4 ms·

Ask HN: Vim vs. Neovim

4 points by endorphine 3y ago

I'm using vim for a long time now, but recently I heard that neovim is noticeably faster. Is that true? Have most folks switched to neovim by now? Should I care?

rzzzwilson 3y ago
I use whatever is linked under "vi" on my PATH. I just checked, and it's vim. My usage of the editor is pretty basic and I haven't felt that vim is slow, so I haven't looked at neovim.
johncoltrane 3y ago
~12 years with Vim, here. Neovim doesn't solve any problem _I_ might have with Vim so _I_ never considered switching. Should _you_? Only you can tell. Test it out and see for yourself. In my opinion, the huge delta between TextMate and Vim easily justified a switch, back then, but the differences between Vim and Neovim are way too marginal. If you are big on plugins, maybe, but I am not, so YMMV.
- endorphine 3y ago
  Would the editor being snappier justify a switch?
  - gregjor 3y ago
    Does vim feel slow to you now? I’ve used both, don’t notice any difference in “snappiness.” Terminal app on text files not really demanding a lot of resources.
    - endorphine 3y ago
      I'm under the impression that it was a bit more snappy, but I'm not sure, so that's why I ask
  - johncoltrane 3y ago
    Maybe, if Vim had performance issues. And even then, I would try to fix them before considering a switch. Anyway, it doesn't, so no.
alwillis 3y ago
> I'm using vim for a long time now, but recently I heard that neovim is noticeably faster. Is that true? Neovim is faster; of course, YMMV. Even if you use Neovim just like Vim, it's snappier—the refactor resulted in 30% less code. > Have most folks switched to neovim by now? Should I care? There's two broad groups. Users who have been using Vim for like 20 years and they have a configuration they like and see no reason to change. The other group wants all of the new hotness of Language Server Protocol, tree sitter, everything's asynchronous, there's a proper API and lots of new plugins that wouldn't be possible using Vimscript, for the most part. Check out https://neovim.io/doc/user/vim_diff.html#nvim-features https://neovim.io/doc/user/vim_diff.html#nvim-features for details. Being a Vim (now Neovim) user for close to 20 years, Neovim has attracted lots of new people to Vim-style editors and they've brought lots of energy. There's also been quite an influx of VS Code users. Neovim is not an IDE, but it can support many IDE-like features via plugins written in Lua. There are several Neovim distributions, which you can install quickly and play around without committing to anything [1]. LunaVim, LazyVim and AstroVim are popular Neovim distributions. It's important to understand that your existing .vimrc will Just Work if you want to start with that. [1]: https://github.com/rockerBOO/awesome-neovim#preconfigured-configuration https://github.com/rockerBOO/awesome-neovim#preconfigured-co...

4 points by endorphine 3y ago

I'm using vim for a long time now, but recently I heard that neovim is noticeably faster. Is that true? Have most folks switched to neovim by now? Should I care?

rzzzwilson 3y ago

I use whatever is linked under "vi" on my PATH. I just checked, and it's vim. My usage of the editor is pretty basic and I haven't felt that vim is slow, so I haven't looked at neovim.

johncoltrane 3y ago

~12 years with Vim, here. Neovim doesn't solve any problem _I_ might have with Vim so _I_ never considered switching. Should _you_? Only you can tell. Test it out and see for yourself. In my opinion, the huge delta between TextMate and Vim easily justified a switch, back then, but the differences between Vim and Neovim are way too marginal. If you are big on plugins, maybe, but I am not, so YMMV.

endorphine 3y ago
Would the editor being snappier justify a switch?
- gregjor 3y ago
  Does vim feel slow to you now? I’ve used both, don’t notice any difference in “snappiness.” Terminal app on text files not really demanding a lot of resources.
  - endorphine 3y ago
    I'm under the impression that it was a bit more snappy, but I'm not sure, so that's why I ask
- johncoltrane 3y ago
  Maybe, if Vim had performance issues. And even then, I would try to fix them before considering a switch. Anyway, it doesn't, so no.

alwillis 3y ago

> I'm using vim for a long time now, but recently I heard that neovim is noticeably faster. Is that true? Neovim is faster; of course, YMMV. Even if you use Neovim just like Vim, it's snappier—the refactor resulted in 30% less code. > Have most folks switched to neovim by now? Should I care? There's two broad groups. Users who have been using Vim for like 20 years and they have a configuration they like and see no reason to change. The other group wants all of the new hotness of Language Server Protocol, tree sitter, everything's asynchronous, there's a proper API and lots of new plugins that wouldn't be possible using Vimscript, for the most part. Check out https://neovim.io/doc/user/vim_diff.html#nvim-features https://neovim.io/doc/user/vim_diff.html#nvim-features for details. Being a Vim (now Neovim) user for close to 20 years, Neovim has attracted lots of new people to Vim-style editors and they've brought lots of energy. There's also been quite an influx of VS Code users. Neovim is not an IDE, but it can support many IDE-like features via plugins written in Lua. There are several Neovim distributions, which you can install quickly and play around without committing to anything [1]. LunaVim, LazyVim and AstroVim are popular Neovim distributions. It's important to understand that your existing .vimrc will Just Work if you want to start with that. [1]: https://github.com/rockerBOO/awesome-neovim#preconfigured-configuration https://github.com/rockerBOO/awesome-neovim#preconfigured-co...