Vim is, in the words of its own about page on vim.org, “a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing” and “an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.” The name is a contraction of Vi IMproved. The project’s official README on github.com/vim/vim describes it as “a greatly improved version of the good old UNIX editor Vi,” adding multi-level undo, syntax highlighting, command-line history, spell checking, scripting, and a graphical interface while keeping compatibility with the original vi command set so that long-time vi users can move to Vim without relearning the basics.
Vim grew out of Bram Moolenaar’s work in the late 1980s to get a vi-like editor on his Amiga computer. He started from the source of an existing vi clone called Stevie and improved on it, releasing the result publicly on 2 November 1991. Over the following decades Vim accumulated a large feature set documented in its extensive built-in help, including the interactive Vimtutor, support for hundreds of file types and syntaxes, and ports to Windows, macOS, and the various Unix flavors. The Vim credits document records that “Most of Vim was created by Bram Moolenaar,” who remained its “creator and benevolent dictator until his passing (3 August 2023).”
A defining trait of Vim is its modal editing model inherited from vi. The editor starts in Normal mode, where keystrokes are interpreted as commands for moving, deleting, copying, and transforming text; a separate Insert mode is entered to type literal text; and a Command-line mode handles Ex commands, searches, and filters. This separation lets short, composable key sequences perform powerful edits, which is the central reason experienced users prize the editor.
Vim is also notable for its license and funding model. Its about page states that “Vim is charityware. Its license is GPL-compatible, so it’s distributed freely, but we ask that if you find it useful you make a donation to help children in Uganda.” Moolenaar used Vim’s popularity to direct donations to ICCF Holland, a foundation supporting the Kibaale Children’s Centre in southern Uganda. The license terms and the charityware appeal are spelled out in Vim’s own help files, making the editor a long-running example of free software paired with an explicit charitable ask.
Because it ships or is trivially installable on essentially every Unix-like system and is fully keyboard-driven, Vim became a default tool for editing configuration files, code, and text over remote terminal sessions. Its configuration and plugin ecosystem is built on Vimscript, its embedded scripting language, and its design and keybindings influenced many later editors and editor emulation modes. The 2014 Neovim fork later refactored Vim’s codebase to add an embedded API, Lua scripting, and a built-in language-server client, while remaining compatible with Vim’s editing model.