head to head · open source
vscodium vs spyder
vscodium has 33,332 GitHub stars, 1,864 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. spyder has 9,335 stars, 1,803 forks, 1,353 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vscodium leads on adoption by 257% (33,332 vs 9,335 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; spyder is written in Python under MIT. vscodium has attracted 6% 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
| vscodium | spyder | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 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 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 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 vscodium or spyder more popular?
vscodium has 33,332 GitHub stars and spyder has 9,335. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and spyder free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and spyder under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and spyder?
vscodium is written in Shell 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, vscodium or spyder?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,332 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose spyder if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.