Vimlike vs Metanote
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
Metanote
A privacy-focused offline editor that supports Org mode for writing, task management, and knowledge wikis. It offers real-time editing of rich content and seamless synchronization across devices.
- Privacy-first offline editor
- Full Org mode support
- Real-time rich content editing
- Seamless synchronization
- Integrated task management
- Full-text search
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Metanote is a privacy-first offline editor that supports org mode. In Metanote, everything is text, everything is editable. Supports real-time editing and rendering of images, hyperlinks, tables, Latex mathematical formulas, source code blocks, attachments and other rich content with the text markup language 'org mode'. Literary creation, academic papers, literary programming, task management, knowledge wiki and other usage scenarios can be easily handled. *** Freedom & Private 100% work offline, no account required, no network required, no private document formats, no data collection, your data and privacy are completely under your control. *** Writing every where Whether on the go or in your bedroom, you can create, view and edit your documents anytime, anywhere, and with built-in synchronization, everything will be there when you return to your desk. *** A silky-smooth editing experience Pure native development, lightweight and smooth, rejecting any lag, even for large files! *** Thinking better Through the structured editing function, ideas come to life on screen. It is not only a beautiful outline, but also efficient thinking. *** Never miss a thing There is no more free task management system than this. Notes are to-dos, and to-dos are notes. Everything is plain-text and everything can be edited. Capture inspiration on the go with 'capture' and keep everything in sight with 'agenda view's. *** Org mode Metanote fully supports org mode 9.3.6 syntax, including features like Capture and Agenda View, allowing for a perfect and even enhanced org mode experience on smartphones. - An incredibly smooth editing experience. - Sync using WebDAV(Apache WebDAV Server, ownCloud, Yandex.disk, etc.), Dropbox, OneDrive, Git, iCloud. - Support for adding Obsidian and Logseq working directories, integrating and managing them in a unified manner - Supports full-text search. - Support images, tables and LaTeX. - Support hyperlinks and attachments. 1. Supports internal links and external links. 2. Click on the attachment link to preview and edit, the following types are supported: 1. iWork and Microsoft Office documents 2. Images 3. Live Photos 4. Text files 5. PDFs 6. Audio and video files - Supports multi-window editing. - Customizable startup page - Supports mini buffer. - Compatible with org mode version 9.3.6 - Todo notifications support - View agenda views by year, month, and day - Customizable workflows - Support for custom capture, custom agenda view, refile, log note, and other features. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Vimlike at none against Metanote's 2. Vimlike also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.3) and review sentiment (85% vs 73%). Metanote's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 16.6). On price, ratings volume, ads 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
Both are free to download. Metanote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $12.99 per year. Vimlike asks for nothing beyond the download.
Vimlike holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 30 and 15 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 85% of Vimlike's written reviews are positive against 73% of Metanote's.
Vimlike ships an update every 2 months, Metanote every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.
| Parameter | Vimlike | Metanote |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (30 ratings) — better | 4.3 (15 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 84.6% of reviews — better | 72.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 30 — better | 15 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 37 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jasmine Studios | 雪双 陈 |
Customer experience
Vimlike
Metanote
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
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- 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
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- 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
Metanote
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Vimlike
No in-app purchases
Metanote
- Metanote Premium$12.991 Year
- One-time purchase$19.99








