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Neovim vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?
Neovim and Visual Studio Code are widely used code editors. Neovim is a modern fork of the Vim text editor, designed for efficient text editing and customization. Visual Studio Code (VS Code), on the other hand, is a lightweight and versatile code editor that supports multiple programming languages and provides a rich ecosystem of extensions. Here are the key differences:
User Interface: Neovim has a minimalist and terminal-based interface, maintaining the core principles of Vim. It focuses on keyboard-centric editing and allows for extensive customization through configuration files. VS Code, in contrast, offers a feature-rich graphical user interface with a modern design, providing a more visual and interactive coding experience. It includes panels, sidebars, and menus for easy navigation and access to various features.
Editing Features: Neovim inherits powerful editing features from Vim, such as modal editing, multiple cursors, macros, and extensive text manipulation capabilities. It emphasizes efficient editing workflows and provides a vast array of keyboard shortcuts. VS Code also offers a range of editing features, including code completion, syntax highlighting, and code navigation tools. It provides a more traditional text editing experience with modern enhancements like IntelliSense.
Extensibility: Neovim offers a customizable ecosystem with plugins and configurations for tailored functionality. It supports scripting languages for plugin development. VS Code has a diverse extension marketplace, providing additional features, language support, and integration options with frameworks and libraries. Extensions in VS Code enhance functionality and allow customization of the editor's behavior.
Language Support: Neovim supports a wide range of programming languages through its extensible architecture and plugins. It provides syntax highlighting, code folding, and indentation support for various languages. VS Code offers extensive language support out-of-the-box for a diverse range of programming languages. It includes features like IntelliSense, code snippets, and language-specific extensions, enabling developers to work with different languages seamlessly.
Debugging and Tooling: Neovim, being primarily a text editor, has limited built-in debugging capabilities. However, it can be integrated with external tools and debuggers through plugins. VS Code, on the other hand, provides a comprehensive debugging experience with built-in support for various programming languages. It offers features like breakpoints, variable inspection, and interactive debugging for smooth troubleshooting.
In summary, Neovim is a highly customizable text editor based on Vim, emphasizing keyboard-centric editing and extensibility through plugins. It has a minimalistic interface and efficient editing features. Visual Studio Code is a versatile code editor with a modern interface, extensive language support, and a large extension ecosystem. It offers rich editing capabilities, easy extensibility, and built-in debugging. Both Neovim and Visual Studio Code cater to different preferences and workflows, allowing developers to choose the editor that suits their coding style and needs.
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!
Lightweight and versatile. Huge library of extensions that enable you to integrate a host of services to your development environment. VS Code's biggest strength is its library of extensions which enables it to directly compete with every single major IDE for almost all major programming languages.
Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.
Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.
I decided to choose VSCode over Sublime text for my Systems Programming class in C. What I love about VSCode is its awesome ability to add extensions. Intellisense is a beautiful debugger, and Remote SSH allows me to login and make real-time changes in VSCode to files on my university server. This is an awesome alternative to going back and forth on pushing/pulling code and logging into servers in the terminal. Great choice for anyone interested in C programming!
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 Visual Studio Code
- Powerful multilanguage IDE340
- Fast308
- Front-end develop out of the box193
- Support TypeScript IntelliSense158
- Very basic but free142
- Git integration126
- Intellisense106
- Faster than Atom78
- Better ui, easy plugins, and nice git integration53
- Great Refactoring Tools45
- Good Plugins44
- Terminal42
- Superb markdown support38
- Open Source36
- Extensions34
- Large & up-to-date extension community26
- Awesome UI26
- Powerful and fast24
- Portable22
- Best editor18
- Best code editor18
- Easy to get started with17
- Lots of extensions15
- Built on Electron15
- Crossplatform15
- Good for begginers15
- Extensions for everything14
- Open, cross-platform, fast, monthly updates14
- All Languages Support14
- Easy to use and learn13
- Extensible12
- "fast, stable & easy to use"12
- Totally customizable11
- Git out of the box11
- Faster edit for slow computer11
- Ui design is great11
- Useful for begginer11
- Great community10
- SSH support10
- Fast Startup10
- It has terminal and there are lots of shortcuts in it9
- Powerful Debugger9
- Great language support9
- Works With Almost EveryThing You Need9
- Python extension is fast8
- Can compile and run .py files8
- Great document formater7
- Features rich7
- He is not Michael6
- Awesome multi cursor support6
- Extension Echosystem6
- She is not Rachel6
- Language server client5
- Easy azure5
- SFTP Workspace5
- VSCode.pro Course makes it easy to learn5
- Very proffesional5
- Supports lots of operating systems4
- Has better support and more extentions for debugging4
- Excellent as git difftool and mergetool4
- Virtualenv integration4
- Has more than enough languages for any developer3
- Better autocompletes than Atom3
- Emmet preinstalled3
- 'batteries included'3
- More tools to integrate with vs3
- VS Code Server: Browser version of VS Code2
- Big extension marketplace2
- Customizable2
- Microsoft2
- Light2
- Fast and ruby is built right in2
- CMake support with autocomplete2
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Cons of Neovim
Cons of Visual Studio Code
- Slow startup46
- Resource hog at times29
- Poor refactoring20
- Poor UI Designer13
- Weak Ui design tools11
- Poor autocomplete10
- Super Slow8
- Huge cpu usage with few installed extension8
- Microsoft sends telemetry data8
- Poor in PHP7
- It's MicroSoft6
- Poor in Python3
- No Built in Browser Preview3
- No color Intergrator3
- Very basic for java development and buggy at times3
- No built in live Preview3
- Electron3
- Bad Plugin Architecture2
- Powered by Electron2
- Terminal does not identify path vars sometimes1
- Slow C++ Language Server1
