Notepad++ vs Sublime Text vs Vim

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Notepad++

19.4K
16K
+ 1
417
Sublime Text

32.7K
26.8K
+ 1
4K
Vim

26.4K
21.4K
+ 1
2.4K
Advice on Notepad++, Sublime Text, 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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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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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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Decisions about Notepad++, Sublime Text, and Vim
Kamaleshwar BN
Senior Software Engineer at Pulley · | 12 upvotes · 1.2M views

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.

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Andrey Ginger
Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers · | 3 upvotes · 475K views

Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark

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Simon Ibssa
Student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo · | 2 upvotes · 1.2M views

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!

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Pros of Notepad++
Pros of Sublime Text
Pros of Vim
  • 103
    Syntax for all languages that i use
  • 59
    Tabbed ui
  • 56
    Great code editor
  • 53
    Fast and lightweight
  • 38
    Plugins
  • 28
    Nice GUI
  • 26
    Regex & Special Character Search & Replace
  • 16
    Fast startup
  • 9
    Application is free, and plugins are too
  • 9
    Themes
  • 6
    Free
  • 4
    Very Lightweight
  • 3
    100% Free
  • 2
    Column selection
  • 1
    Awesome autocomplete
  • 1
    Easy edit on FTP servers (NppFTP)
  • 1
    Cos it's seck
  • 1
    Nice gui. are you kidding me?
  • 1
    Open Sourced
  • 720
    Lightweight
  • 652
    Plugins
  • 641
    Super fast
  • 468
    Great code editor
  • 442
    Cross platform
  • 280
    Nice UI
  • 260
    Unlimited trial
  • 153
    Cmd + d is the best command ever
  • 92
    Great community
  • 46
    Package control, modules
  • 26
    Mac OS X support
  • 23
    Easy to get started with
  • 22
    Monokai
  • 21
    Everything you need without the bloat
  • 21
    Built in Python
  • 18
    Easy
  • 14
    Speed
  • 12
    Session & edit resuming
  • 10
    Package Control
  • 9
    Well Designed
  • 8
    Multiple selections
  • 7
    ALT + CMD + DOWN is the best command ever
  • 7
    Nice
  • 7
    Fast, simple and lightweight
  • 5
    It's easy to use, beautiful, simple, and plugins rule
  • 5
    So futuristic and convenient
  • 5
    ALT + F3 the best command ever
  • 5
    Great
  • 4
    Find anything fast within entire project
  • 4
    Easy to use
  • 4
    Free
  • 4
    Simple and clean design
  • 3
    Hackable
  • 3
    Pretty
  • 3
    UI + plugins
  • 3
    Sublime Merge (Git Integration)
  • 2
    Totally customizable
  • 2
    Color schemes and cmd+d
  • 2
    Material theme best theme forever
  • 0
    Const
  • 347
    Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing)
  • 327
    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
    Unmatched productivity
  • 8
    A chainsaw for text editing
  • 7
    Makes you a true bearded developer
  • 7
    Super fast
  • 7
    Developer speed
  • 7
    Because its not Emacs
  • 7
    Modal editing changes everything
  • 6
    Themes
  • 6
    You cannot exit
  • 5
    Plugin manager options. Vim-plug, Pathogen, etc
  • 5
    EasyMotion
  • 5
    Most and most powerful plugins of any editor
  • 5
    Habit
  • 5
    Intergrated into most editors
  • 5
    Shortcuts
  • 5
    Great on large text files
  • 5
    Shell escapes and shell imports :!<command> and !!cmd
  • 4
    Intuitive, once mastered
  • 4
    Perfect command line editor
  • 1
    Not MicroSoft

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Cons of Notepad++
Cons of Sublime Text
Cons of Vim
  • 3
    No default plugin manager
  • 2
    Can't install more advanced packets
  • 8
    Steep learning curve
  • 6
    Everything
  • 4
    Flexibility to move file
  • 4
    Number of plugins doing the same thing
  • 4
    Doesn't act like a Mac app
  • 3
    Not open sourced
  • 2
    Don't have flutter integration
  • 2
    Forces you to buy license
  • 8
    Ugly UI
  • 5
    Hard to learn

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What is Notepad++?

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

What is 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.

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 Notepad++?
What companies use Sublime Text?
What companies use Vim?

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What are some alternatives to Notepad++, Sublime Text, 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.
UltraEdit
It is a powerful, fast, and secure text editor whose helpful features make every day life easier for any user type and programming language. Windows, Mac, Linux.
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.
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.
CodeMirror
CodeMirror is a JavaScript component that provides a code editor in the browser. When a mode is available for the language you are coding in, it will color your code, and optionally help with indentation.
See all alternatives