# Neovim 295 Hacker News commenters recommended Neovim and 111 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 6 years (20 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A keyboard-driven, extensible Vim fork with built-in LSP, Lua scripting and a strong plugin ecosystem, though critics cite breaking changes and an upgrade that deleted old Vim undo files. ## Why people recommend it - Fully keyboard-driven workflow (5 comments): "neovim on android/termux is actually easier to use than any of the IDE editor apps mainly due to everything being keyboard based" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47409443)) "I feel this is the superior paradigm: You don't even need to get to some specific location in order to edit it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47287466)) "youre using the keyboard to do most things anyway, so the keyboard can just stay open all of the time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46524180)) - Rich, extensible plugin ecosystem (4 comments): "There is more flexibility to extend easily, to customise, to make my environment fit using these more" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432017)) "a plugin you write for neovim can run in the terminal, in any Neovim GUI or in another application" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45897007)) "navigating and selecting things SYNTACTICALLY with nvim-treesitter-textobjects is life-changing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46287862)) - Native LSP and Lua scripting (3 comments): "the main advantages over Vim are just the Lua scripting instead of Vimscript, its support for language servers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47570342)) "With its own package manager now, and LSP library, you really don't need a lot of config tweaking" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47567889)) "moved to Neovim for other reasons, chiefly performance/LSP nativity/plugin ecosystem vitality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47097114)) - Keeps you focused and productive (3 comments): "I have found a huge productivity boost being able to stay in Neovim for extended periods of time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48371611)) "I mainly use (neo)vim because it has a less distracting interface than any other full blown IDE." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47376057)) "removing that micro-latency of "eye-to-mouse-to-tree" keeps you in the flow state much longer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46431922)) ## What people warn about - Upgrade deleted old undo files (8 comments): "they did it in a completely stupid way and responded to a bug report about it in a way that suggested this might not be just the occasional stupid" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49868424)) "That Neovim changed the default storage path for undo files is completely irrelevant to whether the contract for persistence should be broken." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49869740)) "It's not a good reason for just deleting the old undo file with no warning. All the new version needs to do is ignore it, not nuke it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49869095)) - Breaking changes and plugin churn (4 comments): "I moved to neovim (stable) with as few extensions as possible, and those I've pinned to some geriatric version." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48204221)) "No such thing exist in neovim (or at least in times when I was using it), so that churn never ends." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48539763)) "There have also been multiple breaking changes over the last five years, including breaking compatibility with established default vim keybindings." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47572374)) - Limited built-in terminal output window (2 comments): "instead of switching back from the alt screen and giving you your terminal back, they open a gimped little window within vim which makes it hard to navigate, copy, and search for things in the output" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919460)) "It doesn't support interactive commands. For example if you run a command that asks for input before finishing, it gets swallowed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49869277)) ## 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 - [VS Code](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vs-code.md): 273 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Neovim", https://hackerapproved.com/p/neovim/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).