head to head · open source
NvChad vs CodeEdit
NvChad has 28,530 GitHub stars, 2,212 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. CodeEdit has 23,105 stars, 1,196 forks, 213 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 23% (28,530 vs 23,105 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; CodeEdit is written in Swift under MIT. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, CodeEdit 5%. NvChad was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ide), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| NvChad | CodeEdit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 23K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-10-24 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick NvChad if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick CodeEdit if
- You want the CodeEdit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and CodeEdit fits your workflow better
About NvChad
NvChad Home • Install • Contribute • Support • Features Showcase What is it? NvChad is a neovim config written in lua aiming to provide a base configuration with very beautiful UI and blazing fast startuptime (around 0.02 secs 0.07 secs). We tweak UI plugins such as telescope, nvim tree etc well to provide an aesthetic UI experience. Lazy loading is done 93% of the time meaning that plugins will not be loaded by default, they will be loaded only when required also at specific commands, events etc. This lowers the startuptime and it was like 0.07 secs tested on an old pentium machine 1.4ghz + 4gb ram & HDD…
read the full NvChad overview →
About CodeEdit
CodeEdit for macOS CodeEdit is a code editor built by the community, for the community, written entirely and unapologetically for macOS. Features include syntax highlighting, code completion, project find and replace, snippets, terminal, task running, debugging, git integration, code review, extensions, and more. [!IMPORTANT] CodeEdit is currently in development and not yet recommended for production use, however you can take part in shaping it's future by test driving pre release versions and submitting an issue to let us know what you think. Table of Contents Motivation Mission Community Activity Contributing…
read the full CodeEdit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or CodeEdit more popular?
NvChad has 28,530 GitHub stars and CodeEdit has 23,105. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and CodeEdit free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and CodeEdit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and CodeEdit?
NvChad is written in Lua and CodeEdit in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, NvChad or CodeEdit?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,530 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose CodeEdit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.