Emacs vs Vim vs gedit

Overview

Vim

Stacks27.9K

Followers22.8K

Votes2.4K

Emacs

Stacks1.3K

Followers1.2K

Votes322

gedit

Stacks64

Followers101

Votes48

Emacs vs Vim vs gedit: What are the differences?

1. **Customization**: Emacs is known for its extensive customization capabilities through Emacs Lisp, allowing users to tailor every aspect of their workflow. Vim also offers a high level of customization through its scripting language, Vimscript. On the other hand, gedit does not have the same level of customization options as Emacs and Vim, making it more straightforward and user-friendly for beginners. 2. **Modes**: Emacs has a unique feature called modes, allowing users to switch between different editing modes for various tasks such as coding, writing, or debugging. Vim also utilizes modes for different editing functions, providing a modal editing experience. In contrast, gedit does not have modes like Emacs and Vim, offering a more traditional single mode editing environment. 3. **Keybindings**: Emacs uses keybindings that are centered around its modifier key (Ctrl) and followed by commands, offering a vast array of shortcut combinations for efficient editing. Vim, on the other hand, focuses on a modal editing system with unique keybindings that make heavy use of the keyboard home row. In comparison, gedit has a more standard set of keybindings similar to most text editors, making it easier for users transitioning from other editing tools. 4. **Plugin Ecosystem**: Emacs has a robust ecosystem of plugins and extensions that enhance its functionality, with a package manager for easy installation of additional features. Vim also boasts a wide range of plugins available through its plugin manager, adding extra capabilities to the editor. In contrast, gedit has a limited plugin ecosystem, offering only a few extensions for basic functionalities. 5. **Learning Curve**: Emacs has a steep learning curve due to its extensive customization options and unique keybindings, requiring significant time investment to master. Vim also has a steep learning curve because of its modal editing system and non-traditional keybindings. In contrast, gedit has a more gentle learning curve, making it more accessible for beginners and casual users. 6. **Cross-Platform Support**: Both Emacs and Vim are cross-platform editors available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. On the other hand, gedit is primarily designed for GNOME desktop environments, limiting its availability on other operating systems.

In Summary, the key differences between Emacs, Vim, and gedit lie in their customization options, modes, keybindings, plugin ecosystems, learning curves, and cross-platform support.

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Advice on Vim, Emacs, gedit

Walter

Jan 12, 2021

Review

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.

162k views162k

Comments

Rogério

Software Developer

Jan 9, 2021

Needs adviceon

Visual Studio Code

Atom

Node.js

For a Visual Studio Code/Atom developer that works mostly with Node.js/TypeScript/Ruby/Golang 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?

372k views372k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Vim	Emacs	gedit
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.	GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.	gedit is the GNOME text editor. While aiming at simplicity and ease of use, gedit is a powerful general purpose text editor.
Vertically Split Windows;Vimdiff;Folding;Plugins;Flexible Indenting;Unicode	Content-sensitive editing modes, including syntax coloring, for a variety of file types including plain text, source code, and HTML.;Complete built-in documentation, including a tutorial for new users.;Full Unicode support for nearly all human languages and their scripts.;Highly customizable, using Emacs Lisp code or a graphical interface.;A large number of extensions that add other functionality, including a project planner, mail and news reader, debugger interface, calendar, and more. Many of these extensions are distributed with GNU Emacs others are available separately.	Full support for internationalized text (UTF-8);Configurable syntax highlighting for various languages (C, C++, Java, HTML, XML, Python, Perl and many others);Undo/Redo;Editing files from remote locations;File reverting;Print and print preview support;Clipboard support (cut/copy/paste);Search and replace;Go to specific line;Auto indentation;Text wrapping;Line numbers;Right margin;Current line highlighting;Bracket matching;Backup files;Configurable fonts and colors;A complete online user manual;A flexible plugin system which can be used to dynamically add new advanced features
Statistics
Stacks 27.9K	Stacks 1.3K	Stacks 64
Followers 22.8K	Followers 1.2K	Followers 101
Votes 2.4K	Votes 322	Votes 48
Pros & Cons
Pros 347 Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing) 328 Fast 312 Highly configurable 297 Less mouse dependence 247 Lightweight Cons 8 Ugly UI 5 Hard to learn	Pros 65 Vast array of extensions 44 Have all you can imagine 40 Everything i need in one place 39 Portability 32 Customer config Cons 4 Hard to learn for beginners 4 So good and extensible, that one can get sidetracked 1 Not default preinstalled in GNU/linux	Pros 10 Fast 9 Lightweight 9 GNOME Integration 5 Syntax Highlighting 3 Tabbed UI Cons 2 GTK3

What are some alternatives to Vim, Emacs, gedit?

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.

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.

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.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Brackets

With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, it is a modern text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser.

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.

VSCodium

It is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VSCode.

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

Kakoune

Kakoune is a code editor heavily inspired by Vim, as such most of its commands are similar to vi’s ones. Kakoune can operate in two modes, normal and insertion. In insertion mode, keys are directly inserted into the current buffer. In normal mode, keys are used to manipulate the current selection and to enter insertion mode.

Adobe Dreamweaver

It gives you faster, easier ways to design, code and publish websites and web applications that look amazing on any size screen. Create, code and manage dynamic websites easily with a smart, simplified coding engine. Access code hints to quickly learn and edit HTML, CSS and other web standards. And use visual aids to reduce errors and speed up site development.

Related Comparisons

Emacs vs Vim vs gedit: What are the differences?

In Summary, the key differences between Emacs, Vim, and gedit lie in their customization options, modes, keybindings, plugin ecosystems, learning curves, and cross-platform support.

Emacs vs Vim vs gedit

Overview