September 4, 2024

Is NeoVim better than Vim?

No.

It is not worse either -- it is just different.

You might think that "Neo" means new (and it does), but that does not necessarily imply better.

At the basic level (for a beginner who has mastered what is in the vimtutor), there should be no difference at all. You can run vim on even days, and nvim on odd days and not notice any difference.

On my linux system, typing "nvim" gets me NeoVim.

The big difference is that NeoVim incorporates the Lua language in lieu of Vimscript in normal vim. This is only important if you want to customize the editor in some way. There are other differences no doubt, and places where people wrangle over Vim being better than NeoVim or vice versa. I have virtually no experience with nvim, so I don't have much that I can say.

But there is no clear compelling reason to choose NeoVim.


Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's vim pages / tom@mmto.org