Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Emacs vs Neovim vs Vim: What are the differences?
Introduction
This post will focus on the key differences between Emacs, Neovim, and Vim. These three text editors are highly customizable and popular among developers and power users. While they share similarities in terms of functionality and extensibility, there are noteworthy distinctions that set them apart from each other.
Extensibility: Emacs takes a different approach to extensibility compared to Neovim and Vim. It is built around the idea of being an "operating system" rather than just a text editor. Emacs has its own Lisp dialect for scripting, allowing users to customize almost every aspect of the editor. Neovim and Vim, on the other hand, provide a more traditional plugin system that allows users to extend the functionality using a variety of scripting languages such as Python, Lua, or Vimscript.
True GUI Support: Neovim is notable for its strong emphasis on providing a modern and seamless graphical user interface (GUI) experience, which is not a strong suit of Vim or Emacs. Neovim can run in a terminal as well as a standalone application with native-looking windows and tabs, making it more appealing to users who value a graphical interface.
Modal Editing: Vim introduced the concept of modal editing, which is a significant departure from the traditional text editing styles. It separates the modes for inserting text, navigating, and executing commands, making it possible to perform complex editing tasks using few keystrokes. While Neovim and Emacs also support modal editing through plugins or built-in features, Vim remains the most widely recognized and extensively used modal editor.
Built-in Language Servers: NeoVim sets itself apart by offering built-in support for Language Servers Protocol (LSP). LSP provides a standardized way for editors to communicate with language-specific analysis tools. By integrating LSP, developers using Neovim can benefit from features like code completion, syntax highlighting, and jumping to definitions without relying on external plugins or complicated configurations.
Legacy and Community: Vim has been around since the early 1990s and has a vast community and plugin ecosystem built around it. This gives Vim a significant advantage in terms of stability, a mature ecosystem of plugins, and abundant online resources. While both Emacs and Neovim have active communities and plugin ecosystems, they may not match the sheer size and depth of Vim's community.
Size and Performance: Neovim aimed to improve upon Vim's performance limitations, particularly when dealing with large files. Neovim made architectural changes, leveraging modern technologies, and improving responsiveness. While Emacs is a highly capable and versatile editor, it is often perceived to be more resource-intensive compared to Vim and Neovim.
In summary, Emacs, Neovim, and Vim are all powerful text editors with unique strengths and capabilities. Emacs offers extensive customizability and scripting abilities, while Neovim focuses on providing a modern GUI experience and built-in LSP support. Vim, with its modal editing paradigm and large community, remains the most recognizable and widely adopted modal editor.
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
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!
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.
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
Pros of Vim
- Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing)347
- Fast328
- Highly configurable312
- Less mouse dependence297
- Lightweight247
- Speed145
- Plugins100
- Hardcore97
- It's for pros82
- Vertically split windows65
- Open-source30
- Modal editing25
- No remembering shortcuts, instead "talks" to the editor22
- It stood the Test of Time21
- Unicode16
- VimPlugins13
- Everything is on the keyboard13
- Stick with terminal13
- Dotfiles12
- Flexible Indenting11
- Hands stay on the keyboard10
- Efficient and powerful10
- Programmable10
- Everywhere9
- Large number of Shortcuts9
- A chainsaw for text editing8
- Unmatched productivity8
- Developer speed7
- Super fast7
- Makes you a true bearded developer7
- Because its not Emacs7
- Modal editing changes everything7
- You cannot exit6
- Themes6
- EasyMotion5
- Most and most powerful plugins of any editor5
- Shell escapes and shell imports :!<command> and !!cmd5
- Intergrated into most editors5
- Shortcuts5
- Great on large text files5
- Habit5
- Plugin manager options. Vim-plug, Pathogen, etc5
- Intuitive, once mastered4
- Perfect command line editor4
- Not MicroSoft1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Emacs
- So good and extensible, that one can get sidetracked4
- Hard to learn for beginners4
- Not default preinstalled in GNU/linux1
Cons of Neovim
Cons of Vim
- Ugly UI8
- Hard to learn5
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
What is Emacs?
What is Neovim?
What is Vim?
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
What companies use Neovim?
Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
What tools integrate with Emacs?
What tools integrate with Vim?
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+20