head to head · open source
NvChad vs sidex
NvChad has 28,530 GitHub stars, 2,212 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. sidex has 3,161 stars, 265 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 803% (28,530 vs 3,161 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; sidex is written in TypeScript under MIT. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, sidex 8%. 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 | sidex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-24 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 265 |
| 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 sidex if
- You want the sidex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sidex 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 sidex
SideX VSCode's workbench, without Electron. Why · What's Working · AI Agent · Getting Started · How It's Built · Contributing · Discord SideX is a port of Visual Studio Code that replaces Electron with Tauri — a Rust backend and OS's native webview. The same TypeScript workbench, the same editor, terminal, and Git integration, running without a bundled browser. Early release. Core editing and the terminal are solid. The extension host and debugger are still in progress. See What's Working for the full picture. Why VSCode's memory useage is almost entirely from its bundled Chromium, not the editor itself. Tauri…
read the full sidex 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 sidex more popular?
NvChad has 28,530 GitHub stars and sidex has 3,161. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and sidex free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and sidex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and sidex?
NvChad is written in Lua and sidex 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 sidex?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,530 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sidex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.