mawww/kakoune

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_readme

Adoption not part of the score

11033 stars · 780 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Kakoune is a modal terminal-based code editor inspired by Vim, built around multiple selections as its central editing paradigm. It offers syntax highlighting, as-you-type completion, and powerful text manipulation primitives with an orthogonal, scriptable design.

Use cases

• edit code in the terminal with modal keybindings
• use multiple selections to edit many places at once
• find a faster vim alternative with fewer keystrokes
• syntax-highlighted editing for many programming languages
• script and customize a minimal modal editor
• manipulate text with regex matches, splitting, and alignment

When to choose

• you want Vim-style modal editing with a more interactive selection-first model
• you work primarily in the terminal and want a fast, lightweight editor
• you frequently need to apply the same edit across many locations via multiple selections
• you value a small, orthogonal, scriptable core

When to avoid

• you need a full IDE with built-in debugging, LSP GUI panels, or plugin marketplaces out of the box
• you prefer non-modal editing or a graphical editor
• you rely on a large ecosystem of prebuilt plugins like Vim/Neovim's

Facets

application · maturity stable

editor developer-tools terminal-ui text-editors developer-tools cli cross-platform modal-editing multiple-selections vim-inspired terminal-editor syntax-highlighting command-line linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="mawww/kakoune")