{"slug": "evil", "name": "Evil", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "", "recommenders": 13, "commenters": 18, "warners": 1, "score": 11.934, "rising": 2.05, "first": "2025-11-01", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 15, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [2, 3, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 3, 0, 1, 0, 4], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/emacs-evil/evil", "official_url": "https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Evil", "evil-mode", "Evil-mode", "Evil mode"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 804666512, "item_id": 50291657, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291657", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Evil-mode in Emacs is just wonderful. It's the best vim-emulation layer", "excerpt": "> Vim implementation quality varies wildly from environment to environment is extremely frustrating to me. I know exactly what you're talking about. I am a die-hard vimmer and used vim plugins in every editor/IDE/browser/shell/multiplexer/WM/etc. I use vim bindings system-wide. I control my music, switch between apps, swap and resize windows - all without lifting a finger from the home-row. I spent almost a decade li", "context": "die-hard vimmer who uses vim bindings system-wide", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "IntelliJ", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804497777, "item_id": 50281111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50281111", "by": "Jtsummers", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings", "excerpt": "The only expression I have gotten was something like \"Why not vim?\" and my response was \"Because emacs is better, and I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings\". Then it gets installed (by me or an admin) and I use it. I can't imagine anyone actually caring, that's pretty petty of them, or lazy based on your other comment about it being too much work for sysadmins.", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim bindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804379443, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 800495600, "item_id": 50030975, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030975", "by": "precompute", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs", "excerpt": "You should try using evil again. I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs (the other 9% is in the terminal). It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim. In time you'll pick up some native emacs shortcuts to simplify your life but you'll still have modal editing everywhere. Best of both worlds.", "context": "", "use_case": "modal editing in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 786828481, "item_id": 49176780, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176780", "by": "srijan4", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Maybe try ghostel with evil-mode", "excerpt": "Maybe try ghostel with evil-mode, if you're okay with Emacs? https://github.com/dakra/ghostel", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Warp Agent CLI"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 756627041, "item_id": 47289190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289190", "by": "canistel", "date": "2026-03-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "evil and org-mode did not mix well", "excerpt": "I have in fact. I use Emacs for org-mode and markdown. Because of some reason, evil and org-mode did not mix well - for me. There is evil-org, which I did not try.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Helix: A post-modern text editor"}]}], "who": [{"by": "iLemming", "context": "die-hard vimmer who uses vim bindings system-wide", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291657", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "auslegung", "context": "came to Emacs from vim", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784987", "date": "2025-11-01"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["vim keybindings in emacs", "vim emulation in emacs", "vim bindings in emacs", "modal editing in emacs"], "compared": [{"slug": "gnu-emacs", "name": "GNU Emacs", "co": 15, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "vim", "name": "Vim", "co": 7, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "intellij-idea", "name": "IntelliJ IDEA", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "doom-emacs", "name": "Doom Emacs", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "neovim", "name": "Neovim", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ideavim", "name": "IdeaVim", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "spacemacs", "name": "Spacemacs", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "visual-studio-code", "name": "Visual Studio Code", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273171", "title": "Emacs Turns 50", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906651", "title": "I have officially retired from Emacs", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403073", "title": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\"", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49998350", "title": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171766", "title": "The Warp Agent CLI", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49108678", "title": "Are We Stuck with Lean?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 4}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804666512, "item_id": 50291657, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291657", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Evil-mode in Emacs is just wonderful. It's the best vim-emulation layer", "excerpt": "> Vim implementation quality varies wildly from environment to environment is extremely frustrating to me. I know exactly what you're talking about. I am a die-hard vimmer and used vim plugins in every editor/IDE/browser/shell/multiplexer/WM/etc. I use vim bindings system-wide. I control my music, switch between apps, swap and resize windows - all without lifting a finger from the home-row. I spent almost a decade li", "context": "die-hard vimmer who uses vim bindings system-wide", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "IntelliJ", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804497777, "item_id": 50281111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50281111", "by": "Jtsummers", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings", "excerpt": "The only expression I have gotten was something like \"Why not vim?\" and my response was \"Because emacs is better, and I can always use evil-mode if I want the vim bindings\". Then it gets installed (by me or an admin) and I use it. I can't imagine anyone actually caring, that's pretty petty of them, or lazy based on your other comment about it being too much work for sysadmins.", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim bindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804379443, "item_id": 50273715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50273715", "by": "vr46", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again", "excerpt": "About two or three months ago I ditched Neovim as all the complicated modern crap wasn't working for me, and instead of reverting to Vim, I switched to Emacs and Doom + eVil, and am relieved to be back in a nice stable system again. I did ask GPT to port over my key commands and shortcuts, which it did, and things are great again!", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 800495600, "item_id": 50030975, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030975", "by": "precompute", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs", "excerpt": "You should try using evil again. I use it full-time and 90% of my non-web-browsing work is in Emacs (the other 9% is in the terminal). It's very stable and IMO more full-featured than plain vim. In time you'll pick up some native emacs shortcuts to simplify your life but you'll still have modal editing everywhere. Best of both worlds.", "context": "", "use_case": "modal editing in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 786828481, "item_id": 49176780, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176780", "by": "srijan4", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Maybe try ghostel with evil-mode", "excerpt": "Maybe try ghostel with evil-mode, if you're okay with Emacs? https://github.com/dakra/ghostel", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Warp Agent CLI"}, {"id": 785811825, "item_id": 49113239, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49113239", "by": "Balooga", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "That's why emacs has a vim mode", "excerpt": "> It feels exactly like if all the emacs users in the world tried to force all vim users to use emacs. That's why emacs has a vim mode[1]. [1] - https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Are We Stuck with Lean?"}, {"id": 777436321, "item_id": 48589770, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48589770", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Evil-mode in Emacs feels like a built-in feature.", "excerpt": "I'm a die-hard vimmer. I use vim-motions everywhere - they permeate my editors/IDEs, browsers, terminal, I use them system wide (e.g. to change volume or control media or my WM). One day I woke up with the realization of the fundamental truth - Emacs simply vims better. Much better than even Neovim. I just had to master Vim and grok some Lisp to arrive to that conclusion. People fighting Vim vs. Emacs are materially ", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim emulation in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 775985217, "item_id": 48499076, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48499076", "by": "redbluething", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Emacs with Evil-mode \u2013 the best of both worlds!", "excerpt": "\"Jokes on you, Lenny. I use Emacs with Evil-mode \u2013 the best of both worlds!\" <fistbump>", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Appearances in Pop Culture"}, {"id": 775624576, "item_id": 48476536, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48476536", "by": "allarm", "date": "2026-06-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use evil-mode in Emacs because of that", "excerpt": "I have the same feeling and I use evil-mode in Emacs because of that. It's basically Vim inside of Emacs.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys"}, {"id": 767184288, "item_id": 47949018, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949018", "by": "jb1991", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used evil for about one year actually.", "excerpt": "I used evil for about one year actually.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 766857697, "item_id": 47928606, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47928606", "by": "turtleyacht", "date": "2026-04-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "found author may try Evil", "excerpt": "Searched by tags and found author may try Evil [1], but unsure if they followed through. You're right Spacemacs is essentially a batteries-included version of Emacs. [1] https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/04/01/", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 756627041, "item_id": 47289190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289190", "by": "canistel", "date": "2026-03-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "evil and org-mode did not mix well", "excerpt": "I have in fact. I use Emacs for org-mode and markdown. Because of some reason, evil and org-mode did not mix well - for me. There is evil-org, which I did not try.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Helix: A post-modern text editor"}, {"id": 756590882, "item_id": 47286930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47286930", "by": "shashurup", "date": "2026-03-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I know, I use Emacs+Evil.", "excerpt": "I know, I use Emacs+Evil. I'm going to give Ki a try and, in case of success, to think about writing Ki binding for Emacs.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ki Editor - an editor that operates on the AST"}, {"id": 752792768, "item_id": 47049548, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049548", "by": "noelwelsh", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "evil-mode is very good", "excerpt": "A good number of Emacs users work with Vim key bindings. evil-mode is very good. I use Doom Emacs, which uses evil-mode by default.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Undo in Vi and Its Successors"}, {"id": 742502162, "item_id": 46406385, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46406385", "by": "imiric", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "evil-mode has been a crucial part of my setup", "excerpt": "My path was similar, except with Spacemacs, which has excellent Vim-like modal key bindings. I've been using a custom config for many years now, but evil-mode has been a crucial part of my setup. A modal interface is simply easier to use and more intuitive than twisting your fingers to hit complex key chords. I use Vi mode in shells, TUI programs, REPLs, anywhere Readline is supported, etc. So Emacs+Vim is the best o", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\""}, {"id": 742480531, "item_id": 46405033, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46405033", "by": "achyudh", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Evil mode and Doom made the jump possible", "excerpt": "I was more familiar with Vim bindings and relied on Vim emulation layers in various IDEs before I moved to Emacs. Evil mode and Doom made the jump possible without sacrificing too much productivity. With Evil, I didn't have to retrain my muscle memory and with Doom I didn't have to cobble together a functional config from scratch. After a couple of months of using Doom, I felt comfortable enough to roll my own config", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim emulation in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode rebrands as \"The open source AI code editor\""}, {"id": 739233969, "item_id": 46202123, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46202123", "by": "dotancohen", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Org mode with Evil, to get VIM keybindings.", "excerpt": "This looks great. Almost as good as Emacs Org mode. I use Org mode with Evil, to get VIM keybindings. This way I can quickly navigate and edit the document, not just append to the end of it. And of course, Emacs is completely local. I suppose there is supposed to be a collaborative element that Emacs won't provide. In my experience people in meetings already have workflows and are seldom interested in using the tool ", "context": "", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a system for active note-taking in regular meetings like 1-1s"}, {"id": 735172802, "item_id": 45948300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948300", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2025-11-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Evil-mode in Emacs is fantastically good", "excerpt": "IntelliJ is an amazing feat of software engineering, there's no denying that. I'm not saying that to make you (or any other WebStorm/Pycharm/etc. user) feel better - I know that from years of dedicated use. I just want to share my anecdotal, personal story. I used IntelliJ professionally for almost a decade. I learned some advanced and undocumented features. I've collaborated with Jetbrains team members to help impro", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs"}, {"id": 733014961, "item_id": 45813435, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45813435", "by": "mikkupikku", "date": "2025-11-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use a very customized emacs/evil setup", "excerpt": "I use a very customized emacs/evil setup, and before that a very customized vim/neovim setup, but I've never had trouble jumping onto systems where only plain Jane vi is available. I think it's because of the color scheme, or lack thereof, that I don't have any problem automatically switching. If I don't see my color scheme, by fingers just automatically use vi compatible bindings and I don't find myself expecting my", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)"}, {"id": 732559793, "item_id": 45784987, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45784987", "by": "auslegung", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that", "excerpt": "I suggest trying out Doom and maybe some other configs to see what's available, and if you want to roll your own you can choose the things you like most from them. I came to emacs from [n]vim and using evil-mode was _very_ helpful in making the switch easier so I recommend that", "context": "came to Emacs from vim", "use_case": "Vim keybindings in Emacs", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "Ask HN: Where to begin with \"modern\" Emacs?"}]}