Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PyCharm VS Kakoune

Compare PyCharm VS Kakoune and see what are their differences

PyCharm logo PyCharm

Python & Django IDE with intelligent code completion, on-the-fly error checking, quick-fixes, and much more...

Kakoune logo Kakoune

Vim inspired — Faster as in less keystrokes — Multiple selections — Orthogonal design
  • PyCharm Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-20
  • Kakoune Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-13

PyCharm features and specs

  • Comprehensive IDE
    PyCharm is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that comes with built-in tools for debugging, testing, profiling, and version control, which can significantly enhance productivity.
  • Smart Code Navigation
    PyCharm provides intelligent code navigation features such as code completion, code snippets, and quick jumps to definitions, enabling developers to write code more efficiently.
  • Integrated Tools
    PyCharm integrates with many external tools like Docker, SSH, and terminal, making it easy to manage environments and dependencies directly within the IDE.
  • Built-in Developer Assistance
    PyCharm offers robust developer assistance features such as real-time code analysis, refactoring tools, and coding suggestions, which help maintain code quality.
  • Extensive Plugin Ecosystem
    PyCharm supports a wide range of plugins that can extend its functionality, allowing for customization according to specific development needs or preferences.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    PyCharm is available on multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux, which ensures that teams working in different environments can use the same toolkit.

Possible disadvantages of PyCharm

  • Resource Intensive
    PyCharm can be quite heavy on system resources, consuming significant memory and CPU, which can slow down the system, especially on machines with lower specifications.
  • High Cost
    PyCharm's Professional Edition is a paid product, which might not be feasible for individual developers or small teams with limited budgets, although a free Community Edition is available.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive feature set, PyCharm can be overwhelming for beginners, and it may take some time for new users to become proficient with all its functionalities.
  • Occasional Performance Issues
    Some users report occasional performance lags and stability issues, especially when working on large projects or while using certain plugins.
  • Frequent Updates
    While updates are generally a positive feature, PyCharm's frequent updates can sometimes disrupt workflow and necessitate reconfiguring settings or updates to plugins.

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.

Analysis of PyCharm

Overall verdict

  • PyCharm is generally considered a top-tier IDE for professional Python development. It provides advanced features that enhance productivity and facilitate complex project management. However, it may be resource-intensive, and some of its advanced features are available only in the paid versions.

Why this product is good

  • PyCharm is developed by JetBrains, a company known for its comprehensive and robust IDEs. It offers a wide range of features such as intelligent code assistance, smart code navigation, and support for popular Python frameworks, which make it an excellent tool for Python development. Additionally, it integrates Version Control Systems (VCS) and various other tools which streamline the workflow.

Recommended for

  • Professional Python developers looking for a powerful IDE with robust features.
  • Developers who need integrated debugging and testing tools.
  • Teams working on complex projects that require tight integration with VCS and other development tools.
  • Educational purposes due to its support for learning and teaching Python.

PyCharm videos

Why Pycharm is the Best Python Editor/IDE!!!

More videos:

  • Review - Best Plugins for PyCharm
  • Tutorial - Pycharm Tutorial #1 - Setup & Basics

Kakoune videos

Kakoune Is A More Efficient Text Editor

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PyCharm and Kakoune)
Text Editors
80 80%
20% 20
IDE
83 83%
17% 17
IDEs And Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

PyCharm Reviews

Top 10 Visual Studio Alternatives
PyCharm is a dedicated Python Integrated Development Environment (IDE). It is well-known for offering various vital tools for Python developers. It is securely combined to make a suitable atmosphere for a good level and high productivity Python, website, and data science development process. Moreover, if you are a beginner, the PyCharm can be the one for you.
Top 4 Python and Data Science IDEs for 2021 and Beyond
PyCharm gives you a more professional experience. It isn’t easy to describe, but you’ll understand what I’m talking about after a couple of minutes of usage. The coding assistance is superb, the debugger works like a charm, and the environment management is as easy as it gets.
The Rise of Microsoft Visual Studio Code
The percentages on this graph are per editor. So we can see, for example, that 97% of engineers using PyCharm program in Python (which makes sense — it's in the name). Eclipse is dominated by Java (94%) and Visual Studio is mostly C# and C++ (88%). I can't really say which way the causality goes, but it seems that both the languages (Java, C#) and the IDEs (Eclipse, Visual...
Source: triplebyte.com
Top 5 Python IDEs For Data Science
Features Just like other IDEs, PyCharm has interesting features such as a code editor, errors highlighting, a powerful debugger with a graphical interface, besides of Git integration, SVN, and Mercurial. You can also customize your IDE, choosing between different themes, color schemes, and key-binding. Additionally, you can expand PyCharm’s features by adding plugins; You...

Kakoune Reviews

We have no reviews of Kakoune yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Kakoune 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.

PyCharm mentions (0)

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

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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What are some alternatives?

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

Microsoft Visual Studio - Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft.

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

IntelliJ IDEA - Capable and Ergonomic IDE for JVM

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

Xcode - Xcode is Apple’s powerful integrated development environment for creating great apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Xcode 4 includes the Xcode IDE, instruments, iOS Simulator, and the latest Mac OS X and iOS SDKs.

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