head to head · open source
helix vs NvChad
helix has 46,772 GitHub stars, 4,011 forks, 1,671 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. NvChad has 28,529 stars, 2,212 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. helix leads on adoption by 64% (46,772 vs 28,529 stars). helix is written in Rust under MPL-2.0; NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0. helix has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, NvChad 8%. NvChad was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| helix | NvChad | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 29K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick helix if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick NvChad if
- You want the NvChad feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and NvChad fits your workflow better
About helix
A Kakoune / Neovim inspired editor, written in Rust. The editing model is very heavily based on Kakoune; during development I found myself agreeing with most of Kakoune's design decisions. For more information, see the website or documentation. All shortcuts/keymaps can be found in the documentation on the website. Troubleshooting Features Vim like modal editing Multiple selections Built in language server support Smart, incremental syntax highlighting and code editing via tree sitter Although it's primarily a terminal based editor, I am interested in exploring a custom renderer (similar to Emacs) using wgpu…
read the full helix overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is helix or NvChad more popular?
helix has 46,772 GitHub stars and NvChad has 28,529. helix has the larger community by that measure.
Are helix and NvChad free?
Both are open source. helix is licensed under MPL-2.0 and NvChad under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between helix and NvChad?
helix is written in Rust and NvChad in Lua. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, helix or NvChad?
Choose helix if you want the larger community (46,772 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose NvChad if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.