Panic Nova
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 31 of 56 text editors by recommenders
A code editor people praise for fair pricing: you pay for a year of releases and keep the latest version after cancelling. The most common caveat is a limited extension system.
A code editor people praise for fair pricing: you pay for a year of releases and keep the latest version after cancelling. The most common caveat is a limited extension system.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Fair pricing, keeps latest version
“You pay for a year of releases, but if you unsubscribe you keep the latest version when your subscription was active.”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop” “Panic is good example of this kind of pricing.”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “BBEdit 16”
Other text editors people recommend
The four most recommended other text editors, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zed | 700 | 430 | 62% | 13 | 6 mo57 owners | — |
| GNU Emacs | 648 | 207 | 76% | 13 | 20 yrs158 owners | Approved |
| Vim | 513 | 127 | 80% | 13 | 20 yrs55 owners | Approved |
| Visual Studio Code | 485 | 547 | 47% | 12 | 2 yrs13 owners | — |
| Panic NovaThis page | 11 | 4 | 73% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
13 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“data is also ingested into another service they run called 'Nova', which is essentially a people search tool that connects the vehicles they capture directly to people and their PII”
“You pay for a year of releases, but if you unsubscribe you keep the latest version when your subscription was active.”
“general-purpose compute wins have made unnecessary”
“Everything bellow the six highlights in the former case should be its own page.”
“it does that out of the box with no configuration needed”
“Panic is good example of this kind of pricing.”
“No runtimes, no heavy frameworks, just Win32 and GDI.”
“auto-heal errors when you run the code, refactor instantly, and handle Git without jumping between tools”
“This Sounds Cool. Will definitely use it”
“its extension system is quite limited, especially sidebar customisation”
“It won't happen if you don't support it.”
“It’s terribly broken, which is unsurprising since it was never designed to do what it does”
“The responsiveness compared to apps like VSC or Panic’s Nova is night-and-day.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.