Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Vis VS GNU Emacs

Compare Vis VS GNU Emacs and see what are their differences

Vis logo Vis

A vi-like editor based on Plan 9's structural regular expressions.

GNU Emacs logo GNU Emacs

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more.
  • Vis Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26
  • GNU Emacs Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-19

Vis features and specs

  • Efficiency
    Vis is designed to be a highly efficient, text-based editor that operates with low resource consumption, making it suitable for use on systems with limited hardware resources.
  • Modal Editing
    Inspired by Vim, Vis offers modal editing, which allows users to switch between different modes for inserting text and manipulating files, providing a powerful and efficient workflow.
  • Keyboard-centric Interface
    Vis, like Vim, emphasizes the use of keyboard shortcuts to navigate and edit text, which can lead to faster and more efficient text editing once mastered.
  • Configurable
    Vis is highly configurable, allowing users to customize and extend its functionalities to suit their specific needs and preferences.
  • Scripting Support
    Vis supports Lua scripting, which enables users to automate tasks and extend the editor's functionality with custom scripts.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project hosted on GitHub, Vis allows users to contribute to its development and customize the code to fit their needs.

Possible disadvantages of Vis

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Like other modal editors, Vis can be difficult for new users to learn, especially if they are accustomed to graphical editors or those without modal interfaces.
  • Limited Documentation
    Compared to more established editors like Vim, Vis has less extensive documentation and fewer tutorials, which can pose challenges for users attempting to learn or troubleshoot.
  • Smaller Community
    Vis has a smaller user community compared to editors like Vim and Emacs, which may result in less community support and fewer resources available online.
  • Less Mature Ecosystem
    Being a relatively newer project, Vis lacks the extensive plugin ecosystem that other editors, such as Vim, offer, limiting the availability of ready-to-use extensions.
  • Limited Platform Support
    Currently, Vis might not be as well-supported on all operating systems or platforms, which can limit its usability for some users.

GNU Emacs features and specs

  • Highly Extensible
    GNU Emacs is highly customizable, allowing users to configure nearly every aspect using Emacs Lisp. This makes it remarkably adaptable for various workflows.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem
    There is a wide array of plugins available for Emacs, extending its functionality for programming, text editing, project management, and more.
  • Versatile
    Aside from text editing, Emacs can function as an email client, web browser, terminal emulator, and more, making it a powerful multi-purpose tool.
  • Free and Open Source
    GNU Emacs is free to use and modify, with source code available under the GNU General Public License, encouraging collaborative improvement and transparency.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Emacs runs on many different operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and various Unix-like systems, ensuring a wide reach and consistent experience across platforms.

Possible disadvantages of GNU Emacs

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its vast array of features and unique keybindings, new users often find Emacs difficult to learn initially.
  • Performance
    Emacs can be slower compared to more lightweight text editors, especially when heavily customized or handling large files.
  • Keyboard-Centric Interface
    Emacs relies heavily on keyboard shortcuts, which can be overwhelming and complex, leading to potential finger strain from extensive use.
  • Complex Configuration
    While its customizability is a strength, configuring Emacs to fit personal needs can be time-consuming and complex, requiring knowledge of Emacs Lisp.

Vis videos

Vis 35 Radom Review & Range Test

More videos:

  • Review - Ending Explained! Locked Up (Vis A Vis: El Oasis) | Review | Netflix
  • Review - Polish Vis 35 - the best pistol of WWII?

GNU Emacs videos

Switching to GNU Emacs

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Vis and GNU Emacs)
Text Editors
14 14%
86% 86
IDE
14 14%
86% 86
Software Development
27 27%
73% 73
IDEs And Text Editors
5 5%
95% 95

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Vis and GNU Emacs

Vis Reviews

We have no reviews of Vis yet.
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GNU Emacs Reviews

14 BEST LaTeX Editor for Mac & Windows in 2022
Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators. It is one of the best LaTeX editor for Mac that allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
Source: www.guru99.com
The Top 7 Notepad++ Alternatives for You
Emacs has been around in its various forms since 1976 and is another very worthy Notepad++ alternative. When I first started using Emacs I have to admit that I didn’t find it the easiest to use. But once I got used to it I realized just how powerful Emacs is for the programming community.
10 Best Notepad++ Alternatives in 2020
Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators. It allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
Source: www.guru99.com
7 open source alternatives to Dreamweaver
Vim or Emacs. Without participating in the holy war between these two traditional text editors, I can safely say that there are a number of enhancements for web editing available for both. So if you're already a terminal junkie, take your pick. Or, if those don't satisfy, try one of these Emacs/Vim alternatives.
Source: opensource.com
10 Best Sublime Text Alternatives in 2019
Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators. It allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text.
Source: www.guru99.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Vis should be more popular than GNU Emacs. It has been mentiond 36 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.

Vis mentions (36)

  • Ad: An Adaptable Text Editor
    People should be aware of two related editors: https://anvil-editor.net/ is an editor more directly inspired by and similar to Acme (but makes no attempt to borrow from Vim). https://github.com/martanne/vis is a minimalist editor that stays close to Vim but adds Sam-style regular extensions and multi-cursor editing. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • The Anvil Text Editor
    There's also vis[0] It is an editor that combines best parts from vim and plan9 sam[0] (multiple cursors, structural regular expressions). 0 - https://github.com/martanne/vis. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Show HN: Ki Editor
    Another editor that people might be interested in (and I think more people should know about) is https://github.com/martanne/vis. It is, in some ways, the opposite of Ki; instead of straying further from vim, Vis is just Vim + good multiple cursor support + sam-styled structural regexes (I didn't know what those are before using Vis, I consider it a detail of how the... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • A tutorial for the Sam command language (1986) [pdf]
    If you'd like to try out the sam command language yourself, there's an X11 port that works quite nicely on modern POSIX systems: https://github.com/deadpixi/sam. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Why Kakoune
    > Kakoune gives you: > Small and understandable core. > Proficiency with POSIX tools, and maybe even some programming languages other than sh. > Structural regular expressions as a central way of text manipulation. > With multiple selections created via regular expressions, acting upon regular expressions. > Fresh take on the modal editing paradigm. I wonder if the author has ever heard of vis[0] which imho... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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GNU Emacs mentions (6)

  • Emacs daemon as sytemd service in debian 12 (gnome)
    Cat .config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/emacs.service [Unit] Description=Emacs text editor Documentation=info:emacs man:emacs(1) https://gnu.org/software/emacs/ [Service] Type=notify ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/emacs --fg-daemon # Emacs will exit with status 15 after having received SIGTERM, which # is the default "KillSignal" value systemd uses to stop services. SuccessExitStatus=15 # The location of the... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Why does emacs exec path variable not just copy the users path variable?
    ## If your Emacs is installed in a non-standard location, you may need ## to copy this file to a standard directory, eg ~/.config/systemd/user/ . ## If you install this file by hand, change the "Exec" lines below ## to use absolute file names for the executables. [Unit] Description=Emacs text editor Documentation=info:emacs man:emacs(1)... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Hi DM's, what medium do you use to organise your campaign?
    For gathering notes, writing and organizing, Org-Roam which implies Org and Emacs. Source: over 2 years ago
  • This Guy is getting out of control at this point.
    I was heading to gnu.org/software/emacs to prove my point and it said:. Source: over 3 years ago
  • opam doesn't see emacs?
    <><> Version-specific details <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 🐫 Version 1 Repository default Homepage: "http://gnu.org/software/emacs" Bug-reports: "https://github.com/ocaml/opam-repository/issues" Authors: "anil@recoil.org" Maintainer: "anil@recoil.org" License: "GPL-1.0-or-later" Flags: conf Synopsis Virtual package to install the Emacs editor Description This... Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Vis and GNU Emacs, you can also consider the following products

Micro - Modern terminal-based text editor

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

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

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.

4coder - Minimalist, cross platform, programmable, code editing environment for low level programming.

Neovim - Vim's rebirth for the 21st century