When comparing nvALT vs Disk Inventory X, 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 Disk Inventory X is ranked 52nd. 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 Free & Open Source
It is absolutely free and released under the GPL.
Pro Works in High Sierra and above
Pro Allows ordering disk by size
This way you can find what is taking most of the space.
Pro Offers choice between analyzing whole disk or just a specific folder
Pro Absolutely matching with Windirstat
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 Crashes on Ventura, when closing the app
But you do not need it so often, so it is ok.
Con Crashes on Sierra
Crashes on Sierra when resizing windows.
