helm VS swiper

Compare helm vs swiper and see what are their differences.

helm

Emacs incremental completion and selection narrowing framework (by emacs-helm)

swiper

Ivy - a generic completion frontend for Emacs, Swiper - isearch with an overview, and more. Oh, man! (by abo-abo)
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helm swiper
48 36
3,347 2,247
0.4% -
9.7 6.6
4 days ago 15 days ago
Emacs Lisp Emacs Lisp
GNU General Public License v3.0 only -
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

helm

Posts with mentions or reviews of helm. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-06-09.
  • lsp-treemacs icons not showing in Mac Terminal
    1 project | /r/emacs | 18 Oct 2023
    (setq inhibit-startup-message t) (setq visible-bell t) (setq make-backup-files nil) ; Disable the creation of ~ files (setq auto-save-default nil) ;; stop creating those #auto-save# files (setq display-line-numbers-mode t) ;(scroll-bar-mode -1) ; Disable visible scrollbar. Only for visual GUI ;(tool-bar-mode -1) ; Disable the toolbar. Only for visual GUI ;(tooltip-mode -1) ; Disable tooltips (menu-bar-mode -1) ; Disable the menu bar. Only for visual GUI ;(set-fringe-mode 10) ;(setq visible-bell t) ; Mac OSX specific ;mac-function-modifier ;mac-control-modifier) ;mac-command-modifier ;mac-option-modifier ;mac-right-command-modifier ;mac-right-control-modifier ;mac-right-option-modifier ;; key bindings (when (eq system-type 'darwin) ;; mac specific settings (set-terminal-coding-system 'utf-8) (set-keyboard-coding-system 'utf-8) (prefer-coding-system 'utf-8) (setq mac-command-modifier 'meta) (setq mac-control-modifier 'control) (global-set-key [kp-delete] 'delete-char) ;; sets fn-delete to be right-delete ) ;; ORG Mode (global-set-key (kbd "C-c l") #'org-store-link) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c a") #'org-agenda) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c c") #'org-capture) ;; packages (require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")) ;; Comment/uncomment this line to enable MELPA Stable if desired. See `package-archive-priorities` ;; and `package-pinned-packages`. Most users will not need or want to do this. ;;(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/") t) (package-initialize) ;; LSP-mode config (setq package-selected-packages '(lsp-mode yasnippet lsp-treemacs helm-lsp projectile hydra flycheck company avy which-key helm-xref dap-mode)) (when (cl-find-if-not #'package-installed-p package-selected-packages) (package-refresh-contents) (mapc #'package-install package-selected-packages)) ;; sample `helm' configuration use https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm/ for details (helm-mode) (require 'helm-xref) (define-key global-map [remap find-file] #'helm-find-files) (define-key global-map [remap execute-extended-command] #'helm-M-x) (define-key global-map [remap switch-to-buffer] #'helm-mini) (which-key-mode) (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'lsp) (add-hook 'c++-mode-hook 'lsp) (lsp-treemacs-sync-mode 1) (setq gc-cons-threshold (* 100 1024 1024) read-process-output-max (* 1024 1024) treemacs-space-between-root-nodes nil company-idle-delay 0.0 company-minimum-prefix-length 1 lsp-idle-delay 0.1) ;; clangd is fast (with-eval-after-load 'lsp-mode (add-hook 'lsp-mode-hook #'lsp-enable-which-key-integration) (require 'dap-cpptools) (yas-global-mode)) ;; theme (load-theme 'modus-vivendi t)
  • How can I temporarily bypass helm and put free text
    2 projects | /r/emacs | 9 Jun 2023
    Oh wow wow wow! I just checked your commit on the repository. That's so amazing. I really appreciate that. And I also found a convenient donation link.
  • Looking Back On Helm (secure email appliance)
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 24 May 2023
  • Best emacs configs for Javascript and/or users who don't like to memorize keybindings?
    5 projects | /r/emacs | 24 Apr 2023
    Next you "only" have to remember (elisp) function names. "Completion UIs" like ivy/counsel, icomplete, helm or vertico/consult, give you a nice auto completion list on M-x (choose the one of them, you like the most). Some of those Completion UIs will display existing keybindings and a short documentation for commands, near the auto complete candidates. So you will start to remember more keybindings without "learning sessions", just because invoking functions via keybindings is much faster (more convenient).
  • org-SUPER-sparse-tree?
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 20 Apr 2023
    I use imenu, and helm-imenu to filter out the list interactively. Instead of scrolling through, you "jump" to an item via completion like helm-imenu, which filters all headings interactively in real-time as you type.
  • Is There A Buffer Package Like Vertico Pos-Frame That Makes A Rectangle Frame In The Middle For Dired Mode?
    2 projects | /r/emacs | 23 Mar 2023
    I personally use Helm, so I can manage all files (open, delete, copy, rename, etc) all from completing prompt directly, I don't need to open Dired for that.
  • What are the benefits of Vertico over Helm or Ivy?
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 21 Feb 2023
    Helm 1.2 release was in September 2011: https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm/releases/tag/v1.2
  • (require 'ffap) after bug fix #2574 in helm-lib.el?
    1 project | /r/emacs | 15 Feb 2023
    I updated helm recently and when trying to use it after startup I was hitting "Defining as dynamic an already lexical var" . debugger showed me it was due to `ffap-machine-p-local` not being defined yet, digging into helm-lib.el i found that it is due to the ffap let bindings added recently to `helm-guess-filename-at-point` - the first one was to address this issue https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm/issues/2574 and more recently two more ffaps were let bound. I can fix by adding `(require 'ffap)` in the helm `use-package` `:config` -- wondering if this is the recommended way or if it might be something worth living inside helm-lib.el near the top where it requires cl-lib already?
  • Drastic slowdown in Helm+auctex
    1 project | /r/emacs | 22 Dec 2022
    Related to https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm/discussions/2577
  • Completion command for common file moving/copying commands
    4 projects | /r/emacs | 27 Oct 2022
    Yes, Helm. Probably others like Embark.

swiper

Posts with mentions or reviews of swiper. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-05-29.
  • Flexible, simple tools for minibuffer completion in Emacs
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Jan 2024
  • org attach multiple files with ivy-call
    1 project | /r/emacs | 18 Jun 2023
  • An Improved Emacs Search
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 29 May 2023
    This is a good improvement. Personally though I left isearch behind. For further search convenience / functionality I highly recommend swiper.
  • Best emacs configs for Javascript and/or users who don't like to memorize keybindings?
    5 projects | /r/emacs | 24 Apr 2023
    Next you "only" have to remember (elisp) function names. "Completion UIs" like ivy/counsel, icomplete, helm or vertico/consult, give you a nice auto completion list on M-x (choose the one of them, you like the most). Some of those Completion UIs will display existing keybindings and a short documentation for commands, near the auto complete candidates. So you will start to remember more keybindings without "learning sessions", just because invoking functions via keybindings is much faster (more convenient).
  • What packages do the cool kids use these days?
    4 projects | /r/emacs | 9 Apr 2023
    Proposal 4 (group-function). This one is an actual addition, which allows candidate gouping in the style of Helm. Note that it is a pure addition. Completion UIs and completion packages work perfectly fine without it. It wouldn't be difficult to add support to Ivy. I wrote the patch.
  • How to Make Emacs Look Cooler with Simple Customization
    7 projects | /r/emacs | 10 Mar 2023
    For the unfamiliar, Swiper is a part of Ivy which lets you search through your buffer with a preview of match candidates: you type some text you're looking for, and up pops a list of matching lines in the minibuffer that you can then use the arrow keys, C-n C-p etc. to scroll through and select the one you want.
  • Replacing packages with more "stripped down" packages
    9 projects | /r/emacs | 19 Dec 2022
    When I started using Emacs I was following the setup outlined by System Crafters, which I still think is a really good introduction. But, over the last few months I've started to replace packages with more "minimalist" or "stripped down" packages. I've switched from Ivy and Counsel to Vertico and Consult, and recently I switched from company to corfu for auto-completion.
  • macOS DWIM "Open with" command (ok, last one for a while)
    4 projects | /r/emacs | 14 Oct 2022
    Ah, neat. I hadn't considered appending comments for searchability. I'm currently getting searchabiity from M-x dwim-... and ivy completion.
  • How do you take book notes?
    1 project | /r/OrgRoam | 12 Oct 2022
    Great question. I have one big file with a few hundreds book and quotations from them. Problem is with newlines. When I copy text from kindle it doesn't have newlines because it's depends on font size. So every quotation from book is on one line - could be few thousands chars. I use visual-line-mode and there is a big problem with that. Like swiper would just freeze your emacs if you try to search. https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper/issues/925 Anyone have same problem?
  • note-taking without org roam.
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 17 Sep 2022
    Then hit C-' (that's apostrophe, left of enter on US keyboards). Preferably with something like [ivy][https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper] set up so you can see what it's trying to autocomplete for you- it should be suggesting all of your org 'notebooks' in the targeted folder, as well as any buffers you have open.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing helm and swiper you can also consider the following projects:

vertico - :dizzy: vertico.el - VERTical Interactive COmpletion

doom-emacs - An Emacs framework for the stubborn martian hacker [Moved to: https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs]

fzf.vim - fzf :heart: vim

consult - :mag: consult.el - Consulting completing-read

selectrum - 🔔 Better solution for incremental narrowing in Emacs.

Vim - The official Vim repository

fzf - :cherry_blossom: A command-line fuzzy finder

company-mode - Modular in-buffer completion framework for Emacs