Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Spacemacs VS Vim-Plug

Compare Spacemacs VS Vim-Plug and see what are their differences

Spacemacs logo Spacemacs

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

Vim-Plug logo Vim-Plug

:hibiscus: Minimalist Vim Plugin Manager. Contribute to junegunn/vim-plug development by creating an account on GitHub.
  • Spacemacs Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-04-26
  • Vim-Plug Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-30

Spacemacs features and specs

  • Customizability
    Spacemacs is highly customizable, leveraging the power of Emacs and Vim. Users can tailor their development environment to exactly fit their workflow.
  • Community-driven
    Spacemacs benefits from a strong, active community. Users have access to a wealth of shared configurations, extensions, and advice.
  • Hybrid Model
    Combines the best features of Emacs and Vim, allowing users to switch easily between editing styles and take advantage of both systems’ strengths.
  • Ease of Setup
    Spacemacs provides an easy-to-use distribution of Emacs, simplifying the initial setup process and making it more accessible for newcomers.
  • Rich Documentation
    Spacemacs comes with extensive documentation, both official and user-generated, which makes it easier to learn and troubleshoot issues.

Possible disadvantages of Spacemacs

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Despite simplifying Emacs, Spacemacs can still be daunting for beginners, requiring time and effort to master.
  • Performance
    Spacemacs can be slow to start up and may lag with heavy configurations or large files, impacting overall performance.
  • Complexity
    The combination of Emacs and Vim features can add layers of complexity, potentially overwhelming users who may prefer a more straightforward tool.
  • Dependency on Emacs
    Users are still reliant on Emacs and its ecosystem, which might be a downside for those looking to avoid the intricacies of Emacs altogether.
  • Resource Intensive
    Compared to other editors, Spacemacs can be more resource-intensive, consuming more memory and CPU power.

Vim-Plug features and specs

  • User-Friendly Syntax
    Vim-Plug uses a simple, concise syntax for plugin management which makes it easy to add, update, and remove plugins.
  • Parallel Installation
    Vim-Plug supports parallel installation of plugins, which significantly speeds up the process of setting up and updating plugins.
  • On-Demand Loading
    It provides the ability to defer loading of plugins until they are actually required, which can improve startup time and overall performance.
  • Extensive Documentation
    Vim-Plug is well-documented with a detailed guide and plenty of examples, making it easier for new users to get started.
  • Partial and Lazy Plugin Support
    Supports loading of plugins only when specific commands are invoked or files are opened, optimizing resource usage.

Possible disadvantages of Vim-Plug

  • Vim-Only
    Vim-Plug is designed specifically for Vim and Neovim, making it unsuitable for users of different text editors.
  • Manual Configuration
    While flexible, users need to manually configure their `vimrc` to manage plugins, which might be daunting for beginners.
  • Dependency Management
    Vim-Plug does not have built-in support for handling plugin dependencies, which means users must manually manage dependencies.
  • Conflict Resolution
    There are no advanced features for resolving conflicts between plugins, requiring users to manually troubleshoot issues.
  • Plugin Removal
    While Vim-Plug can remove plugins from the listing, residual files and configurations might still remain, requiring additional cleaning steps.

Spacemacs videos

Spacemacs For Noobs

More videos:

  • Review - Can VSCode be a reasonable Spacemacs alternative? (VSpaceCode)
  • Review - EmacsCast 4 - Spacemacs vs Doom vs Emacs

Vim-Plug videos

Why and How I Use Vim-Plug to Manage My Vim Plugins

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Spacemacs and Vim-Plug)
Text Editors
51 51%
49% 49
IDE
50 50%
50% 50
Software Development
32 32%
68% 68
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

Spacemacs Reviews

Top 8 Sublime Text Alternatives You Can Use in 2019
Spacemacs uses the space bar as a default leader key, which is where the program gets its name from. The syntax highlighting feature on Spacemacs is enabled by default for all major programming languages, and it is configurable manually through configuration files as well as via internal commands. For all its positives, the program can be quite a bit glitchy at times. From...
Source: beebom.com

Vim-Plug Reviews

We have no reviews of Vim-Plug yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Vim-Plug seems to be a lot more popular than Spacemacs. While we know about 95 links to Vim-Plug, we've tracked only 6 mentions of Spacemacs. 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.

Spacemacs mentions (6)

  • Our teacher only allows us to use VIM
    Show them spacemacs.org, github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs or at least spacevim.org. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Creating Haskell notebooks with org-mode
    Your Emacs will need some packages: org, org-babel and haskell-mode. If you use spacemacs it is enough to add these layers in your .spacemacs:. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
  • Vim Users! Share your Clever Configs and Plugin Setups (or learn something new)🔥
    Try https://spacemacs.org magit + org-mode are the big selling points. Magit especially for programming. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Emacs' org-mode gets citation support
    Aside from editing on mobile devices, I think Emacs isn't as hard to pick up as it once was. It's certainly not easy but tools like Spacemacs or Doom make it much simpler to get started and really limit the need to create and edit a complicated little library of your Elisp code. http://spacemacs.org https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs. - Source: Hacker News / almost 4 years ago
  • A guide to create tmux like Custom Layouts in Spacemacs
    Coming from a vim world with tmux, I had really missed the multiple split window layout in Spacemacs. But after knowing how to define custom layouts this seemed to be an easy exercise for me. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
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Vim-Plug mentions (95)

  • How to Setup Vim for Kotlin Development
    Some examples are vim-plug, vundle, or, lazy.nvim. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Lite 🚀 ApolloNvim Distro 2024
    👉 If you are missing a plugin, you can easily install or uninstall it using vim.plug. For more information, please visit vim.plug on GitHub or I'd be happy to advise you see about us. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • I a Avid Vim User, Finally Migrated to Neovim! How does it work, what do I gain from it?
    I have been talking about plugins since the beginning of the article, but using a simple editor doesn't involve doing everything by hand. So I have been using a plugin manager for a long time and if you don't, I strongly advise you to get started: it's very practical. I used Vim plug which was everything I like: simple and effective. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • How to use vim-plug with init.lua? win11
    Is it possible to use vim-plug with init.lua? https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Vimtex not loading (vim-plug)
    Did you really install VimTeX? Did you run :PlugInstall? Ensure you installed and set up vim-plug correctly (https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug). If VimTeX is installed, it should be installed to '~/.vim/plugged', thus you can open a terminal, then cd ~/.vim/plugged/vimtex and you should find the files there. Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Spacemacs and Vim-Plug, you can also consider the following products

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

Vim Awesome - Awesome Vim plugins from across the universe

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

Neovim - Vim's rebirth for the 21st century

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

Kite - Kite helps you write code faster by bringing the web's programming knowledge into your editor.