Mar 06, 2026, 01:36

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:36:52 +0000
vi, neatvi, nvi, unix, suckless, linux, slackware

Just measured memory usage of nvi vs neatvi opening a ~500KB file (/usr/include/*.h concatenated):

nvi 5184 KB
neatvi 1960 KB

2.6x less RSS neatvi wins without syntax highlighting even in the picture. The difference is likely nvi's Berkeley DB recovery layer allocating upfront regardless of use.