Comparison of Vi-mode plugins for Zsh

vi-mode-plugins.md

Functionality	Nyquase/vi-mode	laurenkt/zsh-vimto	ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh	sinetoami/vi-mode	softmoth/zsh-vim-mode	personal
vicmd: prefix search	j k
vicmd: edit-command-line	^V		v	v	^V, ^X^E	:e
substring-search				^k ^j	^p ^n
viins: up-/down-history	^P ^N		^P ^N	^P ^N	^P ^N	^P ^N
viins: bind emacs keys	^? ^a ^e ^h ^r ^U ^w	^? ^h ^r	^? ^a ^e ^h ^r ^w	^? ^a ^e ^h ^r ^w	^? ^a ^b ^e ^f ^k ^r ^s ^u ^w ^X^X ^y ^_ ^[u ^[l ^[g ^Q	^? ^a ^e ^h ^r ^w
cursor style: change on	keymap-select, line-init, line-finish	keymap-select, line-init			precmd, line-pre-redraw, line-init, line-finish, isearch-update, isearch-exit	keymap-select, line-init
cursor style:	block/bar	block/bar			block/bar/underbar, blink, color	block/bar/underbar
cursor style: tmux support		✓			✓
Mode indicator in prompt:	RPROMPT unless non-empty	only in command mode	RPROMPT unless non-empty		RPROMPT unless set
Mode indicator support:	vicmd, viins, visual	vicmd, viins	vicmd, viins		vicmd, replace, search, visual, visual-line, viins

---

Personal notes:

• Some of the bindings are ^A instead of ^a, etc. I think ^$key bindings are case-insensitive, but I can't find documentation for this. I think it's a TTY thing, not a Zsh or Bash thing.
• I use : mapped to execute-named-cmd. It is super intuitive to vi/vim, I am surprised other plugins don't do this. Then I can use :e as edit-command-line by aliasing the widget to e. I also have zle -A s replace-string for the same reason. Unfortunately, execute-named-cmd is horrible, I may write a new minibuffer-based function to replace it.
• softmoth/zsh-vim-mode also enables some text objects and surround, which I do in zsh-vi-more/vi-motions.
• softmoth/zsh-vim-mode has a lot more bindings exclusive to it which I haven't listed here.