Evil mode for Emacs
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 24 Emacs packages
Brings Vim-style modal editing to Emacs, so Vim users keep their muscle memory. Common caveat: Vim behavior differs in some edge cases.
Brings Vim-style modal editing to Emacs, so Vim users keep their muscle memory. Common caveat: Vim behavior differs in some edge cases.
46 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 39
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 85%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 39 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Vim keybindings inside Emacs
“turn Emacs navigation into Vim-like navigation, make the editing modal, and thus make navigation hyper-efficient.”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Editing Code in Emacs” “getting my Vim/evil-mode key bindings to work was relatively straightforward, though not perfect”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs” “It's the best vim-emulation layer, to a certain degree it works even better than in Vim/Nvim.”
Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “Emacs Turns 50” - Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “1-Click GitHub Token Stealing via a VSCode Bug”
- Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving”
- Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Helix: A post-modern text editor”
- Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “Emacs Appearances in Pop Culture”
- Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “I have officially retired from Emacs”
- Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “I have officially retired from Emacs”
- Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text”
- Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Even More Batteries Included with Emacs”
- Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: I built a system for active note-taking in regular meetings like 1-1s”
- Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?”
Easy switch from Vim
“Evil mode and Doom made the jump possible without sacrificing too much productivity.”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “VSCode rebrands as "The open source AI code editor"” “using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Where to begin with "modern" Emacs?” “My muscle memory switched almost seamlessly from Vim to Emacs with Evil mode”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Helix: A post-modern text editor” - Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs”
- Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Editing Code in Emacs”
- Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Emacs, how it all started (for me)”
Better than Vim or Neovim
“It's the best vim-emulation layer, to a certain degree it works even better than in Vim/Nvim.”
Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “Emacs Turns 50” “in some cases it is even better than what Vim/Neovim have natively”
Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Txt: A fast, keyboard-driven terminal text editor for engineers” “It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again” - Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “I have officially retired from Emacs”
Stable and full-featured
“Emacs with vim bindings (evil mode) is also pretty great, and about as stable as it gets.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “1-Click GitHub Token Stealing via a VSCode Bug” “It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Imperfect Vim behavior in edge cases
“getting my Vim/evil-mode key bindings to work was relatively straightforward, though not perfect”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs” “it had too many edge cases that behave differently”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys”
Other Emacs packages people recommend
The four most recommended other Emacs packages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evil mode for EmacsThis page | 39 | 7 | 85% | 11 | — | Approved |
| agent-shell | 25 | 6 | 81% | 11 | — | Approved |
| TRAMP for Emacs | 25 | 10 | 71% | 8 | — | Approved |
| gptel | 20 | 1 | 95% | 12 | — | Approved |
| SLIME | 19 | 2 | 90% | 11 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 61 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's the best vim-emulation layer, to a certain degree it works even better than in Vim/Nvim.”
“It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim.”
“in some cases it is even better than what Vim/Neovim have natively”
“if the correct keystrokes are burned into your muscle memory, you can opt for Evil mode”
“Maybe try ghostel with evil-mode, if you're okay with Emacs”
“doom emacs with evil (vim keybindings) and org-mode is the absolute killer app”
“Vim-motions simply organizing that all into nice set of patterns - memorable and very practical”
“Evil-mode in Emacs feels like a built-in feature.”
“you should probably use evil-mode right from the start”
“That gets you Emacs-the-platform with Vim-the-editor.”
“Just use the emacs-native implementation”
“You can just use evil mode inside emacs and get the best of both worlds.”
“I have my instance set up to enable/disable evil via a keybinding. That way, the edge cases can be handled smoothly.”
“it had too many edge cases that behave differently”
“I use evil-mode in Emacs because of that.”
“Emacs with vim bindings (evil mode) is also pretty great, and about as stable as it gets.”
“Install (or configure) the Evil mode equivalent, and I'm happy.”
“It is the best of both worlds, and not just on paper. It actually works.”
“they are better than the source of inspiration”
“Evil is a tried-and-true Vim implementation that doesn't use Vimscript”
“Evil is a reimplementation of Vim in Emacs and it is great.”
“I spent considerable time with Spacemacs as well as evil-mode in my own config”
“Evil mode is a perfectly reasonable text editor mode.”
“My muscle memory switched almost seamlessly from Vim to Emacs with Evil mode”
“It wanders around, and has highlights in each season.”
“by the end of the 2nd season it is all the way off the rails and hurtling into a canyon.”
“I added Evil Mode to my emacs and never went back to vim”
“evil-mode has been a crucial part of my setup”
“Evil mode and Doom made the jump possible without sacrificing too much productivity.”
“I use Org mode with Evil, to get VIM keybindings.”
“how cool emacs&evil are for letting my do that to myself”
“evil-mode users typically figure out things much faster”
“turn Emacs navigation into Vim-like navigation, make the editing modal, and thus make navigation hyper-efficient.”
“I would've never tried emacs if Evil-mode wasn't so fantastic”
“Evil-mode in Emacs is fantastically good”
“getting my Vim/evil-mode key bindings to work was relatively straightforward, though not perfect”
“evil-mode (if you want Vim keybindings)”
“use evil mode or another modal mode for Emacs like god mode”
“using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that”
“evil makes emacs’s macros feel on par with the vims.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.