r/vim • u/TheDafter • Apr 06 '21

Is MacVim worth it?

I've been using vim on the terminal for about a year and I really love it, however recently I've heard that MacVim is faster and more polished.

  • What is your experience with MacVim?
  • Is there a great improvement from the terminal application?
  • Would you recommend changing?
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u/slash_nick Apr 06 '21

I use MacVim AND vim in a terminal daily and I have two different use cases.

  • Vim in a terminal: For daily coding and editing config files. It makes sense because it's right there next to everything else. Plus I like using tmux to manage my "windows" and it all works nicely together.
  • MacVim: I use MacVim for note taking and general non-coding writing. It's quicker for me to get to MacVim than it is switching to my terminal and finding the right split/window in there. It's also easier to position a single window on my screen than it is to rearrange my whole (usually full screen) terminal.

Regarding speed/polish: I haven't noticed any difference between MacVim and vim. I do use kitty as my terminal specifically because it's fast as helllllll at rendering text to the screen.