Altova XMLSpy vs. Vim

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Altova XMLSpy
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
The XMLSpy JSON and XML Editor from Altova is designed to give developers the tools they need to build the most sophisticated applications with its graphical schema designer, code generation, file converters, debuggers, and profilers for working with XSD, XSLT, XQuery, XBRL, and SOAP.N/A
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Vim is an open source configurable text editor.N/A
Pricing
Altova XMLSpyVim
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Altova XMLSpyVim
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Altova XMLSpyVim
Best Alternatives
Altova XMLSpyVim
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Altova XMLSpyVim
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Altova XMLSpyVim
Likelihood to Recommend
Altova XMLSpy is an excellent tool for creating/designing new XML schemas (XSDs) using a visual layout tool and helps developers and architects work with XML and JSON documents, understand and validate and diagnose issues with XML and JSON documents. It is not well suited for working with other data formats, such as YAML or CSV.
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If you're doing any sort of text editing, you should consider Vim--once you climb the learning curve, you'll be faster and more efficient at everything you do. Also, Vim is my default search/replace tool--whenever I need to make changes throughout a document, most often, I'll copy and paste into a Vim window so that I can take advantage of regexp-based replacements. Vim isn't for the faint of heart, though--it's hard to learn and super complex. If you use a text editor once or twice a month, or just need a simple way to strip out formatting, Notepad will get you where you want to go without all the confusion.
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Pros
  • XML schema (XSD) design and maintenance
  • XML document validation
  • XML and JSON document reformatting and pretty-printing
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  • The efficient modal editing makes it very fast to write/edit code as I think of it.
  • The customization and wide range of plugins let me do very specific things and automate parts of my workflow.
  • The fact that it runs inside a terminal simplifies my window management and just becomes another Tmux window in my workflow.
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Cons
  • Application performance could be improved, especially initial load speed
  • Better support for large document handling (documents hundreds or thousands of megabytes in size)
  • Remove all nagging popups to upgrade
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  • Without a doubt the hardest program to learn. It is a completely different paradigm of thinking compared to other editors
  • By default it doesn't have lots of fancy features you would find in larger IDE programs like code completion and linking
  • It lives in the command line so a user has to be comfortable with this interface
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Usability
No answers on this topic
I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
The support is somewhat lacking; Vim doesn't really have support outside of its forums. The forums, while notably good, aren't equal to real support though, and the steep learning curve makes you wish there was a help desk that would assist with all of the basic questions. There are several handy books and guides that can be found, and most implementations of the product come with "vitutor" which walks you through its usage.
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Alternatives Considered
XMLSpy does not have many capable competitors, it is the market leader and other alternatives do not provide the tools we rely on.
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I think it comes down to usability (and frankly, just preference). There's an old adage that Emacs is a good Operating System with a poor Text Editor! Jokes aside, when looking at different text editors, such as Emacs or Nano, Vim is the one that is usually always preferred because of how simple it is to learn. The learning curve of Vim compared to other text editors just makes it such a natural choice.
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Return on Investment
  • XMLSpy has made us much more efficient when designing new integrations
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  • Steep learning curve means lower than average efficiency at the beginning.
  • After getting familiar, it is so efficient that you will never want to use other editors.
  • Good return on investment for serious editor/developers, may not be good for casual ones.
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ScreenShots