Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Kakoune VS Xi Editor

Compare Kakoune VS Xi Editor and see what are their differences

Kakoune logo Kakoune

Vim inspired — Faster as in less keystrokes — Multiple selections — Orthogonal design

Xi Editor logo Xi Editor

Xi Editor is a text editor with a backend written in Rust.
  • Kakoune Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-13
  • Xi Editor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-22

Kakoune features and specs

  • Modal Editing
    Kakoune uses a modal editing style similar to Vim, which can be more efficient for experienced users who prefer to keep their hands on the keyboard.
  • Interactive and Asynchronous
    Kakoune is designed to be both interactive and asynchronous, providing immediate feedback for commands which can enhance the editing experience.
  • Selections
    Kakoune treats text editing as a multiple selections-oriented operation, enabling powerful, simultaneous edits across multiple text locations, which can speed up complex text manipulations.
  • Simplicity in Configuration
    Kakoune’s configuration files are written in a simple, declarative syntax, making it easier for users to customize their setup without extensive scripting.
  • Performance
    Kakoune is designed with performance in mind, resulting in a lightweight and fast editor even with large files.
  • Extensible Plugin System
    Kakoune supports various plugins and has a community-driven set of extensions, allowing users to extend functionality as needed.
  • Language Support
    Built-in support for syntax highlighting and other language-specific features for many programming languages.

Possible disadvantages of Kakoune

  • Learning Curve
    Kakoune has a steep learning curve, especially for users not familiar with modal editing or coming from different types of text editors.
  • Plugin Ecosystem
    While Kakoune has an extensible plugin system, its plugin ecosystem is not as mature or extensive as more established editors like Vim or Emacs.
  • Limited GUI Support
    Kakoune primarily operates in the terminal, with limited graphical user interface support, which might be a drawback for users who prefer more visual editing environments.
  • Smaller User Base
    Kakoune has a smaller user base compared to more mainstream editors, potentially resulting in fewer community resources, tutorials, and third-party tool integrations.
  • Reliance on Command Line
    Heavy reliance on command-line operations can be intimidating or cumbersome for users who are not comfortable with the terminal.
  • Limited IDE Features
    Kakoune lacks some of the advanced integrated development environment (IDE) features out-of-the-box, such as integrated debugging or project management tools.

Xi Editor features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Kakoune videos

Kakoune Is A More Efficient Text Editor

Xi Editor videos

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Kakoune and Xi Editor)
Text Editors
79 79%
21% 21
IDE
76 76%
24% 24
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
Software Development
71 71%
29% 29

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Xi Editor should be more popular than Kakoune. It has been mentiond 16 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.

Kakoune mentions (10)

  • Show HN: Ki Editor
    Fascinating idea! To summarize for those who know [Kakoune](https://github.com/mawww/kakoune), the idea is that every command has the form ["selection mode" -> "movement" -> "action"](https://ki-editor.github.io/ki-editor/comparisons/modal-editors.html) instead of Kakoune's movement->action. So, instead of having separate commands for "next character", "next word", "next structural element", there is one command... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Helix: Release 24.03 Highlights
    Helix's modal editing is based on Kakoune's modal editing which is like an evolution to Vim's modal editing. You can think of it as being always in selection (visual) mode. https://github.com/mawww/kakoune?tab=readme-ov-file#selectio.... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • I don't need your query language
    You might like kakoune (https://github.com/mawww/kakoune), which does exactly that: first you select the range (which can even be disjoint, e.g. All words matching a regex), then you operate on it. By default, the selected range is the character under cursor, and multiple cursors work out of the box. It also generally follows the Unix philosophy, e.g. By using shell... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • I use nano BTW.
    It might be worth checking out kakoune if you are experimenting with editors. It’s supposed to be equally powerful to vim but much easier to learn. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Mle is a small, flexible, terminal-based text editor written in C
    For that, try Kakoune[1], which is modal with a mostly-postfix language instead of vi's usually-prefix one and uses this to also be a multiple-selections editor with immediate visual feedback. It falls too much into the uncanny valley of almost-but-not-quite-vi for some people, though. [1] https://kakoune.org/, https://github.com/mawww/kakoune. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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Xi Editor mentions (16)

  • Zed is now open source
    Was confused until I realised I'd confused Zed, with Xi[1] which is also rust based, and which incidentally has a frontend called "Xim".. Also there's a wiki-editor (like Tomboy[2]) called "Zim"[3]. [1] https://github.com/xi-editor/xi-editor. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Text Editor: Data Structures
    Project site linked from the GitHub[0] is https://xi-editor.io. Linked doc is a mirror of this[1], which was afaik originally written by Raph Linus. [0]: https://github.com/xi-editor/xi-editor. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Google abandons work to move Assistant smart speakers to Fuchsia
    You’re referring to Raph Levien’s work on Xi [0]. Not really just a vim clone. In Fuchsia, it would have been the basis of all text editing services. If nothing else, it seems to have popularized rope data structures [1] for newer text editors. [0]: https://github.com/xi-editor/xi-editor. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Helix (a Kakoune / Neovim inspired editor) 23.03
    Helix is awesome, though once Lapce (spiritual successor to Xi editor) gets the Helix/Kakoune editing model, I may have to jump ship. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Modern Editor Architecture
    I am very surprised that you haven't even mentioned Xi text editor, which is (was) designed as a microservice to start with, separating the text editor core from the GUI. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Kakoune and Xi Editor, you can also consider the following products

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

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

Light Table - Light Table is a new interactive IDE that lets you modify running programs and embed anything from...

FINAL CUT - Library for creating terminal applications with text-based widgets

Nova Code Editor - Nova Code Editor is software that is used for writing and editing codes.

GNU Emacs - GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more.