I think describing Kakoune/Helix as vi-inspired with “slightly different keybindings” is rather missing the point.

The most important difference is that they invert the editing model from verb-noun to noun-verb. Meaning you always see exactly what you’re going to be operating on before you do it.

The second most important difference is that they were designed from the ground up around multi-selection editing as a primitive, rather than a plugin or late addition.

That model is typically less efficient purely in terms of keystrokes, for some operations significantly so, but it’s somewhat mitigated if having the state on-screen rather than in your head means you undo less often.

I wouldn’t suggest either approach is superior. I suspect most people (“most people” in the subset of people who jibe with modal editing to begin with, anyway) will find that one just fits their brain better than the other.

Personally, even having used Vim almost daily since finding it on a Fish Disk sometime in the mid-90s, I still turned out to be in the kak/hx group. I can still use vi quite comfortably when I need to, but Helix removed a bit of friction I’d barely been aware of.

There’s a steady stream of NeoVim exiles to Helix forums, I think who mostly found its Lua-based config too complex/brittle, asking why the devs don’t add settings to make it work like Vim, include a *Vim keymap as standard, etc.

It’s kind of wild to me that people would choose their editor based on how minimalist its config/how batteries-included it is, rather than its fundamental editing paradigm.