Skink vs Vim

Click, drag, Alt+click for cursors, scroll, switch tabs.

Vim is on nearly every Unix-like system already, and its modal editing is fast once learned. Skink is a separate download, but it is modeless, the mouse works out of the box, and language servers, tree-sitter highlighting, git and a terminal tab are built in.

Use Vim when you cannot install anything or you love modes. Use Skink when you can drop one binary in ~/.local/bin and want an IDE-like editor in the terminal.

Who should pick Vim

It is already there. On a locked-down server, a container or a rescue shell, vi or vim is usually present and Skink is not. That alone makes Vim worth knowing.
The motions are second nature. You know the operators and motions and think in them.
Plugins and Vimscript. You need Vim’s plugin ecosystem, or scripting, which Skink does not have yet.
Maturity. You want something extremely mature and stable. Skink is alpha.

Who should pick Skink

You only open Vim on servers, and every time you have to remember how to get out. Skink saves with Ctrl+S and quits with Ctrl+Q.
Mouse without setup. Selection, scrolling and clicks work without editing .vimrc or checking :version for +mouse.
IDE features without plugins. Completion, go to definition, rename and diagnostics, with no plugin manager or LSP plugin to install.
Everything next to your file. A real terminal, git hunks, AI agents and a debugger.

Feature comparison

	Skink	Vim
Editing model	Modeless	Modal
Mouse	On, always	Off unless `mouse` is set; `defaults.vim` turns it on when no vimrc exists; needs a `+mouse` build
LSP	Built in	Through plugins (for example vim-lsp, coc.nvim)
tree-sitter	Built in, 19 languages	No; regex-based syntax files
Built-in terminal	Terminal tabs and a dock	`:terminal` (Vim 8.1+)
AI agents	ACP client and agent panel	Through plugins
Debugger	Built in (DAP)	Termdebug (gdb) or plugins
Plugins	None yet	Large ecosystem
Works over plain SSH	Yes	Yes
Preinstalled	No	Almost everywhere
Footprint	Small	Small
Maturity	Alpha	Decades

Why Vim’s mouse often “doesn’t work”

Vim reads the mouse only when the mouse option is set. The bundled defaults.vim sets mouse=a in xterm-like terminals, but it is skipped as soon as you have your own ~/.vimrc. Minimal builds may lack mouse support altogether.

The fix is usually:

set mouse=a
set ttymouse=sgr

The full walkthrough, including tmux and SSH, is in how to use mouse clicks in Vim and Neovim. In Skink there is nothing to set.

Vim keys and their Skink equivalents

Vim’s : commands are typed after Ctrl+E. The command line already shows the colon, so you type just w, q or e file.

Vim	Skink
`i`, `a`, `o` then type	Just type
`Esc` back to Normal	Not needed. `Esc` clears selections and extra cursors
`:w`	`Ctrl`+`S`, or `:w`
`:q` / `:qa`	`Ctrl`+`Q`, or `:q` / `:qa`
`:e file`	`Ctrl`+`O`, or `:e file`
`:42`	`Ctrl`+`L`, then `42`
`dd`	`Ctrl`+`K`, or `Ctrl`+`X` with no selection
`yy` / `p`	`Ctrl`+`C` with no selection / `Ctrl`+`V`
`u` / `Ctrl-r`	`Ctrl`+`Z` / `Ctrl`+`Y`
`%`	`Ctrl`+`]`
`:s/a/b/g`	`Ctrl`+`F`, `Tab` to “Replace with”, `Enter` (or `:replace a b`)
`qa` … `@a`	`Ctrl`+`U` to record, `Ctrl`+`J` to replay
`vipJ`, `:sort`	`:JoinLines`, `:SortLines`

You can open files the Vim-ish way from the shell too: skink file.rs:42:7 jumps to line 42, column 7.

Keep using Vim where it is the only option, and install Skink where you work every day:

curl -fsSL https://skink.cc/install.sh | sh

Over SSH

Both run on the server inside your SSH session. Skink’s install needs no sudo, and the Linux builds are static (musl), so they also work on Alpine and other minimal hosts.

Copy in Skink goes to your local clipboard over SSH through OSC 52 by default. In Vim you need a plugin or the newer bundled osc52 package. See copy and paste over SSH.

Try it

curl -fsSL https://skink.cc/install.sh | sh
skink .

Then open the quick start. Also see Skink vs Neovim and how to exit Vim.