head to head · open source
NvChad vs lite-xl
NvChad has 28,526 GitHub stars, 2,211 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. lite-xl has 6,510 stars, 328 forks, 330 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 338% (28,526 vs 6,510 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; lite-xl is written in Lua under MIT. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, lite-xl 5%. lite-xl was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (lua), 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 | lite-xl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-10-24 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 328 |
| 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 lite-xl if
- You want the lite-xl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and lite-xl 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 lite-xl
Lite XL [![CI]]( [![Discord Badge Image]]( ![screenshot dark] A lightweight text editor written in Lua, adapted from [lite]. [Get Lite XL] — Download for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. [Get plugins] — Add additional functionality, adapted for Lite XL. [Get color themes] — Add additional colors themes. Please refer to our [website] for the user and developer documentation, including [build] instructions details. A quick build guide is described below. Lite XL has support for high DPI display on Windows and Linux and, since 1.16.7 release, it supports retina displays on macOS. Please note that Lite XL is compatible…
read the full lite-xl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or lite-xl more popular?
NvChad has 28,526 GitHub stars and lite-xl has 6,510. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and lite-xl free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and lite-xl under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and lite-xl?
NvChad is written in Lua and lite-xl in Lua. 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 lite-xl?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,526 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose lite-xl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.