head to head · open source
NvChad vs intellij-elixir
NvChad has 28,518 GitHub stars, 2,213 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. intellij-elixir has 1,898 stars, 164 forks, 310 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 1,403% (28,518 vs 1,898 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; intellij-elixir is written in Kotlin under Apache-2.0. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, intellij-elixir 9%. intellij-elixir was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (hacktoberfest, 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 | intellij-elixir | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 164 |
| 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 intellij-elixir if
- You want the intellij-elixir feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and intellij-elixir 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 intellij-elixir
Table of Contents ================= Elixir plugin IDEs Features Project From Existing Sources Import project from external model Create project from existing sources New Project Structure Project Settings SDK Setup Known Limitations Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Support WSL Limitations Module Settings Sources Paths Dependencies SDK Status Widget( sdk status widget) [New Elixir File Empty module Elixir Application Elixir Supervisor Elixir GenServer Elixir GenEvent Syntax Highlighting and Semantic Annotation Grammar parsing Inspections Ambiguous nested calls Ambiguous parentheses Empty Parentheses Keywords in…
read the full intellij-elixir overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or intellij-elixir more popular?
NvChad has 28,518 GitHub stars and intellij-elixir has 1,898. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and intellij-elixir free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and intellij-elixir under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and intellij-elixir?
NvChad is written in Lua and intellij-elixir 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 intellij-elixir?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,518 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose intellij-elixir if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.