Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Neovim VS Spacevim

Compare Neovim VS Spacevim and see what are their differences

Neovim logo Neovim

Vim's rebirth for the 21st century

Spacevim logo Spacevim

SpaceVim is a distribution of the Vim editor that’s inspired by Spacemacs.
  • Neovim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-23
  • Spacevim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-11

Neovim features and specs

  • Extensibility
    Neovim is designed to be highly extensible with a robust API that allows for the development of custom plugins, making it easy to tailor the editor to individual workflows.
  • Asynchronous Plugins
    Support for asynchronous plugins enables smoother and faster performance by allowing tasks like linting and autocomplete to run in the background without freezing the editor.
  • Modern Codebase
    The refactored codebase improves maintainability and introduces new features more efficiently compared to the original Vim.
  • Compatibility
    Neovim maintains compatibility with existing Vim plugins and configuration, making it easier for users to transition from Vim.
  • Improved User Interface
    Neovim provides better support for modern terminal features, GUI interfaces, and offers features like an embedded terminal emulator.

Possible disadvantages of Neovim

  • Lack of Official GUI
    Neovim does not come with an official graphical user interface (GUI), which means users who prefer a graphical experience may need to rely on third-party options.
  • Smaller Community
    Although growing, Neovim’s community is smaller compared to Vim, which means fewer community-created resources and plugins.
  • Learning Curve
    New users might find Neovim’s highly customizable nature and reliance on configuration files challenging, especially if they are not familiar with Vim-type editors.
  • Potential Instability
    Frequent updates and changes can sometimes introduce bugs or instability, which may affect users who rely on a stable environment for their work.
  • Plugin Compatibility
    While most Vim plugins work, some could have compatibility issues or require modification to work with Neovim, necessitating additional effort from the user.

Spacevim features and specs

  • Pre-configured
    SpaceVim provides a pre-configured setup which makes it easier for users to get started with minimal setup time compared to vanilla Vim.
  • Customizability
    It offers high customizability enabling users to tailor the editor to their specific needs with easily configurable layers and plugins.
  • Community-driven
    Developed and improved upon by a large community, providing good support and documentation, as well as numerous plugins and features based on user feedback.
  • Layer System
    SpaceVim employs a layer system that allows for modular and organized configuration, simplifying the process of adding or removing features.
  • Multi-language support
    Supports different programming languages, offering features like enhanced syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and language-specific tools.

Possible disadvantages of Spacevim

  • Learning Curve
    Despite being easier to set up than Vim, SpaceVim still has a steep learning curve, especially for users unfamiliar with Vim's modal editing.
  • Performance
    SpaceVim can be slower than a bare Vim setup due to its additional features and plugins which can affect startup times and overall performance.
  • Complex Configuration
    While it offers great customizability, configuring SpaceVim can become complex and overbearing, especially for users needing fine-tuned custom setups.
  • Dependency Overhead
    Relies on several external plugins and dependencies, which might complicate the setup and management process, particularly in environments without access to package managers.
  • Incompatibility with Some Plugins
    Certain Vim plugins and scripts may not be compatible with SpaceVim or require additional configuration to work correctly.

Neovim videos

What is Neovim, and why should you care?

More videos:

Spacevim videos

SpeceVim First Impressions

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Neovim and Spacevim)
Text Editors
79 79%
21% 21
IDE
78 78%
22% 22
Software Development
71 71%
29% 29
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Neovim should be more popular than Spacevim. It has been mentiond 108 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.

Neovim mentions (108)

  • My Tech Stack in 2025
    PDE (Personalized Development Environment): Neovim. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Optimizing My Dev Workflow in 2025
    I've used VSCode for years. It's great, no doubt. But when you have to juggle up to 5 projects daily, you'll find that it's going to block you away. Mine feels heavy, especially with multiple windows and extensions. This is why I decided to find an alternative, until I started using NeoVim instead. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Setting Up Neovim for Automad Theme Development
    As the developer of the Automad flat-file content management system, I wanted to make working with Automad themes in Neovim as smooth as possible. Automad has its own templating syntax, so I created tree-sitter-automad to provide proper syntax highlighting. Since it’s not yet an official parser, you need to manually register it in Neovim. To speed up template writing, you can also add custom snippets using... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • How to turn NEOVIM into an IDE-like code editor in NIXOS?
    Welcome to my optimized Laravel development setup featuring Nvim with LazyVim integration. This configuration is tailored to enhance productivity and streamline the development workflow for Laravel projects. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Dear (Rust) Devs: Article Request
    You want to customize your Neovim config but you don't know Lua. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

Spacevim mentions (39)

  • How to start using Vim
    SpaceVim is a ready—to—use configuration that also provides an interface for configuring the editor and installing plugins. A similar project, Spacemacs, exists on the Internet, which they were inspired by. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Micro – A Modern Alternative to Nano
    I don't know how much you actually care, and I'm the nano OP of this comment chain/thread but there are some vims (and emacs) with plugins and what not built in. Only one I can think of off the top of my head is https://spacevim.org/ but theres a bunch. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Is it possible to use VIM as an ide?
    On the vim side, you can try https://spacevim.org. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Devil Mode for Emacs
    There's also spacevim: https://spacevim.org/ And to a certain extent the new Helix editor which uses space and context sensitive popup menues for discoverability to great effect IMNHO: https://helix-editor.com/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • colorscheme won't apply
    Hi, I'm new to using vim I followed the instruction from spacevim.org but this won't work.. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Neovim and Spacevim, you can also consider the following products

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

Spacemacs - Community-driven Emacs distribution that meshes Emacs and Vim features.

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

Doom Emacs - Emacs configuration similar to Spacemacs but faster and lighter.

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.

Vim-Plug - :hibiscus: Minimalist Vim Plugin Manager. Contribute to junegunn/vim-plug development by creating an account on GitHub.