head to head · open source
NvChad vs sidex
NvChad has 28,490 GitHub stars, 2,218 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. sidex has 2,977 stars, 241 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. NvChad leads on adoption by 857% (28,490 vs 2,977 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%. sidex 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.
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Side by side
| NvChad | sidex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-07-03 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 241 |
| 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 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 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 sidex
SideX is a port of Visual Studio Code that replaces Electron with Tauri — a Rust backend running against the operating system's native webview — for developers who want the VS Code workbench, editor, terminal and Git tooling without the bundled browser that normally comes with them.
read the full sidex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or sidex more popular?
NvChad has 28,490 GitHub stars and sidex has 2,977. 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 (28,490 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sidex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.