head to head · open source
vscodium vs evil-helix
vscodium has 33,766 GitHub stars, 1,898 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. evil-helix has 1,383 stars, 40 forks, 77 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. vscodium leads on adoption by 2,342% (33,766 vs 1,383 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; evil-helix is written in Rust under MPL-2.0. vscodium has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, evil-helix 3%. vscodium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (editor, 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 | evil-helix | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-22 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 40 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vscodium if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick evil-helix if
- You want the evil-helix feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and evil-helix fits your workflow better
About vscodium
VSCodium Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of Visual Studio Code This is not a fork. This is a repository of scripts to automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely licensed binaries with a community driven default configuration. Table of Contents Download/Install Install with Brew Install with Windows Package Manager (WinGet) Install with Chocolatey Install with Scoop Install with snap Install with Package Manager Install on Arch Linux Flatpak Option Build Why Does This Exist More Info Supported Platforms Previously Supported Platforms Download/Install :tada: :tada: Download latest…
read the full vscodium overview →
About evil-helix
evil helix A soft fork of Helix which introduces Vim keybindings and more. Installation Download a package and extract it in /opt . Additionally, it's recommended to symlink it in /usr/local/bin : Package manager If a package is available for your system's package manager, it's the recommended way to install evil helix. Current state These are the current differences compared to the upstream project: Vim keybindings ( feel free to file an issue if you're missing certain bindings ): Commands: a , c , d , y , x Modifiers: i Motions: w , W , e , E , b , B , 0 , $ Visual line mode: V Adjusted defaults (511060a): The…
read the full evil-helix overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vscodium or evil-helix more popular?
vscodium has 33,766 GitHub stars and evil-helix has 1,383. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and evil-helix free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and evil-helix under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and evil-helix?
vscodium is written in Shell and evil-helix in Rust. 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 evil-helix?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,766 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose evil-helix if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.