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Vi vs Vim vs gVim vs Neovim

Last Updated: 2022-08-06

TL;DR

  • VIM = Vi IMproved. Vim is the editor that runs in a terminal shell — it has no GUI of its own.
  • gVim is the vim editor with its own GUI.
  • Neovim is a fork of Vim with additional features. It shares the same confg syntax with Vim.

Check detailed differences between vi and vim

Use builtin help:

:help vi-differences

Your vi may be linked to vim:

To check:

$ which vi
/usr/bin/vi

$ ls -l `which vi`
... /usr/bin/vi -> vim

Vi / Vim compatibility

Use -N or set​ nocompatible: Not fully Vi compatible, i.e. load vim features.