Vim vs Notepad++ Comparison | StackShare

Overview

Vim

Stacks28.0K

Followers22.8K

Votes2.4K

Notepad++

Stacks20.5K

Followers16.8K

Votes420

Notepad++ vs Vim: What are the differences?

Notepad++: Free source code editor and Notepad replacement. 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; Vim: Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. 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.

Notepad++ and Vim can be categorized as "Text Editor" tools.

Some of the features offered by Notepad++ are:

Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4
PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace

On the other hand, Vim provides the following key features:

Vertically Split Windows
Vimdiff
Folding

"Syntax for all languages that i use", "Tabbed ui" and "Great code editor" are the key factors why developers consider Notepad++; whereas "Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing)", "Fast" and "Highly configurable" are the primary reasons why Vim is favored.

According to the StackShare community, Vim has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1159 company stacks & 5671 developers stacks; compared to Notepad++, which is listed in 275 company stacks and 3083 developer stacks.

Advice on Vim, Notepad++

Andrey

Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers

May 18, 2020

Decided

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 Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface.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

539k views539k

Comments

René

Sr. Financial Analyst

Aug 21, 2020

Review

I have used and like them both... here's my take on what to use in your case. 1. Use whatever software your instructor is using when learning a language. It makes it simpler to start. Then change to whatever you like. 2. Use an IDE (Integrated Development Enviroment). For Java I'd pick InteliJ (because I have found the Jetbrains IDEs great) or Visual Studio as a second pick (because it's free for individual coders). 3. Pick your text editor: the Atom vs Notepad++, vs others question Both Atom and Notepad++ offer many features and add-ons, making it a long-disputed competition. This is what drives to chose between one and the other, and I have been alternating: On Atom: The good: - Good looking coding environment - Good autocomplete - Project focused structure to your files The bad: - Higher system resources usage - Slower loading time (if you are opening and closing)

Notepad++ The good: - Very light system resources use - Fast and simple, with decent code higlighting - Loads very fast The bad: - Not as pretty as Atom - Autocomplete and syntax checking is not that good - File-focused editing

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Vim	Notepad++
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.	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.
Vertically Split Windows;Vimdiff;Folding;Plugins;Flexible Indenting;Unicode	Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding;User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4;PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace;GUI entirely customizable: minimalist, tab with close button, multi-line tab, vertical tab and vertical document list;Document Map;Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion and Function parameters hint;Multi-Document (Tab interface);Multi-View;WYSIWYG (Printing);Zoom in and zoom out;Multi-Language environment supported;Bookmark;Macro recording and playback;Launch with different arguments
Statistics
Stacks 28.0K	Stacks 20.5K
Followers 22.8K	Followers 16.8K
Votes 2.4K	Votes 420
Pros & Cons
Pros 347 Comes by default in most unix systems (remote editing) 328 Fast 312 Highly configurable 297 Less mouse dependence 247 Lightweight Cons 8 Ugly UI 5 Hard to learn	Pros 104 Syntax for all languages that i use 60 Tabbed ui 56 Great code editor 54 Fast and lightweight 38 Plugins Cons 3 No default plugin manager 2 Can't install more advanced packets

What are some alternatives to Vim, Notepad++?

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.

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.

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.

Brackets

With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, it is a modern text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser.

Neovim

Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: simplify maintenance and encourage contributions, split the work between multiple developers, enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source, and improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.

VSCodium

It is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VSCode.

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

gedit

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

Kakoune

Kakoune is a code editor heavily inspired by Vim, as such most of its commands are similar to vi’s ones. Kakoune can operate in two modes, normal and insertion. In insertion mode, keys are directly inserted into the current buffer. In normal mode, keys are used to manipulate the current selection and to enter insertion mode.