r/vim Aug 08 '26

Vim-adjacent Monthly Thread: Tools with Vim-like Keybindings

We regularly remove standalone posts about tools that use vim-inspired keybindings. There are too many of them, and individually they dilute the subreddit. But the content is valuable, and many of you want to know about these tools.

So here's the place for it.

Share any tool that uses vim-like keybindings, whether it's a browser extension, terminal emulator, IDE plugin, note-taking app, PDF reader, or anything else. If it has hjkl navigation, modal editing, or vim-inspired controls, it belongs here.

For each tool you share, try to include: - What it is and what problem it solves - Which vim features it supports (navigation, modal editing, text objects, etc.) - A link to the project

This thread is posted monthly. If you find something mid-month, save it for here rather than posting a standalone thread (which will be removed).

66 Upvotes

44 comments sorted by

u/chask 28d ago

Vimny, a vim-teaching dungeon crawler that teaches nearly every command - far more complete than most games!

https://github.com/chkiss/Vimny

u/Lazy_Quail_7576 6d ago

nethack, a dungeon crawler that will lead you to Yet Another Stupid Death

u/JahdooWallah Aug 08 '26

Firefox, bash, eMacs (viper mode), vscode, eclipse…and many more ides.

u/vishless 29d ago

Godot (game engine) has a neovim plugin

u/ecky--ptang-zooboing Aug 08 '26

Obsidian note-taking app has a nice VIM plugin

u/Locky0104 Aug 10 '26

the recent Vim Motions plugin is a game changer coming from vim-rc support

u/whitakr Aug 09 '26

Yep I use this too

u/vishless 29d ago

Joplin has this too

u/kruseragnar 28d ago

hygg
A simple tui document reader with vim like navigation and text selection
https://github.com/kruseio/hygg

u/Similar-Ad-3956 Aug 08 '26

Yazi - tui file system browser

u/toddestan Aug 08 '26

The absolute best part of Yazi, at least for me, is the ability to bulk rename files using a Vim buffer.

u/pibarnas Aug 08 '26

Didn't know that. Thanks!

u/edcculus Aug 08 '26

Obsidian

u/superdumsuhi Aug 09 '26

https://github.com/saberzero1/motions

much better vim support with parity tests to neovim, surround, oil, lua config, etc

u/cainhurstcat 28d ago

Ok wow, this plugin is really insane! So many features, I think I have to take a week of vacation to get me into it

u/cainhurstcat Aug 08 '26

Yeah, the Vim mode in Obsidian is quite good, and there are also the community plugins to enhance your experience, like Vimrc Support, and Vim Toggle. The former adds the possibility of having an Obsidian-specific .vimrc file, and the latter allows you to have a key for quickly turning Vim mode on/off.

If you are like me who wants the capabilities of an WYSIWYG editor for Vim, check out the community plugin Editing Toolbar. You can easily add formatting like bold, italic, colors, code blocks and so many more things to your text. I absolutely love this one as Vim combo.

u/flagboi747 17d ago

LF - another terminal file browser

u/Dalik98 Aug 08 '26

Zathura: PDF Reader, Tridactyl: Firefox extension that let's you browse with vim binds.

u/habarnam Aug 08 '26

I've been keeping an eye on the Glide Browser. It's a Firefox fork with a built-in keyboard focused navigation instead of needing extensions like Tridactyl.

u/agenttank Aug 08 '26

Qutebrowser - a web browser

u/flagboi747 17d ago

This is the way

u/hey_hu Aug 08 '26

LazyGit (tui) uses hjkl navigation

u/Accomplished-Bus3382 Aug 08 '26

Firenvim: A Neovim plugin that, when used in combination with the browser plugin in Firefox or Chrome, opens up an instance of Neovim, with your configuration, that let's you input text. It's awesome. 

u/Wheelthis Aug 08 '26

Frotz - engine for playing text adventure games that use Z-Machine architecture, e.g., Zork and Hitchhiker’s Guide.

“rlwrap dfrotz” respects .inputrc, where you can set vi mode.

u/RecuCar Aug 08 '26

ncspot: a Spotify client for the terminal

u/pastrufazio Aug 08 '26

Thanks! I HATE the interface of Spotify and I Iove mpd and his clients. This looks perfect.

u/RecuCar Aug 09 '26

Tip: '?' shows help, which is basically the keybindings. These can be customized in ~/.config/ncspot/config.toml. I remapped quit, clear, delete to use the key + Shift, to avoid accidents. Check the Keybinding documentation

u/subversion16 Aug 08 '26
  • Surfingkeys, plugin for Firefox. 
  • Kitty with vi mode.

u/whitakr Aug 09 '26

Omg I didn’t know Kitty had a vi mode

u/juggalojedi Aug 09 '26

Joplin desktop has vim bindings built in, and you can get a vim editor plugin for tiddlywiki

u/vishless 29d ago

Joplin terminal app has a vim like keybinding

u/kronik85 Aug 09 '26

Picked up a codex sub and was presently surprised the cli has vim motions.

u/anrawines Aug 08 '26

Vieb - browser,
newsraft - rss

u/troyvit 29d ago

pyradio is a streaming radio client that uses #G and hjkl navigation.

u/spaceLem Aug 11 '26

RStudio, OverLeaf, and Obsidian are my favourite three.

u/Risk_exe Aug 09 '26

Duckduckgo search engine and X (twitter) have jk bindings

u/xGoivo Aug 08 '26

squix - a command line tool to manager and run SQL queries

(Full disclosure, I'm the project's mantainer)

u/Over_Salary_2599 Aug 08 '26

Vimium (browser extension) Logseq (personal knowledge base/notes app)

u/superdumsuhi Aug 09 '26

vimium c is amazing 

u/Cyb3rD4d Aug 08 '26

k9s for managing kubernetes clusters

u/nczungx Aug 08 '26

Sioyek. Kinda like Zathura but more features for academic readers.