head to head · open source
vscodium vs nvimdots
vscodium has 33,512 GitHub stars, 1,877 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nvimdots has 3,416 stars, 479 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. vscodium leads on adoption by 881% (33,512 vs 3,416 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; nvimdots is written in Lua under BSD-3-Clause. vscodium has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, nvimdots 14%. 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 | nvimdots | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Shell | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-10-03 | 2026-10-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 479 |
| 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 nvimdots if
- You want the nvimdots feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and nvimdots 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 nvimdots
nvimdots is a complete, modular Neovim configuration written in pure Lua for developers on Linux, macOS, Windows, and NixOS who want a ready to use, IDE like editor setup without assembling plugins themselves.
read the full nvimdots overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vscodium or nvimdots more popular?
vscodium has 33,512 GitHub stars and nvimdots has 3,416. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and nvimdots free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and nvimdots under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and nvimdots?
vscodium is written in Shell and nvimdots 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 nvimdots?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,512 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nvimdots if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.