When comparing Vim vs XYplorer, the Slant community recommends XYplorer for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for Windows?” XYplorer is ranked 26th while Vim is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose XYplorer is:
There are literally hundreds of ways you can customize this software. All the settings can be contained in a single configuration file, so you can easily create "profiles" as well.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Free and open-source software
Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware.
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.
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.
Pro Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support
There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency.
Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while.
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 my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Vimtutor
Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.
Pro Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)
If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too.
Pro Has been supported for a long time
And will be supported for many years to come.
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.
Pro Can never outgrow it
The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh.
Pro Flexible feature-set
Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way.
Pro Has multiple distinct editing modes
Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each.
Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors.
Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc.
Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell.
Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code.
Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim.
Pro By default in Linux
All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient!
Pro Vim encourages discipline
If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient.
Pro Useful undo features
Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again.
Pro Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland
Pro Built-in package management
Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type.
Pro If you can use Vim you can also use vi
Pro Works on Android
Pro Productivity enhancing modal paradigm
As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm.
Pro Asynchronous I/O support
Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze.
Pro Can set up keymapping
Pro Multiple clipboards
It is called "registers".
Pro Status Booster
Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex.
Pro Extremely configurable
There are literally hundreds of ways you can customize this software. All the settings can be contained in a single configuration file, so you can easily create "profiles" as well.
Pro Lifetime license available
XYplorer probably has the best "bang for the buck". It surely has its cons but considering what one gets for a "small" one-time investment, probably no other comparable feature rich product offers a better license.
The lifetime license ($63.95) includes all future updates for free, lets you install on any number of computers, and includes the portable version.
Pro Frequent and regular updates
Bugfixes and new features are released frequently. Additionally, XYplorer can automatically check for updates and has convenient download and update functionality built-in.
Pro Very reliable
It's small and fast, has lots of features, and helps you get your work done faster.
Pro Numerous filtering, sorting, and highlighting methods for files
Create rules and configurations to quickly identify and locate specific types of file and display them in various ways.
Pro Dual pane
Manage files with two panes which can be arranged horizontally or vertically - and each can have multiple tabs to boot. You can also easily save and reload open tabs as tab sets.
Pro Scriptable
Uses a very flexible scripting language that you can do many things with it. After learning it, one can get many other tools replaced in favor of a single centralized, extremely customize-able command center, plus writing one own's personal routines to fully perform finely-tuned file management. However, doing basic things like stringing together common renaming and moving tasks takes very little knowledge. Scripting is easy for beginners, is supported by the developer and the community, yet can be incredibly deep and powerful.
Pro Custom toolbar buttons
With its powerful scripting ability and the easily accessible menu identifiers, creating customized commands and toolbar buttons provides yet even further levels of usability specific to your needs.
Pro Logs plenty of actions for undo/redo
Up to 256 actions are logged and can be looked up and undone later in case of a mistake. Undo/Redo works even across sessions (i.e. after closing and restarting the app).
Pro Custom columns
Create custom columns to display all kinds of info snippets or even interactive links and buttons.
Pro The catalog: an all-purpose area that can be customized for all of your needs
An all-purpose area that you can customize for all your needs. It can be a list of favorite directories, run scripts, replace the directory tree, be a program launch pad, and so much more.
Pro Easy to use
XYPlorer, in spite of its complexity and completeness, is very easy to use. Features are obvious. And where they're not obvious they can be discovered easily. An example is the ease of "Jump to Setting" which helps you effortlessly find which of many settings you're looking for.
Pro Extensive metadata
Mark files with colored labels, tags, comments, as well as multiple columns with user-defined metadata for everything from ratings, urls, and whatnot.
Pro Customizable keyboard shortcuts
XYplorer is great for heavy keyboard users. Its many keyboard shortcuts are also fully configurable. Additionally, XYplorer offers multiple ways to navigate to file system using only a handful of keys. That said, one can do things with a mouse like press an icon in a custom column to run a script on the corresponding file or folder. Mousers are happy too.
Pro Portable file extensions
Associate file types with other portable applications on your USB stick.
Pro Developer is active in the forum as well
While other competitors only offer a "community" forum where the developers are absent, in XY's forum the developer answers questions personally, quickly, and consistenly.
Pro Quick audio preview
Can listen to audio files very easily with a single mouse click on the file icon. This includes FLAC support.
Pro Thumbnail viewing for images is both fast and customizable
If you're a photographer, wannabe photographer, or you just take a lot of photos, XYplorer is a great file manager for working with images. Combined with the Mouse Down Blow Up (MDBU) feature, previewing photos is very easy.
Pro Portable
It doesn't require you to install it on your computer, allowing you to run it directly from a disk or from an USB flashdrive.
Pro Easy to organize lots of files at once
Known as Branch View in XYPlorer. Select a folder or multiple folders and select Branch View to get a flat file view of the selected folder/s with files only, folders only or both. Alternatively, select Branch View to get a flat view of the current folder. Results can then be filtered, sorted, organised, moved, copied, renamed etc accordingly.
Extremely useful if you have a lot of files to organise.
Pro Folder sizes shown
Folder sizes and amount of files within the folders can be shown. This is very useful when trying to work out where the HDD space has gone.
Pro Search and virtual folders
Its search ability and functions combined with a multitude of file actions and the ease of creating virtual folders is a major time saver.
Pro Custom file and folder icons
Add a custom icon to a set of files or folders based on file type, location, name (or part of name) for example: all files named XYplorer to have 'icon x' or all folders that contain the word XYplorer in the name to have 'icon y', size, date, name length, path etc.
You can customize an infinite number of icons for an infinite number of files and/folders or even just a single one based on what ever combination you want.
No extra files are created like with other programs that place an icon in each directory. The customized icons are stored within the "Icons" folder of the XYPlorer directory while the list of customized file/folder patterns as well as which particular icon to point to are stored within XYplorer .ini
file.
It's set and forget as all file/folder icon associations are applied globally. Meaning that all new files or folders that match your predefined pattern or instruction if you like will automatically be displayed with your chosen icon.
Customized icons are also very very flexible. It's so easy to add, remove, change and fine tune your settings to your liking. To turn the customized icons on or off is simply a matter of pressing the handy toggle button.
Further flexibility comes with the ability to turn on or off individual custom icons with a simple tick box.
It is a bit of a learning curve to get the pattern (instruction to select certain files/folders to be associated with a particular icon) just right. But as results are immediately visible, it makes it easy to adjust accordingly to exactly what you want. There are some examples of these patterns included within the "Customize File Icons" UI or settings box to get you started by selecting the "I" button. A more extensive list is available in the XYPlorer help file.
Once you get the hang of it though, the same patterns can be applied to other customizations in XYPlorer for example color filters or Ghost filters.
Pro User interface is extremely customizable
XYplorer's user interface can be customized in almost every conceivable manner, from size and placement of various frame elements, to fonts, colors, toolbar buttons, if you can think it, you can probably do it.
Pro Separate 32 and 64-bit context menus
This is very useful for accessing some context handlers or when using the portable version across several systems.
Pro Long path names supported brilliantly
Windows File Explorer, over time, will eventually allow you to create path lengths, usually accidentally, that are "very long" (ie too many characters based on Windows standards).
And then, out of nowhere, you no longer have full functionality available to the directories and files in that long path.
- eg: you won't be able to open a file, or rename it, or copy it, or delete it, etc.
In order to regain full functionality available to the files/ directories in that "long path", you have to go and manually shorten the "long path" length by deleting characters in filenames, directory names, etc,
In other words, Microsoft will "allow" you to break the rules (.. ie in most cases without warning ), but then won't support the broken rules.
This is where XYPlorer is super useful -- especially when you move big chunks of data from A to B -- you no longer have to care about long path name issues.
Pro Per-user license
Just one license covers all of your computers.
Pro Extremely versatile renaming
Renaming can also be combined extremely easily in basic scripts for chaining and combining the strengths of the different types of renaming available. Can also rename based on metadata.You don't really need to "learn scripting" to chain a bunch of renaming commands. Multiscripts can even give you a menu of your chained renames - with nested menus if desired. It takes very little knowledge to be able to do this. One can even run such a script by drag and drop.
Pro Faster than Windows Explorer ever thought of being
This is faster than Windows Explorer when combined this with TeraCopy. Currently, it is present in the right-click menu, but you can drag and drop it to copy with Windows File Explorer.
Pro Community support
Extensive and active support forum with unusually quick, thorough, and friendly assistance.
Pro Branch view
Can show all files in a folder and all of its subfolders at once.
Pro Can replace Windows Explorer
So that folders are automatically opened in a new tab of XYplorer rather than on Windows Explorer when called from other softwares.
Pro Asynchronous copy and move operations
It's possible to queue copy and move operations so that multiple large copy/move operations don't interfere with each other (disk thrashing) and you can continue working with the program.
Pro Can use system, XY's custom copy routines, Fast Copy, and Teracopy interchangably without scripting
Can save any set of command-line options with a friendly label. Switching is as easy as right-clicking on a button.
Pro Preview files
From documents to audio and video. All files can be previewed from within the program and without the need to open other software packages. This is a very useful feature when working with multiple files.
Pro Supports correction of illegal file and folder names
Easily rename a folder to make it legal. Search for dangerous unicode characters. Rename all files to ASCII if you wish.
Pro Clean, uncluttered interface
Clean and uncluttered interface, easy to concentrate on the files and folders that you need.
Pro Let's you select files by typing any word in the current directory
In windows file explorer when you want to select a file of the current directory, you have to type exactly the same name from the start of the file. In xyplorer you can type just part of it.
Ex: filename "resume_work"
With xyplorer you could just type work and it would show the file being marked (this is configurable).
Pro Dark mode
Latest beta-release introduces the "dark mode" that we already know from other software. It's auto-computed based on the current colour-settings and has 51 shades of darkness. Can be activated with a simple checkbox, no further tweaking required!
Pro Has more features than any other file manager
None of the managers, including Opus, Speed commander, Total commander, F man, Xplorer2, Tabbles, etc., but none of them can compare with it in easy usage, features or customization. The author updates it very frequently and has added many users requests.
Pro FLAC as well as MP3 Support for Metadata and Previews
Most are MP3 only.
Pro HoverBox
A no-click preview to quickly see folder contents, pictures, videos, pdf, office files, archives (zip, rar...)...
Pro Option to disable lazy drag-and-dropping
A good practice to improve your workflow and eliminate accidental unwanted file movings to places! Brilliant!
Pro Exhaustive list of previewable archive formats
Works with help of 7zip, even a portable install works.
Pro Huge feature list, something for everyone.
The extensive feature list will give you plenty to work with.
Pro Safety belts
Configurable options to prevent accidental file movements or deletions.
Pro Nuke button
Files and folders can be "nuked" without needing to go through the recycle bin.
Pro Ability to identify text files containing any range of extended characters
For example in the find files dialog, you can specify *.srt and contchar:>127 to find all subrip files that contain extended characters.
Pro Communication with the programmer
You can reach the programmer very quickly and request new features.
Pro Easy to copy file names and directories
Right from the context menu, you can copy file names, paths or full file path names. Really handy.
Pro Easy/extensive file renaming
Easily renames one (or many) files right from the context menu. It supports search and replace, batch, regex, changing extension, copy/paste a while list of filenames, spaces to unscore (and vice versa), changing capitalization, and so much more. Also, the "Preview" feature makes it easy to verify changes before applying them. Fantastic!
Pro File tabs
Extensive support for file tabs. You can rename and lock them too. Even further, you can quickly switch from one tab view to another. You can have sets of tabs for every project you work on. It really speeds up your workflow!
Pro Responsive support
Pro Fast and powerful search
Searching is extremely fast and thorough - no matter if you're looking for items by name, attribute, content, or trying to find duplicates (either with a selected hash or byte-to-byte).
It allows you to search within your files, looking for specific terms, including wildcards and regular expressions.
It also supports regular expressions and filter/sort your search results by file size, file modification date, etc.
Can save complicated, often-used searches easily as "Search Templates" to reuse, tweak, or use in a script.
Can set to instantly narrow a list as you type, or highlight if you prefer, with multiple options such as "Prefer Beginning of Column" or use currently sorted column.
Supports Standard wildcards, Boolean, and Regex.
Pro "Mouse Down Blow Up" feature
Mouse Down Blow Up is a quick file preview that pops up when you mouse-down on the icon or thumbnail of a file, and disappears on mouse-up.
Cons
Con High effort to customize
A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs.
Con Difficult learning curve
You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc
to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers.
Con Difficult to copy, paste, and delete
Con Poor support for external tooling
Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling.
Con Poor feature discoverability
Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well.
Con No smooth scrolling
Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files.
Con Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms
This can be worked around somewhat if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal.
But it still doesn't feel right when the rest of your system uses Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, and you have a system clipboard manager, and so forth.
Con Outdated UI
Con Requires Brain Mode Switching
When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else.
Con Slow when opening files with very long lines
A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file.
Con Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic
Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing.
Con Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box
A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts.
For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY.
Con Unintuitive mode switching
Con Extensibility isn't that great
While it has gotten better and some projects are slowly starting to build proper extension support, it still can't and by design never will achieve the extensibility of another editor like emacs.
Con Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left
Con Not user frendly
You will spend more time managing the manager than getting work done, and even for basic customization you will suffer a great deal.
Con Single-threaded
Doesn't do internal multitasking so often you sit there waiting and waiting and waiting for the window to come back.
Con May be unresponsive at times
When browsing large number of files and using advanced features like preview, the program may become unresponsive. However, it is fair to say that given enough search and preview options and considering file security, network file share performance, malware or anti-malware activity, it is reasonable to expect situations where long delays could occur with any file manager.
Con No FTP support
XY doesn't support FTP, SSH, FTPS, etc.
Con No working high-dpi support
XYplorer will not properly scale when working in a mixed configuration consisting of both Full-HD and high-dpi screens.
Con No themes
You can customize toolbars, but there are no themes available.
Con Status bar not customizable
Users cannot customize the status bar.
Con No plugin support
Con 32-Bit
Con No support for Windows libraries
You can't access your libraries through this software.
Con Separate tree for each panel is missing
The possibility of having a separate tree for each of the 2 panels is lacking.
Con Poor touchscreen support
While an option exists to scale up icon sizes to improve touchscreen support, the program does not pan and scroll intuitively.
Con Cannot display files as grouped
Especially in thumbs view it would at times be nice to be able to group the files in the display. Sometimes it might also be nice in others views as well.
XY is only able to sort the files in the display but not able to group, though it does support arbitrary sort order and advanced link types.
Con The free version has been discontinued
Although it has just been discontinued as of 10th January 2017, it is still available for download at here.