When comparing nvALT vs hyper, the Slant community recommends nvALT for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” nvALT is ranked 34th while hyper is ranked 72nd. The most important reason people chose nvALT is:
nvALT has a simple text box at the top (similar to that of a web browser) and when you start typing inside it, nvALT immediately displays a drop-down box of all the notes that contain the text you are searching for. The more you type, the more the search is narrowed down.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Powerful search syntax
nvALT has a simple text box at the top (similar to that of a web browser) and when you start typing inside it, nvALT immediately displays a drop-down box of all the notes that contain the text you are searching for. The more you type, the more the search is narrowed down.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Free

Pro MultiMarkdown 3 support
Has built-in support for MultiMarkdown 3.
Pro Powerful note-taking features
nvALT is not only used for simple text editing but also as a powerful tool for taking notes, TODOs, phone numbers and every other piece of information that can be stored in a plain-text file.
This is because nvALT is not designed only as a tool to write text, but also as a powerful search and organize tool for plain-text files.
Pro Right to Left support
Pro Cross-platform due to electron browser-based foundation
Although not Windows-friendly. But nobody uses Windows terminal anyway.
Pro Built on electron, supports split panels and plugins
Cons
Con Not very powerful as far as text editing goes
nvALT's strength is its search feature. It has some basic text-editing features such as cut, paste, find-and-replace and so on. But it doesn't have any advanced text manipulation features available in other editors.
Con Made with Electron
It uses a considerable amount of resources, compared to other offerings.
Con Not as cross platform as advertised
Most features only work on Mac OS.
Con Incorrect rendering
Terminal window has visual artifacts.
Con No configuration UI; all options must be set via JSON
Con Still maturing as of December 2016
Folks noticed some issues in the 1.0 release cited here.
Con Difficult to find information about it, because of the confusion with hyperterminal
