Why do Editors Keep Getting Slower?

There was a time when TextMate felt like the pinnacle of modern text editors. Then came Sublime Text with its blazing-fast performance, making everything else feel sluggish. And of course, VS Code stormed onto the scene, offering an incredibly polished experience out of the box. Like many developers, we dabbled with vi when SSHing into servers, but as a daily driver? Not really.

But have you ever noticed that despite hardware getting exponentially faster, our editors somehow seem to keep getting slower?

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The Bloat Problem

Every new editor brings more features, more integrations, and a slicker UI. VS Code, for instance, is an engineering marvel—but at what cost? It’s running on Electron, which means it’s essentially a Chromium instance pretending to be an editor. Add a few extensions, and suddenly what once felt snappy starts to chug. Memory spikes, CPU usage creeps up, and load times stretch out.

This isn’t unique to VS Code. The same happened with IDEs before it. Eclipse, JetBrains, Atom (RIP)—all suffered from bloat over time. The common denominator? Convenience at the cost of efficiency. The feature creep is relentless, and while modern machines are powerful, they are not immune to inefficient software.

At some point, we need to ask: is this tradeoff really worth it? Does every little convenience justify sacrificing raw performance?

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Rediscovering Speed and Simplicity

Eventually, we started questioning this tradeoff. Extensions took longer to load, occasional crashes disrupted workflow, and the UI became increasingly cluttered. VS Code is a full-fledged IDE, but its growing sluggishness made us wonder: was the convenience worth the slowdown? Neovim isn’t just vi on a remote server—it’s a modern powerhouse. With the right setup, it matches VS Code’s functionality and runs circles around it in performance.

There’s something liberating about an editor that respects your time. When every keystroke happens instantly, when startup time is measured in milliseconds, when memory usage stays lean—it changes how you work. You stop fighting your tools. Instead of waiting for UI elements to load or debugging a sluggish extension, you just code.

This is why so many developers eventually gravitate toward lightweight tools. It’s not about nostalgia or being contrarian. It’s about stripping away the unnecessary to focus on what truly matters: writing and maintaining great code.

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The Hidden Cost of Feature Overload

It’s easy to assume that a feature-rich editor makes you more productive. After all, VS Code’s Git integration, IntelliSense, and debugging tools are incredibly useful. But there’s a hidden cost—cognitive load. Every new plugin, every UI element, every setting you tweak adds complexity. Before long, you’re spending more time managing your tools than actually coding.

Many developers fall into the trap of customizing endlessly. Tweaking themes, swapping out extensions, configuring keybindings. While personalization is great, at some point, it becomes a distraction. We trade real productivity for the illusion of control. Neovim, by contrast, forces you to be intentional. Instead of relying on bloated extensions or cluttered UIs, you configure it precisely to fit your workflow. Whether it's using native LSP support for a smooth coding experience, leveraging Lua for custom scripts, or mastering keybindings to navigate without a mouse, Neovim encourages a streamlined, distraction-free approach to development.

You build only what you need. Nothing more, nothing less.

This shift forces you to engage deeply with your tools. You learn how they work. You develop muscle memory that makes you faster. You stop outsourcing critical workflows to bloated extensions and instead embrace simplicity.

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The Shift We Made

We’re not saying VS Code is bad. It’s great. But so was TextMate. So was Sublime Text. And yet, we moved on. The question isn’t about what’s objectively best—it’s about what gets out of your way the fastest. For us, that’s Neovim.

Not because it’s trendy, not because it’s old-school, but because it lets us work without friction. It turns out that removing the bloat doesn’t just improve speed—it improves focus, too.

The real issue? Bloated software doesn’t just slow down machines—it slows down thinking. Sluggish response times, constant interruptions, and excessive complexity create friction that kills focus. By choosing a lightweight, efficient tool, we eliminated that friction and found ourselves coding with more clarity and intent.

Faster editors don’t just make coding smoother—they sharpen focus. They eliminate frustration and create an environment where deep work happens naturally.

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The Bigger Picture: Breaking the Cycle for Good

We’ve seen this cycle before—editors gain features, become more complex, and eventually slow down. But we don’t have to follow that pattern.

Neovim isn’t just another step in the cycle—it’s the tool that finally puts an end to sluggish, bloated software. It prioritizes speed, flexibility, and control, allowing us to focus on what truly matters: writing code efficiently.

Using Neovim means embracing efficiency as a core principle. By removing unnecessary complexity, Neovim fosters a development environment that is both fast and distraction-free. It lets us move at the speed of thought, unburdened by sluggish UI and bloated integrations.

Stop waiting on slow tools. Take control with Neovim.