Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Vim VS Vim-Plug

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

Vim logo Vim

Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

Vim-Plug logo Vim-Plug

:hibiscus: Minimalist Vim Plugin Manager. Contribute to junegunn/vim-plug development by creating an account on GitHub.
  • Vim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23
  • Vim-Plug Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-30

Vim features and specs

  • Efficiency
    Once learned, Vim can significantly speed up text editing with its modal editing, keyboard shortcuts, and commands that allow for quick navigation and manipulation of text.
  • Lightweight
    Vim is a very lightweight editor, consuming minimal system resources, making it highly performant even on systems with lower specifications.
  • Customizability
    Vim is highly configurable and extensible through plugins and user-defined settings, allowing users to tailor the editor to their specific needs.
  • Ubiquity
    Vim is available on almost every Unix-like system and even on Windows, making it a ubiquitous tool that you can rely on being available in most environments.
  • Support for Multiple Programming Languages
    Vim supports a wide range of programming languages out of the box and offers syntax highlighting, which can be enhanced through plugins.
  • Powerful Search and Replace
    Vim offers robust searching and replacing functionalities, including support for regular expressions, which can be a powerful tool for developers.

Possible disadvantages of Vim

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Vim's modal editing and extensive set of commands can be daunting for new users, requiring significant time and effort to master.
  • Minimal Default Config
    The default configuration of Vim is quite minimalistic, which may necessitate additional setup and customization to meet modern development needs.
  • Limited GUI
    Vim primarily operates in a terminal, and while there are graphical variants like GVim, they are not as feature-rich or user-friendly as modern GUI editors.
  • Plugin Management
    While Vim is highly extensible, managing and configuring plugins can be cumbersome compared to more modern editors that offer integrated plugin management.
  • Inconsistent Behavior Across Platforms
    There may be inconsistencies in behavior or available features of Vim across different operating systems, which can complicate its use in certain environments.
  • Lack of Integrated Modern Features
    Vim lacks some modern IDE features like integrated debugging, advanced code introspection, and refined autocompletion, which often require third-party plugins to achieve.

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.

Vim videos

What Vim Is and Why You Should Learn It

More videos:

  • Review - JAC Vapour VIM Review - JAC does a side by side mod...
  • Review - Jac Vapour VIM - Quick Look

Vim-Plug videos

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Vim and Vim-Plug)
Text Editors
89 89%
11% 11
IDE
90 90%
10% 10
Software Development
82 82%
18% 18
Developer Tools
87 87%
13% 13

User comments

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Reviews

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

Vim Reviews

Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
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 coding workflow. Vim is a favorite among experienced developers who value speed and efficiency above all else.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
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 recommend it to more advanced developers who enjoy using open source software and being a part of a community–like the one you can find behind Vim.
Source: kinsta.com
12 Best LaTeX Editors You Should Use
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 to the Vim document editor. Vim-LaTeX has been developed specifically for the programmers and it is so highly configurable that it can function anyway, ranging...
Source: beebom.com
The Top 7 Notepad++ Alternatives for You
Vim is a totally free Notepad++ alternative. It is available to use on Windows, Mac and Linux computers and it is very powerful. I was able to customize Vim to get it to look and function just how I want it. There is really good help support with Vim so if you are new to programming it will get you through most issues.
10 Best Notepad++ Alternatives in 2020
Vim is an advanced text editor open source tool which is also considered to be an IDE in its way. This tool allows managing your text editing activities with vim editors and UNIX System which can be used on-premise or online.
Source: www.guru99.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 should be more popular than Vim. It has been mentiond 95 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.

Vim mentions (10)

  • regular Vim has lua?!
    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: about 2 years ago
  • is there a way to make highlighted text persistent after quit when using something like [match Search /\%'.line('.').'l/] ?
    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 this sounds right, then create a ~/.vim/after/syntax/vimwiki.vim file and place your match command in there. Then everytime you open a vimwiki file it should apply your... Source: over 2 years ago
  • vim.org - Is there a reason for this 1800s-esque design?
    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 valuable tool, fine, but a complete disregard for anyone who doesn't love a crappy website and would like to navigate a website like a normal human is not something to be defended. Maybe... Source: over 2 years ago
  • What is YOUR process of writing ?
    I write in Vim with some customizations in my vimrc to gear it more towards prose writing than code editing. It's not pretty, but Normal Mode and Ex commands are the most powerful text editing tools out there, so that means I spend less time on making corrections and other edits. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Why developers need to know about Vim
    If you are open minded and would like to try it out, click me for more information! Cheers. - Source: dev.to / over 3 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 / 4 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 / 10 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
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What are some alternatives?

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

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

Vim Awesome - Awesome Vim plugins from across the universe

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.

Neovim - Vim's rebirth for the 21st century

Notepad++ - A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.

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