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Emacs vs Neovim: What are the differences?
Emacs and Neovim are powerful and extensible text editors known for their extensive customization and efficiency. Let's explore the key differences between them.
Customizability: One of the main differences between Emacs and Neovim is the approach to customization. Emacs has a powerful and well-established system that allows users to customize almost every aspect of the editor, from keybindings to completely changing its behavior. Neovim, on the other hand, focuses more on using plugins for customization, providing a simpler and more modular approach.
Performance: Neovim was developed with performance in mind, aiming to improve on some of the performance issues experienced with Emacs, especially when handling large files or running complex operations. Neovim's architecture and design decisions make it generally faster and more responsive compared to Emacs.
Modal Editing: Neovim is built around the concept of modal editing, where different modes (insert, normal, visual, etc.) are used for different tasks. This approach allows for more efficient editing, as it separates the act of typing text from the act of navigating and manipulating it. Emacs, on the other hand, primarily uses a traditional non-modal editing approach where the user can directly type and edit text.
Vim Compatibility: Neovim aims to be Vim-compatible, meaning that it tries to replicate most of the features and behaviors of Vim, a popular text editor known for its powerful modal editing capabilities. This compatibility makes Neovim a good choice for Vim users who want to take advantage of the benefits of a more modern and extensible editor. Emacs, while having some Vim emulation packages, does not strive to be fully Vim-compatible.
Extensibility: Both Emacs and Neovim are highly extensible, but they achieve it in different ways. Emacs provides a built-in Lisp interpreter that allows users to write custom functions and modify the editor's behavior directly. This results in a highly flexible and extensible system, but also requires a certain level of familiarity with Lisp. Neovim, being built on top of Vim, uses its plugin system, allowing users to extend the editor's functionality with a wide range of existing Vim plugins.
Community and Ecosystem: Emacs and Neovim have different communities and ecosystems supporting them. Emacs has a long history and a dedicated user base, with a rich set of packages and configurations available. It has been expanded upon and used for various purposes like writing code, scripting, and even as a complete operating system. Neovim, being a more recent project, has a growing community and ecosystem that focuses on modernizing the Vim experience, with an emphasis on performance and modularity.
In summary, Emacs excels in its all-encompassing ecosystem, while Neovim appeals to users looking for a streamlined, modernized version of the classic Vim editing experience.
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?
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.
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:
- Install the 'vscode-neovim; extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=asvetliakov.vscode-neovim)
- Install Neovim version 0.5+ nightly
- 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.
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? ;)
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
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.
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!
Pros of Emacs
- Vast array of extensions65
- Have all you can imagine44
- Everything i need in one place40
- Portability39
- Customer config32
- Your config works on any platform16
- Low memory consumption13
- Perfect for monsters11
- All life inside one program10
- Extendable, portable, fast - all at your fingertips8
- Enables extremely rapid keyboard-only navigation6
- Widely-used keybindings (e.g. by bash)5
- Extensible in Lisp5
- Runs everywhere important5
- FOSS Software4
- Powerful multilanguage IDE4
- Git integration4
- May be old but always reliable4
- Asynchronous3
- Powerful UI3
- Huge ecosystem1
Pros of Neovim
- Modern and more powerful Vim31
- Fast27
- Asynchronous plugins22
- Stable20
- Edit text fast18
- Great community15
- Vim plugins work out of the box15
- Embedable9
- Unix-like8
- Built-in terminal support8
- Plugins in any language4
- External GUIs2
- Great Colorschemes2
- Extremely customizable2
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Cons of Emacs
- So good and extensible, that one can get sidetracked4
- Hard to learn for beginners4
- Not default preinstalled in GNU/linux1