Comparison

Vimlike vs Surfingkeys

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Vimlike

Enhance your Safari browsing with Vim-like keyboard navigation, link labeling, and an AI assistant for page interaction. Customize shortcuts and clean up web pages for a more efficient and personalized experience.

Highlights
  • Vim keybindings for navigation
  • Link labeling for quick access
  • AI assistant for page interaction
  • Customizable shortcuts and site clean-ups
  • Search bar for tabs, history, and web
  • Keyboard editor for command mapping
Features
Read full description

Vimlike puts vim's keys on every page in Safari. j and k scroll, f labels every link, o opens one bar for tabs, history, search and the AI. Version 2.0 adds an assistant that works the page, shortcuts and clean-ups the AI makes for each site, signed site packs and a keyboard editor. Free. No in-app purchases, no account, no tracking. iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. KEYBOARD h j k l, gg, G, d, u. Link hints turn every link on screen into a one- or two-letter jump: f labels them, type the label to open, ⇧F opens in a background tab. t new tab, x close, q and w previous and next, ⇧Z reopen, g1…g9 by number. ⇧H back, ⇧L forward, gu up one URL level, yy copy the URL. Normal mode to navigate, Insert to type; Esc returns, and ` or § can stand in for it on iPad keyboards. Video full screen and picture in picture, zoom, and ? for the cheat sheet. SEARCH BAR Press o and type. The bar searches your open tabs, your local history, your top sites and the web in one list. ↩ opens the highlighted row; ⌘↩ sends the text to the AI instead. ↑ on an empty bar walks back through what you ran, like a shell. : opens your saved commands; / finds a link on the page by name. AI ASSISTANT Ask about the page, or have it do the work. It clicks, types, picks from menus, pulls tables out, opens tabs and reads your other tabs, with 28 tools. It asks before anything it cannot undo. Saved commands like :sum, :table, :translate and :links, plus your own. Five kinds of tool, each Allow, Ask or Deny, and a step limit per run. A long answer opens as a page you can copy as Markdown or print. Pick Apple Intelligence as the provider and it runs free on Apple's Private Cloud Compute, nothing to sign up for, nothing kept (iOS 27, iPadOS 27 or macOS 27 with Apple Intelligence on). Or use your own key for Claude, OpenAI, Gemini or DeepSeek; the key goes in the Keychain. Or Open in browser mode, which opens ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity or DeepSeek in a new tab with your prompt and the page's text already typed in. SHORTCUTS AND CLEAN-UPS FOR EACH SITE Suggest shortcuts reads the page's places and proposes keys: gj JavaScript, gl Learn, gb the blog. The keys work while you try them; Save keeps them, Esc discards. A key is a click or an address, never a script. Clean up this page hides ads, banners, the sidebar or comments with styles you can remove later; the main text can never be hidden. By hand, gk on any page: click an element, press a key, name it. KEYBOARD EDITOR Settings › Keyboard lists every command. Pick a command, record a key, exclude it on sites where it gets in the way. Conflicts are flagged as you go. Script mode keeps the settings script for anyone who prefers to write it. SITE PACKS One signed file for one website: keys for its places, a few AI commands, CSS, and the Vimlike keys it hands back so the site's own shortcuts still work. YouTube, Gmail, Google Search and News, Reddit, Wikipedia, GitHub, Hacker News, Netflix and more. Verified on your device each time it runs, no JavaScript. Updates keep your switches and re-keyed keys. VISUAL AND CARET MODE v starts a selection, ⇧V selects by line, c places a caret you move first. Then vim's motions: hjkl, w b e, 0 $, f and t to a character, aw a word, as a sentence. y copies, / finds text, : asks the AI about the selection. PRIVACY No account and no server. Nothing about your browsing is collected. The bar's history is stored on the device and can be deleted in Settings. API keys live in the Keychain, never given to the page. Settings sync through your own iCloud, or stay on one device. With an AI provider, your prompt and the page's text go to the provider you chose and nowhere else. Languages: English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Cantonese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese. Requires iOS and iPadOS 16.6 or later, or macOS 13 or later. Vimlike needs access to websites to take over the keyboard shortcuts; you choose which sites in Safari.

About

Surfingkeys

Enhance your browsing experience with a Safari extension that adds powerful search engine helpers to selected text. It offers additional shortcuts when an external keyboard is connected.

Highlights
  • Versatile search engine helpers
  • Search selected text
  • External keyboard shortcuts
  • Safari extension
Features
Read full description

A Safari extension to add versatile search engine helpers to search selected text.  * More shortcuts are available when external keyboard is attached.*

Screenshots

Vimlike4 screens
Surfingkeys1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Vimlike at Free against Surfingkeys's $9.99. Vimlike also leads on ratings volume (30 vs 7). Surfingkeys's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and review sentiment (100% vs 85%). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Vimlike is free to download; Surfingkeys costs $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Surfingkeys holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 30 and 7 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 85% of Vimlike's written reviews are positive against 100% of Surfingkeys's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Vimlike ships an update every 2 months, Surfingkeys every 3 months. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Vimlike versus Surfingkeys: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterVimlikeSurfingkeys
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating4.7 (30 ratings)5.0 (7 ratings) — better
Positive reviews84.6% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings30 — better7
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS16.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size37 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJasmine Studios钊岗 洪

Customer experience

Vimlike

All ratings30 ratings
Positive93.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews52 reviews
Positive84.6%
Neutral11.5%
Negative3.8%

Surfingkeys

All ratings7 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Vimlike

Reported bugs

14 issues
  • Default mode setting does not work
  • Scrolling bug on iPadOS
  • Cannot use 'f' to press buttons on webpage
  • Hitting F again does not cancel navigation
  • Extension not working after a while, requires reinstallation
Show 9 more
  • Scrolling no longer works on iPadOS
  • Memory leak after Ventura update
  • Issues with custom bindings in Gmail
  • Scrolling animation feels choppy
  • Scrolling stuttery on iPad Pro with ProMotion
  • Cannot get out of YouTube fullscreen with control+u
  • Reconfigs don't work
  • Safari no longer inserts username/passwords
  • Extension not working on Google Domains

Requested features

15 requests
  • Open search result in current tab
  • Customized new tab URL
  • Support for opening bookmarks/favorites
  • Visual mode for highlighting text
  • Custom search URL support
Show 10 more
  • Ability to move tabs left/right
  • Option to disable scrolling animation
  • More subtle color scheme for link selection
  • Website specific settings to exclude key bindings
  • Simulate 'o' and 'O' from other Vim plugins
  • Command focus the URL of the page
  • Specify keys for ACTIVATE_LINK command with 'Ignore keyboard layout'
  • Command for changing tab order
  • Easy in-app config for exclusion list
  • Dark mode option

Surfingkeys

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Vimlike

No in-app purchases

None

Surfingkeys

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Vimlike free?
Vimlike is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Surfingkeys free?
Surfingkeys costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Vimlike or Surfingkeys?
Surfingkeys is rated higher. Vimlike averages 4.7 out of 5 from 30 ratings, while Surfingkeys averages 5.0 from 7 ratings.
Do Vimlike or Surfingkeys have ads?
Neither Vimlike nor Surfingkeys shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Vimlike or Surfingkeys?
Vimlike ships an update every 2 months, and Surfingkeys every 3 months. Most recently, Vimlike was updated on November 3, 2026 and Surfingkeys on November 3, 2026.

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