head to head · open source
NvChad vs dillinger
NvChad has 28,532 GitHub stars, 2,209 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. dillinger has 8,297 stars, 1,162 forks, 157 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 244% (28,532 vs 8,297 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; dillinger is written in TypeScript under MIT. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, dillinger 14%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| NvChad | dillinger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 8.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-24 | 2026-06-21 |
| 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 dillinger if
- You want the dillinger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and dillinger 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 dillinger
Dillinger The last Markdown editor you'll ever need. A modern, cloud native Markdown editor built on Next.js — designed for speed, focus, and seamless sync. Get Started · Features · Integrations · Deploy ✨ Why Dillinger Most markdown editors are either: bloated offline only or lack serious developer ergonomics Dillinger fixes that. It combines: ⚡ VS Code grade editing ☁️ Native cloud storage 🧘 Distraction free UX 🔄 Real time rendering ⚡ Quick Start Open → 🧱 Requirements Node.js 18+ npm / yarn / pnpm / bun 🚀 Features Editor Experience Monaco Editor (VS Code core) Syntax highlighting for Markdown Image paste…
read the full dillinger overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More IDEs & Code Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the IDEs & Code Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or dillinger more popular?
NvChad has 28,532 GitHub stars and dillinger has 8,297. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and dillinger free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and dillinger under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and dillinger?
NvChad is written in Lua and dillinger in TypeScript. 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 dillinger?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,532 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dillinger if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.