Von Tetzchner then launched the Vivaldi Community—a virtual community focused on providing registered users with a discussion forum, blogging service, and numerous other practical web services—to make up for My Opera's closure.

[24] Initially being available only for Linux, macOS, and Windows, Vivaldi was launched with the intent of giving additional functionality when other browsers on the market at the time tried "their best at simplifying, and streamlining their products", according to Ars Technica.

[27] Vivaldi has a minimalist user interface with basic icons and fonts, and, optionally, a colour scheme that changes based on the background and design of the web page being visited.

[28] The browser also allows users to customise the appearance of UI elements such as background colour, overall theme, address bar and tab positioning, and start pages.

[39] As of Technical Preview 4, Vivaldi also supports numerous mouse gestures for actions like tab switching and keyboard activation.

[30] Vivaldi can also be set to a "Chromeless UI", which gives users more screen real-estate and the ability to focus on a single page without distractions.

However, he also pointed out that Vivaldi's extensive feature set and high degree of customizability can also be overwhelming for a casual user, making it clear that browser is not designed for everyone.

He praised the high number of customization options, suggesting it might be the "Emacs of web browsers" for its personalized user experience.

Gilbertson highlighted the browser's unique features, including a built-in email client, RSS feed reader, calendar, and translation tools.

[49] PC world's Staff Writer Michael Crider said in a July 2024 article "After a month, I’m finding that there’s nothing I want to do with Vivaldi that I can’t", but criticised it for not being able to handle multiple tabs without bugs.