head to head · open source
NvChad vs spyder
NvChad has 28,528 GitHub stars, 2,211 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. spyder has 9,390 stars, 1,825 forks, 1,353 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NvChad leads on adoption by 204% (28,528 vs 9,390 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 | ★ 29K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-24 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 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 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 spyder
Copyright © 2009– Spyder Project Contributors and others (see AUTHORS.txt) Some source files and icons may be under other authorship/licenses; see NOTICE.txt. Project status Build status Try Spyder online :point left: Click on this link to run the latest Spyder version in your browser. :point left: Click on this link to check the next Spyder 6 version.
read the full spyder overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NvChad or spyder more popular?
NvChad has 28,528 GitHub stars and spyder has 9,390. 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 (28,528 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose spyder if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.