head to head · open source
NvChad vs devpod
NvChad has 28,490 GitHub stars, 2,218 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. devpod has 15,228 stars, 582 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 87% (28,490 vs 15,228 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; devpod is written in Go under MPL-2.0. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, devpod 4%. 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 | devpod | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 15K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Go |
| Last push | 2026-07-03 | 2025-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 582 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick NvChad if
- You weight community size — 28K 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 devpod if
- You want the devpod feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and devpod fits your workflow better
About NvChad
NvChad is a Neovim configuration framework written in Lua that provides a base configuration with polished defaults and a beautiful UI, aimed at developers who want a fast, preconfigured editor without assembling a configuration from scratch.
read the full NvChad overview →
About devpod
DevPod is an open source, client only tool that builds reproducible developer environments from a devcontainer.json on almost any backend — a local Docker daemon, a Kubernetes cluster, a reachable remote machine, or a virtual machine in the cloud — for developers who want a Codespaces style workflow without a hosted service.
read the full devpod overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or devpod more popular?
NvChad has 28,490 GitHub stars and devpod has 15,228. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and devpod free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and devpod under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and devpod?
NvChad is written in Lua and devpod in Go. 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 devpod?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,490 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose devpod if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.