head to head · open source
helix vs re-editor
helix has 46,306 GitHub stars, 3,767 forks, 1,671 open issues and last shipped yesterday. re-editor has 762 stars, 101 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. helix leads on adoption by 5,977% (46,306 vs 762 stars). helix is written in Rust under MPL-2.0; re-editor is written in Dart under MIT. helix has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, re-editor 13%. helix was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (text-editor), 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
| helix | re-editor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 762 |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-08-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 101 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick helix if
- You weight community size — 46K 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 re-editor if
- You want the re-editor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and re-editor fits your workflow better
About helix
Helix is a post modern modal text editor written in Rust that brings the selection first Kakoune editing model to the terminal, aimed at developers who want Vim style modal editing with language tooling built into the editor rather than assembled from a plugin stack.
read the full helix overview →
About re-editor
Re Editor is an MIT licensed, lightweight text and code editor widget for Flutter, published on pub.dev as the re editor package, intended for Dart developers who need multi line text display, syntax highlighting, and code editor behaviour inside an application rather than a plain input field.
read the full re-editor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is helix or re-editor more popular?
helix has 46,306 GitHub stars and re-editor has 762. helix has the larger community by that measure.
Are helix and re-editor free?
Both are open source. helix is licensed under MPL-2.0 and re-editor under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between helix and re-editor?
helix is written in Rust and re-editor in Dart. 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 re-editor?
Choose helix if you want the larger community (46,306 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose re-editor if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.