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Vim vs gedit: What are the differences?

Introduction

Vim and gedit are both text editors commonly used for coding and programming tasks. Although they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Interface and Features: Vim is a highly customizable, terminal-based text editor with a steep learning curve. It offers a wide range of powerful features, including modal editing, extensive keyboard shortcuts, and support for various programming languages. On the other hand, gedit is a more user-friendly, graphical text editor that provides a simpler, intuitive interface with basic features suitable for casual users.

  2. Modes of Operation: Vim operates in different modes, including the command mode, insert mode, and visual mode, allowing users to perform various editing tasks efficiently. It also supports macros and plugins for further customization. In contrast, gedit does not have distinct modes but offers a more traditional text editing experience with common features like copy, paste, and undo.

  3. Customization and Extensibility: Vim is known for its extensive customization options, allowing users to personalize various aspects of their editing experience, such as keybindings, color schemes, and syntax highlighting. It also supports a vast array of plugins and scripts to enhance functionality. Gedit, while less customizable, still allows users to configure preferences and install plugins for additional features.

  4. Performance and Efficiency: Vim is designed to prioritize efficiency and speed, making it suitable for handling large files and performing complex editing tasks swiftly. Its highly optimized command-line interface contributes to its responsiveness. Gedit, being a graphical editor, may not be as fast as Vim but still offers good performance for common editing operations.

  5. Availability and Portability: Vim is available on various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is also highly customizable and can be used effectively in a terminal environment. Gedit, on the other hand, is primarily developed for the GNOME desktop environment and is commonly found on Linux distributions. While it is possible to install gedit on other platforms, its functionality may be limited outside of its native environment.

  6. Learning Curve: Vim has a steep learning curve due to its unique editing paradigm and the need to memorize numerous keyboard shortcuts. However, once mastered, Vim provides a highly efficient editing experience. Gedit, with its more user-friendly interface and familiar features, has a lower barrier to entry, making it easier to get started for beginners or users who prefer a less complicated editing environment.

In summary, Vim offers a highly customizable and efficient text editing experience with a steeper learning curve, suitable for advanced users and those who prioritize speed and power. On the other hand, gedit provides a more user-friendly interface with basic features, making it a good choice for casual users or beginners who prefer simplicity and ease of use.

Advice on gedit 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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Pros of gedit
Pros of Vim
  • 10
    Fast
  • 9
    Lightweight
  • 9
    GNOME Integration
  • 5
    Syntax Highlighting
  • 3
    Immediately starts
  • 3
    Tabbed UI
  • 2
    Free
  • 2
    I love gnu-linux
  • 1
    External tools and snippets
  • 1
    Supports every programming language
  • 1
    Spell Check
  • 1
    If you took cs50, you know gedit
  • 1
    Old gedit based on gtk2
  • 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 gedit
Cons of Vim
  • 2
    GTK3
  • 8
    Ugly UI
  • 5
    Hard to learn

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What is gedit?

gedit is the GNOME text editor. While aiming at simplicity and ease of use, gedit is a powerful general purpose text editor.

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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Blog Posts

What are some alternatives to gedit and Vim?
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.
Emacs
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.
Geany
Geany is a small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. Another goal was to be as independent as possible from a special Desktop Environment like KDE or GNOME - Geany only requires the GTK2 runtime libraries.
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.
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.
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