# vis text editor

6 Hacker News commenters recommended vis text editor and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend vis as a lean, snappy vi-style editor with powerful structural regular expressions and a modern feel that keeps what made vi great.

## Why people recommend it

- Powerful structural regular expressions (3 comments): "feels so much snappier, lighter and intuitive - and the structural regular expressions part is outstanding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48119156)) "also has multicursor and powerful sam's structural regular expression" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285509)) "structural regexp like in vis" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477725))
- Lighter and snappier than alternatives (2 comments): "feels so much snappier, lighter and intuitive - and the structural regular expressions part is outstanding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48119156)) "it's way leaner and snappier" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48861695))

## 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, "vis text editor", https://hackerapproved.com/p/vis/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).