Products · Product
vi
Raised as a usability problem by 105 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 89 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Beginners can't figure out how to exit viUnreviewed
20082026- Commenter was dropped into vi without warning and had to search how to exit2026-07-12
- Switches to vi keys by habit and gets confused in ordinary editors2026-05-13
- Editing config files in vi requires more effort than typing and saving2024-02-25
Easy to forget the current mode, so keystrokes corrupt the bufferUnreviewed
20082026- Extra keypresses to switch between insert and command modes feel frustrating2025-01-15
- Typing text while in command mode triggers unintended commands2022-06-09
- Constantly ends up in the wrong mode by accident, unlike in modern editors2021-02-22
Modal editing is hard to learn and painful to useUnreviewed
20082026- Modal editing shortcuts make basic text editing a complete pain for some users2026-02-10
- Modal editing is unintuitive and feels painful to learn and use2025-11-26
- Modal editing and convoluted key combinations make basic tasks a nightmare to learn2024-10-05
Letter-key commands clash with arrow keys and backspaceUnreviewed
20082026- Modal editing repels the commenter and vi's letter-key commands clash with arrow keys and backspace2026-06-18
- Commenter hates the modal aspect of vi, which they find off-putting to use2024-02-01
- Vi's obscured key shortcuts make it unintuitive for general programming2020-09-15
Cursor lands in different spots than vim, breaking muscle memoryUnreviewed
20082026- Cursor never reaches end of line in normal mode, forcing awkward workarounds2019-05-18
- Cursor ends up in different spots than vim, disrupting muscle memory2019-04-11
- Users who learned on other editors get stuck using cursor keys in Vim2016-10-18
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Commenter was dropped into vi without warning and had to search how to exit2026-07-12
- Hjkl navigation fails with a custom keyboard layout, so the editor is unusable2026-07-11
- Modal editing repels the commenter and vi's letter-key commands clash with arrow keys and backspace2026-06-18
- Copying by line leaves unbalanced parentheses, making vi commands error-prone for Clojure2026-06-03
- Visual mode word deletion takes extra keypresses and removes an unintended letter2026-05-13
- Switches to vi keys by habit and gets confused in ordinary editors2026-05-13
- Copy and paste between files was a nightmare; only two files open at once2026-05-13
- Built-in undo is impossible to use without installing a plugin2026-02-17
- Modal editing shortcuts make basic text editing a complete pain for some users2026-02-10
- Editor is primitive and clunky to use, a legacy of 1970s terminal-era design2026-02-10
- Modal editing is unintuitive and feels painful to learn and use2025-11-26
- Editor functions are redefined as cryptic letter combinations, hard to learn2025-10-19
- Commands are hard to discover; it is not easy to tell which moves are available2025-06-25
- Extra keypresses to switch between insert and command modes feel frustrating2025-01-15
- Modal editing and convoluted key combinations make basic tasks a nightmare to learn2024-10-05
- Quitting requires pressing esc, waiting, then typing :q, which is not discoverable2024-03-15
- Editing config files in vi requires more effort than typing and saving2024-02-25
- Commenter hates the modal aspect of vi, which they find off-putting to use2024-02-01
- Same keys do different things in each mode, requiring memorising many shortcuts2024-01-04
- Hjkl movement only works in some modes, forcing mode switches to make simple edits2023-12-22
- Doesn't know how to quit, copy, paste, or move around the screen2023-08-20
- Old-school government IT systems were secure but unusable for their users2023-08-18
- Author never became comfortable with vi and finds it unintuitive2023-08-18
- Cannot bind control key chords to movement in insert mode, a major hurdle2023-08-15
- Arcane editor interface that assumes users know its obscure commands2023-02-26
- Windows users get dropped into vi to write a commit message, which is confusing2022-12-28
- Modal text editor is too hard for beginners, adding friction when changing one line2022-12-28
- Other editors force hand moves to cursor keys or mouse and strain pinkies with modifier keys2022-08-20
- Typing text while in command mode triggers unintended commands2022-06-09
- Users struggle to figure out how to quit vi2022-04-28
- Interface is so confusing and unapproachable that people can't exit the program2022-04-07
- Switching between header and implementation files and pasting takes many more keystrokes than IDE menu2021-12-07
- Gets dropped into vi unexpectedly and must search online to exit2021-12-07
- Dvorak layout forces switching many default bindings, awkward to use2021-11-06
- Navigation uses letter keys instead of arrow keys, which the commenter calls terrible UX2021-10-24
- Editor commands are not discoverable; users must learn them from books2021-08-26
- New hires had to use vi for account setup, assuming knowledge they lacked2021-08-13
- Vi was misconfigured with terrible defaults, making it hard to use2021-04-29
- Modal editing has a steep learning curve; users don't know how to switch modes2021-04-29
- Constantly ends up in the wrong mode by accident, unlike in modern editors2021-02-22
- Same key does different things depending on hidden mode, so users can't tell what will happen2021-02-21
- Couldn't figure out how to type anything or exit vi2020-10-04
- Vi's obscured key shortcuts make it unintuitive for general programming2020-09-15
- Git opens vi by default, which is hard for many users to exit or use2020-07-13
- Hard to use; needs manual to make basic edits, unintuitive modes2020-07-13
- User couldn't figure out how to exit vi2020-06-06
- Mode changes are mostly invisible to the user2020-06-06
- Getting stuck in vi because its behavior differs from modern editors2020-05-06
- Spent an hour unable to escape vi when committing with Mercurial2020-05-06
- Can't discover any functionality intuitively; couldn't figure out how to type without a tutorial2020-05-06