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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    BlueFish Editor

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ABlueFish is a free and open source text editor supporting a wide range of languages, multiple document interface, search tools, in-line checking and auto-recovery, and other features.

    $0

    Vim

    Score9.8 out of 10
    N/AVim (Vi IMproved) is a highly configurable, free to download and use, Modal Text Editor derived from the classic Unix vi editor. It is designed for terminal-based and graphical text manipulation, prioritizing keyboard-centric efficiency and high-fidelity control over source code and configuration files.

    $0

    Pricing
    BlueFish EditorVim
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BlueFish EditorVim
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Vim is available as a free download.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BlueFish EditorVim
    Considered Both Products
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    BlueFish EditorVim
    Small Businesses
    BBEdit
    Score10 out of 10
    BBEdit
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Notepad++
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Sublime Text
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BlueFish EditorVim
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.0
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BlueFish EditorVim
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Open Source
    BlueFish is a good basic HTML and text editor that is easy for all to use. If I need someone to grab a friendly editor, then BlueFish is the way to go. If you need an editor to fix a bunch of pages then this editor has a lot of functions that are not found it other editors. Stuff like HTML Tidy or functions that strip extra lines out.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    I would recommend Vim in any scenario where text files have to be viewed, created, or edited on GNU/Linux computers. Regardless if you need to quickly change a few things in a configuration file, or you need to write up a full document, Vim is great. I wouldn't use Vim to view, edit, or create anything that requires "rich-text". In other words, if you need to format the text (bolding, font colours, word-art, etc), then Vim isn't the tool to use.
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    Pros
    Open Source
    • Easily found and downloaded. If I need someone to go to the web and grab it I can tell them the URL. It is easily installed and one can be edited in minutes.
    • BlueFish is easy to use. It can have a non-technical user use it to edit config files or text documents and not have them frustrated. It has a friendly straight forward user interface.
    • BlueFish does a really good job editing HTML documents specifically. Probably one of the best HTML editors left out there.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    • The efficient modal editing makes it very fast to write/edit code as I think of it.
    • The customization and wide range of plugins let me do very specific things and automate parts of my workflow.
    • The fact that it runs inside a terminal simplifies my window management and just becomes another Tmux window in my workflow.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Open Source
    • There are WYSIWYG Open alternatives, some of which work perfectly as an Open version of Dreamweaver, but the only suggestion I would have is that Bluefish add a WYSIWYG tab, e.g. code/visual.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    • Without a doubt the hardest program to learn. It is a completely different paradigm of thinking compared to other editors
    • By default it doesn't have lots of fancy features you would find in larger IDE programs like code completion and linking
    • It lives in the command line so a user has to be comfortable with this interface
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    Usability
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.
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    Support Rating
    Open Source
    As with most GNU GPL products support is top-notch. Documentation is fantastic, all functions are documented. Also, this product has been around for more than a decade so there is lots of stuff on how to do this or that with this tool. The only thing holding you back from support is your own drive to find a solution. RTFM, my friend.
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    Open Source
    There is no commercial support for Vim. Thus, it will not get a mark beyond 5. However, community support is very good. You can easily find solutions for most of the problems in the community.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Open Source
    Compare it to what I'd call its WYSIWYG editor, BlueGriffon. Again, the two are fundamentally different solutions. Use them together. Don't waste your money on Adobe or any other proprietary alternative.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    Vim's keybindings are a lot more complex than Notepad++. With that, comes a whole bunch of capability that Notepad++ just can't match. Emacs is comparable, in terms of capabilities--because Vim is built into so many unix systems, I chose to learn it instead of Emacs. Knowing both probably isn't a bad idea, but there's enough to learn in either camp to keep you busy
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Open Source
    • How can you go wrong with a GNU GPL product that works? That's a really low-risk proposition.
    • It is only returns. It is like 0% investment to 5,000% return.
    • The only negative you will have with this product are those Cretans that despise OSS and the willfully ignorant.
    Incentivized
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    Open Source
    • It always increases productivity.
    • Sometimes feature discovery is not easy. It could be documented well like how to install a plugin and if it supported well or not.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots