head to head · open source
NvChad vs auto-dev
NvChad has 28,545 GitHub stars, 2,208 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 22 days ago. auto-dev has 4,567 stars, 501 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 525% (28,545 vs 4,567 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; auto-dev is written in Kotlin under MPL-2.0. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, auto-dev 11%. 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 | auto-dev | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 4.6K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-10-24 | 2026-09-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 501 |
| 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 auto-dev if
- You want the auto-dev feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and auto-dev 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 auto-dev
AutoDev 3.0 Xiuper (Alpha) One Platform. All Phases. Every Device. 统一平台 · 全开发阶段 · 跨全设备 AutoDev Xiuper is an AI native, multi agent development platform built on Kotlin Multiplatform. Based on the current codebase, it focuses on document research, coding, code review, data query, artifact generation, and web interaction workflows, and targets IntelliJ IDEA, VS Code, CLI, Desktop JVM, Android, iOS, JS/WASM Web, and Server runtimes. One Platform Architecture Get Started Download AutoDev Xiuper IntelliJ IDEA Plugin : JetBrains Marketplace VSCode Extension : Visual Studio Marketplace CLI Tool : npm install g…
read the full auto-dev overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or auto-dev more popular?
NvChad has 28,545 GitHub stars and auto-dev has 4,567. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and auto-dev free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and auto-dev under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and auto-dev?
NvChad is written in Lua and auto-dev in Kotlin. 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 auto-dev?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,545 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose auto-dev if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.