Lots of vim stuff is implemented in emacs lisp and there are a few different efforts to emulate the unique parts of LightTable and Sublime into emacs. It just comes down to preference. I enjoy using all three, but emacs is the one which has everything I personally need.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/LightTable
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MiniMap
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil
https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm (go to anything)
In Actualvim – Sublime Text 3 input mode powered by Vim itselfemacs-helm
helm
Emacs Lisp2012–2025
emacs-helm / helm
helm
Emacs incremental completion and selection narrowing framework
27Distinct people
30Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
3.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Emacs incremental completion and selection narrowing framework
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- abo-abo/swiper · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- bbatsov/projectile · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:56:20 AM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year30 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-08-10 21:47:24 UTC to 2025-07-09 10:58:56 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Emacs-Helm
Helm is an Emacs framework for incremental completions and narrowing
selections. It provides an easy-to-use API for developers wishing to build
their own Helm applications in Emacs, powerful search tools and dozens of
already built-in commands providing completion to almost everything.
It is a must-have for anyone using Emacs as a main work environment.
Helm has been widely adopted by many Emacs power-users.
It is available in Melpa and can be easily installed from the Emacs package manager.
Homepage |
Downloads |
Get started |
Helm wiki |
FAQ
Helm in action browsing images
Maintainance of Helm is a lot of work please consider making a donation, thank you!
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
5 sourcesEmacs-related things I have learned recently:
* Sticky modifiers: I don't know why it took me so long for me to activate these. The difference between holding Ctrl while hitting another key or just hitting Ctrl once before the next key makes a huge difference for me.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/StickyModifiers
* Got an old-styled Thinkpad keyboard with the trackpoint buttons below the spacebar? I mapped the left button to C-x and the right one to M-x. These buttons are PERFECT for this purpose. I would have mapped them system-wide to Ctrl and Alt but didn't find a solution for doing that in Debian (console/tty).
* Helm: Incremental completion and selection narrowing. Makes it a lot easier to find those commands which you sort-of-remember-the-name-of:
https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm
* Sunrise Commander: MC-ish file explorer, based o
Read the rest
n Emacs's Dired:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Sunrise_Commander
It looks like a clone of Helm (previously called Anything) for Emacs:
https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm
In Replacing All The Things with Unite.vimit's funny how people praise Sublime Text when plain old Emacs can do most of the things that Sublime Text can:
> 5. vim compatability!
evil-mode - a very advanced vi layer for emacs, probably much better than vintage, I hear only good things about it although I use the standard emacs mode
> 4. Powerful Keybindings in JSON and Plugins in Python
powerful keybindings
(global-set-key (kbd "<f2>") 'split-window-vertically)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f3>") 'split-window-horizontally)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f4>") 'delete-window)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f5>") 'delete-other-windows)
and modes (plugins) in Elisp
> 3. Package Manager and the More Centralized Community
since Emacs 24 a package manager is included and there are awesome repos for all of your needs:
(setq package-archives '(( "elpa" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
Read the rest
("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/")
( "melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/")))
after that run
M-x list-packages
and choose from around 1000 packages
> 2. Project Sessions
there are many modes that support that if you want it. I personally don't like it though. "projectile" is pretty nice though: https://github.com/bbatsov/projectile
> 1. Ctrl+P - GotoAnything:
helm is what you would use on Emacs: https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm
it's awesome