head to head · open source
NvChad vs spyder
NvChad has 28,493 GitHub stars, 2,217 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. spyder has 9,335 stars, 1,803 forks, 1,353 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NvChad leads on adoption by 205% (28,493 vs 9,335 stars). NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0; spyder is written in Python under MIT. NvChad has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, spyder 19%. spyder 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 | spyder | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-07-03 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 spyder if
- You want the spyder feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and spyder 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 spyder
Spyder is a free, MIT licensed development environment for scientific Python, a desktop IDE built in Python on the Qt toolkit, intended for scientists, engineers, analysts and students who write and run Python code.
read the full spyder overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or spyder more popular?
NvChad has 28,493 GitHub stars and spyder has 9,335. NvChad has the larger community by that measure.
Are NvChad and spyder free?
Both are open source. NvChad is licensed under GPL-3.0 and spyder under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NvChad and spyder?
NvChad is written in Lua and spyder in Python. 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 spyder?
Choose NvChad if you want the larger community (28,493 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose spyder if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.