Products · Broad category
Vim and Emacs
Raised as a usability problem by 34 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 35 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Hard-to-remember commands and heavy configuration needed before usableUnreviewed
20092026- Unintuitive UI with a steep learning curve that is hard to learn2026-08-03
- Too much configuration research needed and shortcuts are hard to remember2022-12-13
- Steep learning curve and unintuitive to use, especially without command-line experience2016-03-17
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 35 complaints
- Unintuitive UI with a steep learning curve that is hard to learn2026-08-03
- Programmers find vim and emacs too confusing and difficult to use2025-12-07
- Their terrible user experience goes unmentioned because critics are labeled noobs2025-07-11
- Modal editing makes the editor terrible to use because the same keys mean different things2024-02-20
- Modal key-chord interface has no immediate feedback and requires many steps to do basic things2024-01-10
- Endless config fiddling and learning curve eat time; hard to get config switchers working2023-07-17
- Too much configuration research needed and shortcuts are hard to remember2022-12-13
- Needs lots of time spent configuring before it feels usable or powerful2022-10-26
- Modal, non-standard command UI is hard to learn and unusable for ordinary text editing2022-10-08
- Beginners can't even exit the program without knowing a keyboard shortcut2022-06-08
- Vim's mnemonics aren't comfortable or intuitive, and reaching for the mouse is annoying2022-05-22
- Setting up intellisense, linting and debugging takes long and breaks often2021-11-05
- Editors have a learning curve that newbies struggle to get past, against intuitive expectations2021-10-14
- No way to figure out features from the baseline; users feel lost and must google2021-09-12
- Keyboard controls are unfamiliar and seem needlessly complicated to newcomers2021-08-24
- Can't understand the editing mode or the arcane ritual needed to quit2021-08-14
- Editors like vim and emacs are clumsy to operate with a mouse2021-02-11
- Commenter's claim that the editors' interfaces are terrible and inferior to normal editors2020-12-05
- Automatic indentation fights the user, forcing constant manual whitespace deletion2020-10-25
- New users find default behavior unexpected and must customize config files to get basic editing2018-03-29
- Non-developers find Vim and Emacs too hard to use for editing exported files2017-10-10
- Searching across a folder for a function is harder and less effortless than in Sublime Text2017-05-26
- Customized key bindings make tutorials and shared demos impossible to follow2017-05-07
- Too many configurations make setting up a full IDE confusing2017-01-04
- Hard to learn; concepts unintuitive and too many key combinations to memorise2016-06-23
- Configuring Vim or Emacs requires copying random code and editing unfamiliar config files2016-04-15
- Scrolling changes selection with no way to change that, and learning them takes large effort2016-03-29
- Editors ignore standard Mac shortcuts like Cmd+C, Cmd+V, and Cmd+S2016-03-20
- Steep learning curve and unintuitive to use, especially without command-line experience2016-03-17
- Steep learning curve; not accessible to newcomers who haven't invested time2016-01-29
- Vim and Emacs are so hard to use that few people adopt them2014-04-27
- Relies on remembering cryptic commands for every feature2014-01-17
- Hard-to-remember commands and heavy configuration needed before it's usable2013-12-18
- Hard to learn and discover because text interfaces lack discoverability2010-07-29
- First experience with them is awful and learning curves are steep2009-09-17