FFF Claims to Be the Best Neovim File Picker. Is It?

Interview with Dmitriy Kovalenko, creator of FFF, a fast file search picker for Neovim that describes itself as “the best file search picker for neovim. Period.”

We’ll talk about why he built FFF, how it compares to tools like Telescope, fzf-lua, and snacks.nvim, and why file picking in Neovim is still such a hot topic. We’ll also get into performance, memory usage, plugin bloat, Rust, Neovim workflows, and the fun drama that happens when someone says their tool is the best.

Dmitriy is also known for having strong opinions online. We’ll talk about open source, controversial takes, what makes a Neovim plugin actually good, and whether modern Neovim setups are becoming too bloated.

Video:

https://youtu.be/HRx3B5wYcrI

What's the best way to support me?

https://linkarzu.com/about/#youre-a-fraud-why-do-you-ask-for-money-isnt-youtube-ads-enough

Timeline:

00:00:00 - Highlights

00:01:14 - Why are you so hated in the Neovim Subreddit?

00:06:22 - Snacks smart picker demo and why fff was born

00:09:44 - FFF weird view when small resolution. Previewing images

00:12:19 - What is FFF? Demo comparing it to snacks in chromium codebase

00:17:47 - Can you change the sorting options in FFF?

00:20:29 - Thoughts on telescope?

00:21:07 - how to search in hidden files?

00:26:49 - fff jacket giveaway

00:27:53 - Why Neovim and not other editor?

00:31:51 - Why Kitty and not Ghostty?

00:35:11 - Kitty sessions? Thoughts on Tmux?

00:38:57 - Kitty Sessions demo

00:40:48 - FFF sloppy

00:42:23 - FFF vs Snacks on the linux kernel codebase demo

00:44:34 - Typos for being so fast?

00:50:20 - Thoughts on mini.pick and Echasnovski's plugins

00:52:50 - Rust is your main language?

00:58:07 - Why are you daily driving macOS?

00:59:39 - Any apps that leverage FFF in a GUI?

01:04:08 - FFF sorting capabilities?

01:05:24 - Plans for future projects?

01:12:48 - Dmitriy Kovalenko youtube channel

01:14:33 - What do you do for a living?

01:15:25 - Feel depressed about AI?

01:19:30 - Chat content idea: react to folke's plugins, do you hate Folke?

01:27:42 - What does FFF stand for?

01:28:47 - FFF started as a Neovim plugin, what is it now?

01:30:57 - Where can people find you on twittter or github?

01:31:38 - Why can't AI edit videos?