vis text editor
Shares rank 42 of 56 text editors by recommenders
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.
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.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not 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 doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 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
Powerful structural regular expressions
“feels so much snappier, lighter and intuitive - and the structural regular expressions part is outstanding”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “The vi family” “also has multicursor and powerful sam's structural regular expression”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Helix: A post-modern text editor” “structural regexp like in vis”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys” Lighter and snappier than alternatives
“feels so much snappier, lighter and intuitive - and the structural regular expressions part is outstanding”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “The vi family” “it's way leaner and snappier”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “How do you use Vim in the era of AI?”
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 | — |
| vis text editorThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
7 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's way leaner and snappier”
“structural regexp like in vis”
“Vis really hits an spot between modern feel without losing what made vi great.”
“feels so much snappier, lighter and intuitive - and the structural regular expressions part is outstanding”
“also has multicursor and powerful sam's structural regular expression”
“Feel free to try out some of the programs to see it in action.”
“it felt like I'd only scratched the surface”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.