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ArcGIS VS Vim

Compare ArcGIS VS Vim and see what are their differences

ArcGIS logo ArcGIS

ArcGIS software is a data analysis, cloud-based mapping platform that allows users to customize maps and see real-time data ranging from logistics support to overall mapping analysis.

Vim logo Vim

Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing
  • ArcGIS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-22
  • Vim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23

ArcGIS features and specs

  • Comprehensive Toolset
    ArcGIS offers a wide range of tools for data analysis, map creation, spatial analytics, and geoprocessing, making it suitable for a variety of GIS applications.
  • Data Integration
    ArcGIS supports integration with various data types and formats, including CAD, satellite imagery, and real-time data streams, providing flexibility in data management.
  • User Community and Support
    ArcGIS has a large, active user community and extensive support resources, including online forums, tutorials, and documentation, facilitating user assistance and knowledge sharing.
  • Scalability
    ArcGIS is scalable from single-user desktop applications to enterprise-wide deployments, allowing organizations of all sizes to leverage its capabilities.
  • Advanced Spatial Analysis
    ArcGIS provides advanced spatial analysis capabilities, including 3D mapping, network analysis, and spatial statistics, enabling in-depth geographic insights.

Possible disadvantages of ArcGIS

  • Cost
    ArcGIS can be expensive, requiring significant investment for licensing, maintenance, and potentially additional modules or extensions.
  • Learning Curve
    The software has a steep learning curve, particularly for new users, due to its comprehensive and complex functionalities.
  • Resource Intensive
    ArcGIS can be resource-intensive, requiring robust hardware and processing power, which may be a limitation for users with older or less powerful systems.
  • Closed Ecosystem
    ArcGIS operates within a largely proprietary ecosystem, which can limit compatibility and integration with non-Esri systems and tools.
  • Maintenance and Updates
    Frequent updates and maintenance requirements can be time-consuming and sometimes disrupt workflow, necessitating constant attention from IT staff.

Vim features and specs

  • Efficiency
    Once learned, Vim can significantly speed up text editing with its modal editing, keyboard shortcuts, and commands that allow for quick navigation and manipulation of text.
  • Lightweight
    Vim is a very lightweight editor, consuming minimal system resources, making it highly performant even on systems with lower specifications.
  • Customizability
    Vim is highly configurable and extensible through plugins and user-defined settings, allowing users to tailor the editor to their specific needs.
  • Ubiquity
    Vim is available on almost every Unix-like system and even on Windows, making it a ubiquitous tool that you can rely on being available in most environments.
  • Support for Multiple Programming Languages
    Vim supports a wide range of programming languages out of the box and offers syntax highlighting, which can be enhanced through plugins.
  • Powerful Search and Replace
    Vim offers robust searching and replacing functionalities, including support for regular expressions, which can be a powerful tool for developers.

Possible disadvantages of Vim

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Vim's modal editing and extensive set of commands can be daunting for new users, requiring significant time and effort to master.
  • Minimal Default Config
    The default configuration of Vim is quite minimalistic, which may necessitate additional setup and customization to meet modern development needs.
  • Limited GUI
    Vim primarily operates in a terminal, and while there are graphical variants like GVim, they are not as feature-rich or user-friendly as modern GUI editors.
  • Plugin Management
    While Vim is highly extensible, managing and configuring plugins can be cumbersome compared to more modern editors that offer integrated plugin management.
  • Inconsistent Behavior Across Platforms
    There may be inconsistencies in behavior or available features of Vim across different operating systems, which can complicate its use in certain environments.
  • Lack of Integrated Modern Features
    Vim lacks some modern IDE features like integrated debugging, advanced code introspection, and refined autocompletion, which often require third-party plugins to achieve.

ArcGIS videos

What is ArcGIS?

More videos:

  • Review - ArcGIS Data Reviewer: An Introduction
  • Review - ArcGIS Data Reviewer: Integrating Data Quality Control into Web Applications
  • Review - ArcGIS Review: History teacher heaven!
  • Review - ArcGIS Review: WJCUD mapping and asset collection

Vim videos

What Vim Is and Why You Should Learn It

More videos:

  • Review - JAC Vapour VIM Review - JAC does a side by side mod...
  • Review - Jac Vapour VIM - Quick Look

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ArcGIS and Vim)
Maps
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
0 0%
100% 100
Mapping And GIS
100 100%
0% 0
IDE
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using ArcGIS and Vim. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare ArcGIS and Vim

ArcGIS Reviews

Top 7 ArcGIS Alternatives For Your GIS Needs
ArcGIS is a scalable and secure GIS software platform developed by Esri. It enables customers to enhance decision-making by collecting, managing, and analyzing data and sharing apps and maps with a collaborative and connected online geographic information system. From transportation to retail, urban planning, and even retail management, ArcGIS offers applications for every...
Source: nextbillion.ai
Top 10 GIS Software Tools And Solutions
Despite its strengths, ArcGIS Pro does have some limitations. The high licensing cost can be a significant barrier, particularly for smaller organisations or individual users. Project files can become bulky, which may affect performance and storage. MXD file conversions often result in missing objects, which can complicate transitions from older versions of ArcGIS. License...
Source: em360tech.com
Top 3 GIS & Map Dashboard Software to Watch in 2025
ArcGIS Dashboards, part of Esri's ArcGIS ecosystem, is designed for professionals who need detailed geospatial analysis and sophisticated map dashboards.
Source: atlas.co
18 Top Google Places API Alternatives for Points of Interest Data in 2022
If you’re an ArcGIS user, you can use its geocoding service to search for a location and return complete addresses. You can also use it to search for name of a business within a specific distance from a location or find places by category name.
Source: traveltime.com
The Top 10 Alternatives to ArcGIS
GIS software is a powerful tool that enables for the presentation, collection, manipulation, management, and analysis of spatial data. It is therefore no surprise that it is used in such a variety of industries ranging from transportation and infrastructure, to environmental planning and disaster response. Currently, ArcGIS is one of the world-leading GIS software available,...

Vim Reviews

Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
Vim offers a variety of features like split windows, macros, and extensive customization options. It has a steep learning curve, but once you master it, you’ll be amazed at the speed and productivity it brings to your coding workflow. Vim is a favorite among experienced developers who value speed and efficiency above all else.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
It’s tough to say which developers would enjoy Vim as a text editor. It’s an old system with an outdated interface. Yet, it still has the charm and powerful feature-set that the average developer needs. I would recommend it to more advanced developers who enjoy using open source software and being a part of a community–like the one you can find behind Vim.
Source: kinsta.com
12 Best LaTeX Editors You Should Use
The entire installation process is perfectly documented on their Sourceforge page, which you must definitely pay a visit. There is another standalone Vim software, known as the gVim that brings a GUI-based interface to the Vim document editor. Vim-LaTeX has been developed specifically for the programmers and it is so highly configurable that it can function anyway, ranging...
Source: beebom.com
The Top 7 Notepad++ Alternatives for You
Vim is a totally free Notepad++ alternative. It is available to use on Windows, Mac and Linux computers and it is very powerful. I was able to customize Vim to get it to look and function just how I want it. There is really good help support with Vim so if you are new to programming it will get you through most issues.
10 Best Notepad++ Alternatives in 2020
Vim is an advanced text editor open source tool which is also considered to be an IDE in its way. This tool allows managing your text editing activities with vim editors and UNIX System which can be used on-premise or online.
Source: www.guru99.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Vim seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ArcGIS mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of ArcGIS yet. Tracking of ArcGIS recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Vim mentions (10)

  • regular Vim has lua?!
    Lua is quite small, encouraging distros to include it. The ubuntu gvim has, and the gvim AppImage linked from vim.org does. The default Makefile from github is set up to not include it, but you can uncomment one line there to get it. Source: about 2 years ago
  • is there a way to make highlighted text persistent after quit when using something like [match Search /\%'.line('.').'l/] ?
    I've not used vimwiki locally (tho I'm old enough to remember the Vim wiki on vim.org :), but I think what you are wanting to do is extend vimwiki's syntax file. I presume it installs one at $VIMRUNTIM/syntax or or ~/.vim/syntax. If this sounds right, then create a ~/.vim/after/syntax/vimwiki.vim file and place your match command in there. Then everytime you open a vimwiki file it should apply your... Source: over 2 years ago
  • vim.org - Is there a reason for this 1800s-esque design?
    Vim.org has 242k total visitors, tailwindcss.com has 4.4m, planetscale.com has 412k, jpl.nasa.gov has 2.6m, all built with Tailwind, all several years younger than Vim's website. Unnecessary comparison, unnecessary defence. It's a valuable tool, fine, but a complete disregard for anyone who doesn't love a crappy website and would like to navigate a website like a normal human is not something to be defended. Maybe... Source: over 2 years ago
  • What is YOUR process of writing ?
    I write in Vim with some customizations in my vimrc to gear it more towards prose writing than code editing. It's not pretty, but Normal Mode and Ex commands are the most powerful text editing tools out there, so that means I spend less time on making corrections and other edits. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Why developers need to know about Vim
    If you are open minded and would like to try it out, click me for more information! Cheers. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing ArcGIS and Vim, you can also consider the following products

OSGeo - QGIS is a desktop geographic information system, or GIS.

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Google Maps - Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

Mapbox - An open source mapping platform for custom designed maps. Our APIs and SDKs are the building blocks to integrate location into any mobile or web app.

Notepad++ - A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.