
Sublime Text
VS Code
Notepad++
GNU Emacs
Microsoft Visual Studio
Netbeans
IntelliJ IDEA
Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

Sway
dwm
Openbox
awesome
bspwm
Fluxbox
Hyprland
A dynamic tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii, and written in C.
Which is more popular?
Based on our record, i3 should be more popular than Vim. It has been mentioned 93 times since March 2021.
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
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| Website | vim.org | i3wm.org |
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What each product offers, as listed by its team.


Possible disadvantages
Possible disadvantages
An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.


Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
Vim is recommended for programmers, developers, and system administrators who require a highly efficient and customizable text editing experience. It is especially useful for those who work extensively in terminal environments or need a quick, resource-light text editor for remote systems.
Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
i3wm is recommended for advanced users, developers, and anyone who prefers a keyboard-centric interface. It is ideal for users who like to customize their environment extensively and are comfortable with configuring software via text files. New users with a willingness to learn may also find it rewarding.
Walkthroughs and reviews on video.
What Vim Is and Why You Should Learn It
More videos
30k Miles with the BMW i3 - End of Lease Review
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How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.


Share your experience with using Vim and i3. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.


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...
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 It’s an old system with an outdated interface.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...
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...
Sway is a tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that dynamically arranges app windows to rationally maximise desktop space. It is free, open-source, and lightweight. By default, it arranges windows in a grid and...
i3-wm is one of my most loved standalone window managers, qualifying it to easily fit under the desktop environment list! The configuration is just very easy, and you can change everything that you see on screen. This...
Sway is a free, open-source, and lightweight tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that automatically arranges app windows to logically maximize desktop space. It arranges windows into a grid by default and...
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.


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: over 3 years ago
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... Source: almost 4 years ago
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... Source: about 4 years ago
In my case, I decided to go with a compositor instead of desktop environment. I have already used others windows tilling managers such as i3wm. This time, I want something that has more features out-of-the-box. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
I've been using Omarchy as my main setup since June 26, 2025, the day DHH released the first version. Before that I had my own custom Opinionated Linux, mclovin-ARCHived: an Arch + i3wm installer set up exactly the way I liked. It was... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
Then few years back, in 2015, I got shown i3wm and used it on my ubuntu-netinstall until 2020, then I switched to Budgie and my personal laptop has been using that ever since. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
When comparing Vim and i3, you can also consider the following products.

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.
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Sway is a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager, but for Wayland instead of X11.
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Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft
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dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts. All of the layouts can be applied dynamically, optimising the environment for the application in use and the task performed.
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A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.
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Openbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.
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