Microsoft Edge vs Vivaldi in 2026

Both of these fix the same complaint about Chrome — that it does too little — and both are Chromium underneath, so compatibility and extensions are equivalent. The difference is who does the deciding. Edge ships a curated set of features it has designed for you. Vivaldi ships a construction kit.

Curated versus configurable

Edge's built-ins are polished and immediately useful: split-screen browsing, vertical tabs, workspace grouping, and Copilot in the sidebar for summarising and drafting. It scores 5 for speed and 5 for extensions, and on Windows it is already installed and signed into the account holding your Office documents. For most people it is the shortest path from Chrome to a browser that does more.

Vivaldi scores 5 for customisability, the joint highest in our directory, and the number still undersells it. Tabs go on any edge, stack into groups, tile side by side, or run two levels deep. Keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures can be written for nearly any command. The interface themes down to individual colours. It also brings entire applications into the sidebar — a real email client, a calendar, an RSS reader, notes — which Edge does not attempt. And it includes a free VPN, where Edge's is part of a paid subscription.

Privacy and onboarding

Privacy separates them more than the feature lists do. Vivaldi scores 4, Edge 3. Vivaldi blocks ads, trackers and cookie banners by default and, crucially, does not run a telemetry pipeline into an advertising business or push you toward a search engine it owns. Edge blocks trackers and ads too, but it reports to Microsoft and works persistently to keep you on Bing and a Microsoft account. Neither is fully open source: Vivaldi's interface layer is proprietary, Edge is closed entirely.

The practical cost of Vivaldi is the onboarding. It scores 3 for ease of use against Edge's 4, and its first launch asks more questions than some people want to answer. It is also heavier, which you will feel on older hardware.

Which should you choose?

Choose Edge if you are on Windows, live in Microsoft 365, and want a more capable browser without a setup project. It is the sensible default for that situation and Copilot is genuinely handy.

Choose Vivaldi if you want to build the browser rather than accept one, need serious tab management, would like mail and calendar in the sidebar, and prefer a company with no advertising business behind it. Give it an hour before you judge it.