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Vim

A modal text editor descended from vi.

Vim ("Vi IMproved") extends the classic vi editor with multi-level undo, syntax highlighting, split windows, command-line completion, plugin support, and hundreds of other features, while preserving vi's modal editing model: separate modes for inserting text and moving or transforming it, controlled by a small composable verb- modifier-object grammar. Once internalised, that grammar lets experienced users edit text with very few keystrokes.

Bram Moolenaar started Vim in 1988 by porting Stevie (a vi clone) to the Amiga and releasing it as charityware: the licence asks users to consider donating to ICCF, a Ugandan children's charity he supported. Bram maintained the project almost single-handedly for over thirty years until his death in August 2023; development now continues under a small group of volunteer maintainers, with new minor releases still landing on a regular cadence.

Vim ships in the default install of virtually every Linux distribution, every BSD, and macOS, which is part of why its keybindings have spread well beyond the editor itself: tmux, less, ranger, qutebrowser, the Kakoune and Helix editors, and many shells in vi-mode all reuse them. The Neovim fork, started in 2014, is the editor of choice for users who want a more programmable extension surface (Lua scripting, native LSP and tree-sitter integration); the original Vim retains a substantial user base on traditional Unix systems.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install vim
Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install vim-enhanced
Arch:          sudo pacman -S vim
macOS:         brew install vim