Vim

A modal, keyboard-driven text editor descended from vi, still actively developed more than three decades after it started.

What it does

Vim edits text through composable modal commands — switch into Normal mode to move and manipulate text with short keystroke combinations (dw, ci", . to repeat), Insert mode to type, Visual mode to select — rather than relying on a mouse. It ships as a single, highly portable binary, extends through Vimscript (and, since Vim9, the faster Vim9script), and can run as a terminal program or a GUI (gVim).

Why people use it

• Available by default or via a one-line install on nearly every Unix-like system, including remote servers accessed only over SSH
• Modal editing becomes very fast for experienced users once the command vocabulary is muscle memory
• Decades of plugins, colorschemes, and documentation (:help is itself a respected reference)
• A single lightweight binary with no runtime dependencies to manage

Pros

• Extremely fast startup and responsiveness, even on constrained or remote machines
• Stable, backwards-compatible scripting surface built up over 30+ years
• Works identically across macOS, Linux, BSD, and Windows
• Active upstream development continued by its core maintainers; Vim 9.2 shipped in February 2026

Cons

• Steep learning curve for anyone unfamiliar with modal editing
• No built-in Language Server Protocol client — LSP support comes from third-party plugins (for example yegappan/lsp), unlike Neovim's built-in client
• Vimscript (even Vim9script) is a narrower, less general-purpose language than Lua, so some modern plugin ecosystems target Neovim first

Related Grove

Developer Tools