I've said this before on here and elsewhere, but I wonder if evil is actually a worse environment because of its utility.
Most attempts at vim modes in other applications seem to be insert or "move" mode, with practically no functionality in what they call normal mode. Whereas evil emulates largely most of vim(far behind normal and insert modes too), but when it does eventually fall down you're really not expecting it. My go-to example for this is using the expression register, the number of times I've typed a vim expression in to emacs when using the expression register is ridiculous.
When tools aren't so functional you're basically always expecting them to fail, so it isn't such a shock when you can't even ciw or whatever. My point -- or perhaps question -- is what is really the better solution; one which almost 100% seamless or one which is practically useless from the outset.
I’ve recently started moving over to https://helix-editor.com after using neovim as my main editor for a few years, and despite being more like kakoune than vim (first comes selection, than the action), it’s been relatively intuitive and more pleasant to use in default configuration even than fully customized (neo)vim. I recommend anyone who has the time to try that editing model.
It's already been said, but, Emacs. Ironically. Evil is crazy good (that's an interested juxtaposition). Doom Emacs glues lots of Emacs plugins and functionality extensions together cohesively to create quite an intuitive Vim-like experience.
Emacs with evil-mode work pretty well (IMO the best "vi-emulation" within other editors; the vi-plugin in JetBrains-IDEs works also quite well, though), however I learned painfully that you need to know two languages in order to configure it to your needs: Emacs lisp as well as well as vimscript for your vim-configuration. And that is just too heavy for me, so I'm back to Neovim.
There was the very promising OniVim 2 [2], which is very fast and powerful. However fundings were not enough, so the work on it came to a hold.
And then there exists a handful of other modal editors with vim-like modes. Kakoune [3] comes to my mind here, which may be currently the most vim-like non-vim editor actively developed (IMO).
I'm not a huge fan of vim mode vscode. The status bar indications when searching etc. are too small and the paste function is seemingly random where it will put text, it often seems to ignore where your cursor was.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 33.2 ms ] threadMost attempts at vim modes in other applications seem to be insert or "move" mode, with practically no functionality in what they call normal mode. Whereas evil emulates largely most of vim(far behind normal and insert modes too), but when it does eventually fall down you're really not expecting it. My go-to example for this is using the expression register, the number of times I've typed a vim expression in to emacs when using the expression register is ridiculous.
When tools aren't so functional you're basically always expecting them to fail, so it isn't such a shock when you can't even ciw or whatever. My point -- or perhaps question -- is what is really the better solution; one which almost 100% seamless or one which is practically useless from the outset.
I will say that the vim mode in Geany leaves a bit to be desired, but otherwise it's what I use if I want something closer to an IDE
Emacs with evil-mode work pretty well (IMO the best "vi-emulation" within other editors; the vi-plugin in JetBrains-IDEs works also quite well, though), however I learned painfully that you need to know two languages in order to configure it to your needs: Emacs lisp as well as well as vimscript for your vim-configuration. And that is just too heavy for me, so I'm back to Neovim.
There was the very promising OniVim 2 [2], which is very fast and powerful. However fundings were not enough, so the work on it came to a hold.
And then there exists a handful of other modal editors with vim-like modes. Kakoune [3] comes to my mind here, which may be currently the most vim-like non-vim editor actively developed (IMO).
[1] https://neovim.io/
[2] https://v2.onivim.io/
[3] http://kakoune.org/
Edit: typos.
[0] https://spacevim.org/
Jetbrains is better at vim emulation.
https://jamierubin.net/2021/03/23/obsidian-and-vim-mode/