head to head · open source
vscodium vs NvChad
vscodium has 33,312 GitHub stars, 1,865 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. NvChad has 28,490 stars, 2,218 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. vscodium leads on adoption by 17% (33,312 vs 28,490 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; NvChad is written in Lua under GPL-3.0. vscodium has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, NvChad 8%. vscodium 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
| vscodium | NvChad | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 28K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-07-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vscodium if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick NvChad if
- You want the NvChad feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and NvChad fits your workflow better
About vscodium
VSCodium is a repository of scripts that automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely licensed binaries with a community driven default configuration, made for developers who want the Visual Studio Code editing experience without Microsoft branding, telemetry, or licensing encumbrance.
read the full vscodium overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vscodium or NvChad more popular?
vscodium has 33,312 GitHub stars and NvChad has 28,490. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and NvChad free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and NvChad under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and NvChad?
vscodium is written in Shell and NvChad 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, vscodium or NvChad?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,312 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose NvChad if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.