head to head · open source
NvChad vs Kilo
NvChad has 28,490 GitHub stars, 2,218 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Kilo has 27,369 stars, 3,178 forks, 586 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NvChad leads on adoption by 4% (28,490 vs 27,369 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; Kilo is written in TypeScript under MIT. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Kilo 12%. Kilo 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
| NvChad | Kilo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 27K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-07-03 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 3.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick NvChad if
- You weight community size — 28K 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 Kilo if
- You want the Kilo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Kilo fits your workflow better
About NvChad
NvChad is a Neovim configuration framework written in Lua that provides a base configuration with polished defaults and a beautiful UI, aimed at developers who want a fast, preconfigured editor without assembling a configuration from scratch.
read the full NvChad overview →
About Kilo
Kilo is an open source AI coding agent platform that integrates into VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, the CLI, and cloud environments. It enables developers to build, ship, and iterate faster by acting as an autonomous or semi autonomous coding assistant across their entire workflow. Built in TypeScript and licensed under MIT, it supports 500+ models—including GPT 5.5, Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview—without vendor lock in or markup.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or Kilo more popular?
NvChad has 28,490 GitHub stars and Kilo has 27,369. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and Kilo free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Kilo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and Kilo?
NvChad is written in Lua and Kilo 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 Kilo?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,490 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Kilo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.