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Micro vs Vim: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will be discussing the key differences between Micro and Vim text editors. Micro and Vim are both powerful text editors used in various programming and development tasks. While they share some similarities, they have distinct features and workflows that set them apart.

  1. Ease of Use: Micro is known for its user-friendly and intuitive interface, making it easy for beginners to get started. It has a more modern and visually appealing design, with easy-to-understand keybindings. On the other hand, Vim has a steeper learning curve and follows a modal editing style, which may require some initial time investment to master its commands and navigation.

  2. Customizability: Vim is highly customizable and extensible, allowing users to create complex workflows and tailor the editor to their specific needs. It provides extensive customization options through plugins, scripts, and configuration files, making it a popular choice among power users and developers. Micro, while also customizable, has a more limited range of features and customization options compared to Vim.

  3. Community and Ecosystem: Vim has a large and dedicated community with an extensive ecosystem of third-party plugins, themes, and support resources. This vast community contributes to the richness and diversity of Vim's capabilities, making it a reliable tool for various programming tasks. Micro, being a relatively newer text editor, has a smaller community and a less mature ecosystem in comparison.

  4. Performance: Vim is known for its exceptional performance even when handling large files or working on remote servers. It has been optimized over the years to be efficient in terms of CPU and memory usage. Micro, on the other hand, may not be as performant as Vim when dealing with resource-intensive tasks or when handling extremely large files.

  5. Interface: Micro provides a more modern and graphical user interface that includes features like syntax highlighting, a file tree view, and a command palette. It aims to provide a familiar interface similar to a traditional Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Vim, in contrast, has a more streamlined and minimalistic interface, relying on keyboard commands and a terminal-based environment.

  6. Availability: Vim is a cross-platform text editor available for multiple operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. It comes pre-installed or can be easily installed on most Unix-like systems. Micro is also cross-platform, supporting various operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. However, its installation process may require additional steps compared to Vim.

In summary, Micro offers a user-friendly and visually appealing interface with a simplified workflow, while Vim provides extensive customizability, a robust community, and exceptional performance. The choice between Micro and Vim ultimately depends on individual preferences, familiarity with keyboard-based commands, and the specific requirements of the project at hand.

Advice on Micro 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 Micro
Pros of Vim
  • 4
    It feels like a GUI-based editor ... in a terminal
  • 3
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Supports traditional ctrl shortcuts and copyboard
  • 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 Micro
Cons of Vim
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 8
      Ugly UI
    • 5
      Hard to learn

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Micro ?

    Micro is a terminal-based text editor that aims to be easy to use and intuitive, while also taking advantage of the full capabilities of modern terminals. It comes as one single, batteries-included, static binary with no dependencies, and you can download and use it right now.

    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 Micro ?
    What companies use Vim?
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