI system, such as Atom.

Comment

Pro
Client-server model

Neovim is designed according to a client-server model that makes it much easier to design third-party guis than for vim. This makes vim freely embeddable into any front-end desired - oni is an example.

Comment

Pro
Comes with some good configurations out of the box

Some typical configurations most of VIM users make are default in Neovim.

Comment

Pro
Better integration with external tools

The core text editor is "headless", meaning it's detached from the user-interface so other programs can hook into it. This enables better integration with IDEs and browsers, where "Vim mode" has typically been a poor substitute because it was a partial rewrite or a partial port at best. One of the advantages of Vim has always been ubiquity and Neovim makes it even more ubiquitous.

Comment

Pro
Built-in terminal emulator

This avoids the user having to make any installations.

Comment

Pro
Powerful plugin model

Vim plugins have always been useful but tied to specific languages. Neovim's architecture provides better separation between plugins and the core product so that plugins are completely flexible and can be written in any language.

Comment

Pro
Modern code base

As a refactor over Vim, Neovim has greatly improved its code base. For example, some functionality is handled by libuv, the same code base that powers Node.js.

Comment

Pro
Integrated terminal

The integrated terminal is fully functional, and allows for the power of vim keys in the terminal environment.

Comment

Pro
Active development community

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Asynchronous plugins

Unlike vim, plugins can be asynchronous, executing complex tasks without causing the editor to hang

Comment

Pro
Full vim functionality

Because this is a fork of vim, it's not just a "vi-mode" or "vim-mode", with notable missing features - it's all of vim, and more.

Comment

Con
No stable release yet

As of yet, there is no stable release and using Neovim should be done with caution as many features may change in the future.

Comment

Con
Limited cross platform support

Neovim is not available for many legacy platforms. The Windows version is currently considered experimental.

Comment

Pro
Everything is mnemonic

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example.

Comment

Pro
Lightweight and fast

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs.

Comment

Pro
By default in Linux

All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient.

Comment

Pro
Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view.

Comment

Pro
Excellent performance

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag.

Comment

Pro
Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand.

Comment

Pro
Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making most of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches.

Comment

Pro
Works on Android

[add description]

Comment

Pro
If you can use Vim you can also use vi

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Vimtutor

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.

Comment

Pro
Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes.

Comment

Pro
Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection.

Comment

Pro
Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.

Comment

Pro
Works in terminal over SSH

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH.

Comment

Pro
Supports multiple cursors

Kakoune's main editing paradigm is designed to be more visually interactive than Vim's, and it achieves this by using multiple cursors. For example, instead of having a dedicated ex-command for global search and replace (Vim's :%s/search/replace/g), Kakoune uses multiple cursors to visually show the replacement in-place.

Comment

Pro
Text selection mechanism

Kakoune works on selections, which are oriented, inclusive range of characters, selections have an anchor and a cursor character. Most commands move both of them, except when extending selection where the anchor character stays fixed and the cursor one moves around.

Comment

Pro
Very expressive

Kakoune provides a very expressive set of commands, including various objects selection (paragraph, blocks, words), alignment support, conditional selection filtering... This set of command is expressive enough to implement all the provided auto indentation logic.

Comment

Pro
Will be familiar to vim users

Kakoune first started as a rewrite from scratch of vim, but then ended up being another text editor altogether. So it's inspired in a lot of ways from vim.

Comment

Pro
Orthogonal design

Kakoune focuses on just editing text, and delegates almost everything else to other utilities and programs. Scripting, for example, is delegated to your shell, and multiple windows/buffers is delegated to your window manager or a terminal multiplexer.

Comment

Con
Small community

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Self-documenting

A helper pops up when typing commands.

Comment

Pro
More modern than vim

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Simpler and more consistent than Vim

Some keys select, other keys operate on the selections. Shift is used to extend the selection, alt is used for alternative behavior, e.g. reverse the search direction. No inconsistencies like Y which means yy and not y$ in Vim.

Comment

Pro
Actively developed and supported

[add description]

Comment

Con
No real Windows support

Will compile under CygWin.

Comment

Pro
Good UNIX citizen

It follows the UNIX philosophy by doing one thing well (text editing) and interfaces nicely with other CLI tools.

Comment

Pro
Client-server architecture

Kakoune is implicitly client-server, with each client showing a single buffer that the server handles. This allows for fine-grained control over how you manage your Kakoune sessions.

Comment

Con
Steep learning curve

Kakoune isn't as difficult to learn as Vim, but it is still a large gap to leap for those who aren't used to a modal editor.

Comment

Pro
Orthogonal design

Comment

Con
Steep learning curve

Kakoune isn't as difficult to learn as Vim, but it is still a large gap to leap for those who aren't used to a modal editor.

Comment

Pro
All functionality of Vim with a vastly improved extendability

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Mnemonic and consistent keybindings

Space-lead key bindings are organized in mnemonic namespaces. For instance, buffer actions are under SPC b, file actions are under SPC f, project actions are under SPC p, search actions are under SPC s, and so on. Keybindings are consistent across the whole distribution thanks to a set of conventions.

Comment

Pro
Gradual learning curve

Evil package is a first class citizen and Spacemacs embraces it from day one. Evil package allows Vim users to be productive very quickly while still allowing regular Emacs users to use Spacemacs.

Comment

Pro
Cross-platform

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Comment

Pro
Combines the best parts of Vi and Emacs

Spacemacs combines the Emacs platform (with the full power of the Emacs plugin ecosystem) and the Vi keybindings (via EViL), all in the same box.

Comment

Pro
Above average documentation quality

Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layer and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format.

Comment

Pro
Completely configured out of the box

Stuff like version control, file management, good default theme are all configured out of the box.

Comment

Pro
Great note-taking and agenda "app" built-in

Allows for great organization applications that can be saved in future-proof format, plain text, can be integrated with LaTeX, markdown, HTML, Literate Programming and be committed to source control.

Comment

Pro
LaTeX support

LaTeX allows for auto-completion, syncing, and more.

Comment

Pro
Great CFEngine support

Syntax highlighting and org-babel extensions.

Comment

Pro
Offers a number of practical features

Spacemacs has some great features for taking notes, tracking to-do lists, and tracking time.

Comment

Pro
Simple but powerful configuration architecture

At the heart of Spacemacs, the configuration layers group packages configuration into semantic units that can be toggled on and off. The architecture is simple but powerful, allowing the user to easily manage configuration dependencies between hundreds of packages.

Comment

Pro
Excellent support for Elixir programming language

Elixir layer which uses the Alchemist package is the best way to edit Elixir code out there.

Comment

Pro
Works well with Common Lisp

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Community-driven configuration

Spacemacs is the biggest community-driven Emacs starter-kit.

Comment

Pro
Can work in terminal mode

Sometimes you only have terminal access, over ssh or something.

Comment

Pro
Manage many code bases easily

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Remote file editing

Files can be edited in Spacemacs remotely.

Comment

Pro
Great support from the community

The community surrounding Spacemacs is very active and there is a welcoming gitter chat for users to ask questions.

Comment

Pro
Can be controlled fully with the keyboard

There's no need to reach for the mouse again since Spacemacs can be fully controlled with keyboard.

Comment

Pro
Lowers the risk of RSI by using the spacebar as leader

Spacemacs got its name from the fact that it is uses the space bar as a default leader key. The key was chosen because it is easy to press and to hopefully lower the risk of RSI.

Comment

Pro
Manage R files easily

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Daemon support

Has great daemon support, which can mitigate the issue of slow startup.

Comment

Pro
Easily extended with community plugins

[add description]

Comment

Con
Complex learning difficulty

You must be familiar with either Vim or Emacs. In addition, you should be familiar with the unique features of Spacemacs. The Layer concept of replacing Emacs settings is still difficult and abstract compared to modern editors.

Comment

Con
Slow startup time

Although configuration is heavily loaded, the starting time of Spacemacs is usually between two and five seconds. Emacs can be run as a daemon though which reduces the client's startup time to a few milliseconds.

Comment

Con
High CPU and unresponsive at times

There are occasions when Spacemacs would suddenly consume a LOT of CPU and then other times would become completely unresponsive. This instability took place only 6 months or so ago. Restarting Spacemacs can fix it for a while but perhaps this issue is already fixed in newer versions.

Comment

Con
Can be quite glitchy at times

Spacemacs combines many packages from many different authors that were never designed to work together. Sometimes they interact in unexpected ways, and things randomly break as one package interferes with another's features. This combined with delayed auto-loading of packages in unpredictable order, different modes for different file types, frequent package updates, and necessary customization by selection of layers and packages, can make these glitches hard to reproduce. It takes a lot of emacs know-how to fix these problems. Fortunately there is a very active community willing to help with these problems, but it might take a while.

Comment

Con
Functionality layers of complicated configuration

To configure Spacemacs, settings for Emacs/Evil/Spacemacs may need editing. It's not always clear which need to be changed or how to change settings globally: sometimes hooks are needed, other times Spacemacs provides options.

Comment

Pro
Adds even more functionality to vi-keybindings

VMP is a very nice Vim Mode package with even some nice additions to VIM.

Comment

Pro
Command palette

Common commands can be found and executed in the command palette.

Comment

Pro
Built-in file explorer

[add description]

Comment

Pro
Multi-platform

Supports Windows, MacOS, Linux.

Comment

Pro
Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. While true, I often find the mouse and menus handy for those lesser-used commands. An aide-memoir.

Comment

Pro
Total customizability

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza).

Comment

Con
Requires additional plugins to match Vim's featureset

While evil-mode provides a lot of working Vim functionality, there are features it doesn't include, such as: Leader keys, number increment, marks, column indicator and relative line numbers.

Comment

Pro
Active development

It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes.

Comment

Pro
Extendable through plug-ins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality.

Comment

Pro
Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.

Comment

Pro
TypeScript integration

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript.

Comment

Pro
Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created.

Comment

Pro
Custom snippets support

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable.

Comment

Pro
Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License.

Comment

Pro
ESLint integration

ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style.

Comment

Pro
Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse.

Comment

Pro
Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.

Comment

Pro
Updated frequently

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily.

Comment

Pro
Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.

Comment

Pro
Integrated terminal

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal.

Comment

Pro
Ready to use out of the box

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered.

Comment

Pro
JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.

Comment

Pro
Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.