# Kakoune

18 Hacker News commenters recommended Kakoune and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Praised for a vim-like, selection-first editing model that composes easily with Unix tools and stays simple. Few critics; one reports a broken 'ga' command.

## Why people recommend it

- Different, refreshing editing philosophy (4 comments): "The different mental model is immediately compelling in some ways, and on balance I think it's a better approach." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47291727)) "Kakoune has an attractive philosophy. There's 'editor for life' potential." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49358160)) "It has great concepts to learn and a genuinely refreshing philosophy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49358033))
- Easy integration with Unix tools (4 comments): "Real kakoune has another radical idea that helix doesn't touch though, which is its thorough unix integration" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45792569)) "I am regularly surprised by how simple/quickly things can be done with Kakoune's shell based model" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49358897)) "kakoune is much more vim-like in making it easy to compose with other tools" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340237))
- Simple and stable to use (2 comments): "that one decision made Kakoune super stable and nice to use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50278830)) "ended up choosing kakoune for simplicity" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47288204))
- Familiar vim-like visual editing (2 comments): "The visual by default editing mode of Kakoune really made me like the vim way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352923)) "kakoune is much more vim-like in making it easy to compose with other tools" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340237))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Zed](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed.md): 700 recommend
- [GNU Emacs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/emacs.md): 648 recommend
- [Vim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vim.md): 513 recommend
- [Visual Studio Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio-code.md): 485 recommend
- [Neovim](https://hackerapproved.com/p/neovim.md): 295 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Kakoune", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kakoune/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).