Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Vim VS xterm

Compare Vim VS xterm and see what are their differences

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Vim logo Vim

Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

xterm logo xterm

You can download and use MobaXterm Home Edition for free.
  • Vim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-23
  • xterm Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-17

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.

xterm features and specs

  • Mature and Stable
    xterm is one of the oldest terminal emulators available, ensuring a stable and reliable performance with a long history of bug fixes and improvements.
  • Highly Configurable
    It offers extensive customization options through resource settings, allowing users to tailor the terminal to their specific needs, from colors to behavior.
  • Wide Compatibility
    xterm is compatible with virtually any Unix-like system, making it a versatile choice across different environments.
  • Rich Termcap/Terminfo Support
    It supports a wide range of terminal capabilities defined in termcap and terminfo, which helps ensure compatibility with various software applications.

Possible disadvantages of xterm

  • Complex Configuration
    The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring the editing of resource files and an understanding of numerous parameters.
  • Limited Modern Features
    Compared to some newer terminal emulators, xterm lacks certain modern features such as sophisticated user interfaces or integration with other tools.
  • Basic Appearance
    The default appearance of xterm is fairly plain and may not satisfy users looking for more aesthetically pleasing graphical interfaces.
  • Performance with Large Text Buffers
    xterm can be less performant than some modern terminals when handling very large text buffers or complex rendering tasks.

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

xterm videos

No xterm videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Vim and xterm)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
SSH
0 0%
100% 100
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Server Management
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 Vim and xterm

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

xterm Reviews

The 10 Best Linux Terminal Emulators
XTERM is the default emulator for the X window system. XTERM is a good choice for minimal Linux installations. Its minimalist approach makes it a good choice among many Linux users.
Top 14 Terminal Emulators for Linux (With Extra Features or Amazing Looks)
XTERM is one of the most popular terminal emulators out there. Even though it might seem to be a bloated option when compared to st, it’s still a decent option that you can try for X Window System.
Source: itsfoss.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Vim should be more popular than xterm. 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.

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
View more

xterm mentions (5)

  • Best Way to Open URLs in Your Terminal via Tmux
    I have been using tmux for a while now. It was really worth it, especially after I started using neovim. One thing was really missing though compared to my previous setup and that was opening URLs. I always used my mouse to do that, but now I couldn't even do that because I am using the good old xterm as a terminal which doesn't have a built in feature like that. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • CVE-2022-45063: Xterm
    -- For a better overview, see http://invisible-island.net/xterm/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • A good python library to replace libtcod for terminal play?
    Iterm2, gnome terminal, xterm, Konsole, macos Terminal, powershell, command, etc.. these all provide a common API which we normally use curses to interface with. But all of them basically reach into something lower level (opengl, vulkan, directx, etc.) to render the text, which ultimately is still pixels on a screen. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Convert terminal output to Images
    Xterm has had the ability to make HTML or SVG dumps of the screen since 2016 (patch 323). Source: almost 4 years ago
  • What terminal emulator do you use?
    Xterm — Simple terminal emulator for the X Window System. It provides DEC VT102 and Tektronix 4014 compatible terminals for programs that cannot use the window system directly https://invisible-island.net/xterm/. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

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

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

Konsole - Konsole is a free terminal emulator which is part of KDE Software Compilation.

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.

GNOME Terminal - GNOME Terminal is a terminal emulator for GNOME desktop.

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

ST - Simple Terminal - st is a simple terminal implementation for X.