When comparing Notational Velocity vs nvALT, the Slant community recommends Notational Velocity for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Notational Velocity is ranked 11th while nvALT is ranked 34th. The most important reason people chose Notational Velocity is:
The interface is clean and unobtrusive.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Simple and minimalistic
The interface is clean and unobtrusive.
Pro Free
Pro Syncs with SimpleNotes or Dropbox
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
Cons
Con Feels a bit outdated
The last release was from 2011. Although due to its brilliant simplicity in doing what it's designed for, some might think there hasn't been any need for an update, as long as it still works with the newer OSs.
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.