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Atom

16.7K
14.3K
+ 1
2.7K
Neovim

603
716
+ 1
183
Vim

26.8K
21.8K
+ 1
2.4K

Atom vs Neovim vs Vim: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Key differences between Atom, Neovim, and Vim are outlined below:

1. **Architecture**: Atom is built on web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, while Neovim and Vim are terminal-based text editors. Neovim is a modernized Vim fork with added features for extensibility and usability.
2. **Performance**: Neovim is known for its improved performance compared to Vim, with faster startup times, reduced lag, and better handling of large files. Atom, being a graphical text editor, can sometimes be slower in performance compared to terminal-based editors like Neovim and Vim.
3. **Customization**: Neovim and Vim both have a rich ecosystem of plugins and configurations that allow users to customize virtually every aspect of their editing environment. Atom, on the other hand, is designed with a focus on ease of use out of the box and may not offer as extensive customization options as Neovim and Vim.
4. **Community and Support**: Vim has been around for much longer than Neovim and Atom, thus it has a larger community and extensive support available. Neovim, being a relatively newer project, has a growing community but may not have as many resources and plugins available as Vim. Atom has its own active community but may not have the same level of support as Vim and Neovim.
5. **Workflow**: Some users prefer the modal editing style of Vim and Neovim, where different modes allow for efficient text editing using keyboard shortcuts. Atom, being more GUI-focused, may have a different workflow that some users may find more intuitive. 
6. **Learning Curve**: Vim and Neovim have a steep learning curve due to their modal editing style and extensive customization options, which can be challenging for newcomers. Atom, with its more user-friendly interface, may have a gentler learning curve for beginners. 

In Summary, the key differences between Atom, Neovim, and Vim lie in their architecture, performance, customization options, community support, workflows, and learning curves. Each editor has unique strengths and caters to different preferences and needs of users. 
Advice on Atom, Neovim, and Vim
Rogério R. Alcântara
Needs advice
on
NeovimNeovim
and
VimVim

For a Visual Studio Code/Atom developer that works mostly with Node.js/TypeScript/Ruby/Go and wants to get rid of graphic-text-editors-IDE-like at once, which one is worthy of investing time to pick up?

I'm a total n00b on the subject, but I've read good things about Neovim's Lua support, and I wonder what would be the VIM response/approach for it?

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Replies (6)
Recommends
on
NeovimNeovimVimVim

Neovim can basically do everything Vim can with one major advantage - the number of contributors to the code base is just so much wider (Vim is ~100% maintained only by B. Mooleanaar). Whatever you learn for Neovim you can also apply to Vim and vice versa. And of course there is the never ending Vim vs Emacs controversy - but better not get into that war.

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Jeffrey Johnson
Recommends
at

Actually, the biggest advantage with Neovim (as a VS user) is that you can embed REAL Neovim as the editor UI, rather than using a "Vim emulation", you're using actual NVIM, embedded in VS!

"asvetliakov.vscode-neovim" is the extension you are looking for:

  1. Install the 'vscode-neovim; extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetliakov.vscode-neovim)
  2. Install Neovim version 0.5+ nightly
  3. Start winning.

(You can install neovim-nightly separately for just vscode, I usually build and install it to /opt/nvim - it's enough enough to do - let me know if you need help).

Works wonderfully. It might not work out of the box if you have some 100K epic nvim initialization file, but the plugin documents a workaround for having an embedding/VS specific configuration.

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Kudos Beluga
Recommends
on
NeovimNeovim

I don't actually notice much of a difference between the two, as the end result looks identical. If you use Vim and are switch to Neovim it's an extremely easy 1-minute process. I switched from Vim to Neovim. I can't say I found much of a difference, but the key points where Neovim could be better than just vim is that first, there are much more people maintaining Neovim compared to vim, which means fewer bugs and a modern code base. It also has a smaller code base which might result in a small speed improvement. Another thing is that it's basically just a fork of vim, so what harm can it do? ;)

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Recommends
on
VimVim

I recommend using vim 8+ it has native plugin support if you need language supports you can install the package vim-nox which will come with support for python, lua, ruby, etc

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Albert Kim
Recommends

It truly depends on whether you want to completely avoid GUI and stick to TUI and command lines. If you want to edit all of your codes within a terminal, then Vim or neovim would be the choice. Emacs can be run in a terminal, but the functionality is limited. Most people use Emacs using GUI and emacs-client not to use too much memory.

My general preference is to use an independent text editor, which is better if it is highly customizable and programmable. So, I have used Emacs for several years. For beginners, I guess Emacs requires significant time to learn to fully enjoy its wonderful functionalities. In that sense, using atom would be a recommendable option.

Regardless of all the situations, learning basic vim in the terminal will help you in any case. In summary, I recommend 1. vim as a default editor in the terminal 2. atom if you are a beginner, or 3. Emacs if you have a long-term plan to master a programmable editor

Other editors like sublime text, VS code, and so forth are also worth learning and using. But, no matter which editor you choose, stick to one or two until you become an advanced user. Being able to use most text editors at an intermediate level is waste of time.

I hope it helps.

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Rogério R. Alcântara
Recommends
on
NeovimNeovim

The hints on the codebase's contributors and the VSCode integration helped me make up my mind.

I really appreciate all comments, though.

Thanks a bunch!

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Decisions about Atom, Neovim, and Vim
Andrey Ginger
Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers · | 3 upvotes · 491.4K views

Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark

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Pros of Atom
Pros of Neovim
Pros of Vim
  • 529
    Free
  • 449
    Open source
  • 343
    Modular design
  • 321
    Hackable
  • 316
    Beautiful UI
  • 170
    Github integration
  • 147
    Backed by github
  • 119
    Built with node.js
  • 113
    Web native
  • 107
    Community
  • 35
    Packages
  • 18
    Cross platform
  • 5
    Multicursor support
  • 5
    Nice UI
  • 5
    TypeScript editor
  • 3
    Snippets
  • 3
    Simple but powerful
  • 3
    Open source, lots of packages, and so configurable
  • 3
    cli start
  • 3
    Chrome Inspector works IN EDITOR
  • 2
    Awesome
  • 2
    Smart TypeScript code completion
  • 2
    Well documented
  • 2
    It's powerful
  • 2
    Code readability
  • 1
    works with GitLab
  • 1
    User friendly
  • 1
    full support
  • 1
    vim support
  • 1
    Split-Tab Layout
  • 1
    "Free", "Hackable", "Open Source", The Awesomness
  • 1
    Apm publish minor
  • 1
    Hackable and Open Source
  • 1
    Consistent UI on all platforms
  • 0
    Publish
  • 31
    Modern and more powerful Vim
  • 27
    Fast
  • 22
    Asynchronous plugins
  • 20
    Stable
  • 18
    Edit text fast
  • 15
    Great community
  • 15
    Vim plugins work out of the box
  • 9
    Embedable
  • 8
    Unix-like
  • 8
    Built-in terminal support
  • 4
    Plugins in any language
  • 2
    External GUIs
  • 2
    Great Colorschemes
  • 2
    Extremely customizable
  • 347
    Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing)
  • 328
    Fast
  • 312
    Highly configurable
  • 297
    Less mouse dependence
  • 247
    Lightweight
  • 145
    Speed
  • 100
    Plugins
  • 97
    Hardcore
  • 82
    It's for pros
  • 65
    Vertically split windows
  • 30
    Open-source
  • 25
    Modal editing
  • 22
    No remembering shortcuts, instead "talks" to the editor
  • 21
    It stood the Test of Time
  • 16
    Unicode
  • 13
    VimPlugins
  • 13
    Everything is on the keyboard
  • 13
    Stick with terminal
  • 12
    Dotfiles
  • 11
    Flexible Indenting
  • 10
    Hands stay on the keyboard
  • 10
    Efficient and powerful
  • 10
    Programmable
  • 9
    Everywhere
  • 9
    Large number of Shortcuts
  • 8
    A chainsaw for text editing
  • 8
    Unmatched productivity
  • 7
    Developer speed
  • 7
    Super fast
  • 7
    Makes you a true bearded developer
  • 7
    Because its not Emacs
  • 7
    Modal editing changes everything
  • 6
    You cannot exit
  • 6
    Themes
  • 5
    EasyMotion
  • 5
    Most and most powerful plugins of any editor
  • 5
    Shell escapes and shell imports :!<command> and !!cmd
  • 5
    Intergrated into most editors
  • 5
    Shortcuts
  • 5
    Great on large text files
  • 5
    Habit
  • 5
    Plugin manager options. Vim-plug, Pathogen, etc
  • 4
    Intuitive, once mastered
  • 4
    Perfect command line editor
  • 1
    Not MicroSoft

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Cons of Atom
Cons of Neovim
Cons of Vim
  • 19
    Slow with large files
  • 7
    Slow startup
  • 2
    Most of the time packages are hard to find.
  • 1
    No longer maintained
  • 1
    Cannot Run code with F5
  • 1
    Can be easily Modified
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 8
      Ugly UI
    • 5
      Hard to learn

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Atom?

    At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.

    What is Neovim?

    Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: simplify maintenance and encourage contributions, split the work between multiple developers, enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source, and improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.

    What is Vim?

    Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.

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    What companies use Atom?
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    What are some alternatives to Atom, Neovim, and Vim?
    Sublime Text
    Sublime Text is available for OS X, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses. Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit, optimized for speed and beauty, while taking advantage of native functionality on each platform.
    Visual Studio Code
    Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
    Brackets
    With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, it is a modern text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser.
    cell
    cell is a self-constructing web app framework powered by a self-driving DOM. Learning cell is mostly about understanding how cell works, and not about how to use and memorize some API methods, because there is no API.
    Element
    Element is a Vue 2.0 based component library for developers, designers and product managers, with a set of design resources.
    See all alternatives