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Best Neovim Plugins in 2026: What Still Ships

Quick answer: The Neovim plugins worth building a config on in 2026 are nvim-treesitter, nvim-lspconfig, mason.nvim, blink.cmp, fzf-lua, gitsigns.nvim, conform.nvim, oil.nvim and mini.nvim. All of them had commits in the last four months. Several plugins that most older guides still recommend, including packer.nvim and markdown-preview.nvim, have not had a commit since 2023.

Most "best Neovim plugins" lists were written in 2022 or 2023 and re-ranked since. The ecosystem moved faster than they did, so we pulled the numbers before writing a ranking.

How we checked 1,411 plugins

The community list rockerBOO/awesome-neovim is where most people discover plugins, and it links directly to 1,411 GitHub repositories. On 30 September 2026 we pulled every one of them through the GitHub API: stars, archive status, and the date of the latest commit on the default branch. All 1,411 resolved.

What that turned up:

  • 450 repositories (31.9%) have not had a commit in 12 months, including 18 that are formally archived.
  • 226 (16.0%) have had no commit in two years.
  • 282 (20.0%) had a commit in the last 30 days. The healthy core is large, it is just not the same set of names the old lists repeat.
  • Among the 100 most-starred entries, 11 have gone a year without a commit.

Last-commit date is a blunt signal. Some small plugins are finished rather than abandoned, and a quiet repo still works until a Neovim release breaks it. But for the plugins your whole config depends on, it is the first thing to check.

The best Neovim plugins, ranked

Ranked by how much they do for a typical config, with stars and last commit so you can check our work.

  1. nvim-treesitter (14,432 stars, commit 2026-09-30). Syntax trees for highlighting, indentation, folding and text objects. Nearly every other plugin on this list assumes it is installed.
  2. nvim-lspconfig (13,961, 2026-09-30). Ready-made configurations for hundreds of language servers. Neovim's built-in LSP client does the work; this saves you writing the setup for each server.
  3. mason.nvim (10,497, 2026-06-11). Installs language servers, formatters, linters and debug adapters from inside Neovim. Now under the mason-org organisation rather than a single maintainer.
  4. blink.cmp (6,602, 2026-09-20). Fast completion with fuzzy matching and sensible defaults. It is one of the two completion engines LazyVim supports out of the box, and the easier start than nvim-cmp, which is still maintained (commit 2026-07-09) but needs more assembly.
  5. fzf-lua (4,454, 2026-09-29). Fuzzy finding for files, grep, buffers, LSP symbols and git, backed by fzf. Telescope (19,805, 2026-08-17) is still the most-starred picker and still maintained; fzf-lua is the faster, more actively committed choice.
  6. gitsigns.nvim (7,126, 2026-09-22). Git changes in the sign column, inline blame, and hunk staging without leaving the buffer.
  7. conform.nvim (5,360, 2026-08-11). Formatting on save, one formatter config per filetype. Pair it with nvim-lint (2,783, 2026-08-25) for linters that are not language servers.
  8. oil.nvim (6,926, 2026-06-02). Edit a directory like a buffer: rename, move and delete files by editing text. The file manager that feels most like Vim.
  9. mini.nvim (9,556, 2026-09-22). More than 40 small, independent modules for surround, pairs, comments, statusline, file browsing and more. The best option if you want fewer plugin authors in your config.
  10. Neogit (5,640, 2026-09-30). A Magit-style git interface for staging, committing and rebasing. The choice if you prefer a full git UI over the command line or vim-fugitive.
  11. codecompanion.nvim (6,885, 2026-09-29). AI chat and inline edits that work with several model providers. avante.nvim (18,169, 2026-09-30) is the more Cursor-like alternative, and both ship almost daily.
  12. render-markdown.nvim (5,118, 2026-09-15). Renders headings, tables, code blocks and checkboxes inside the buffer. It replaces the browser-preview workflow most lists still recommend.

Which popular Neovim plugins have stopped?

These all still show up in guides and starter configs, and all are still installable:

| Plugin | Stars | Last commit | Use instead | |---|---|---|---| | packer.nvim | 8,091 | 2023-08-24 | lazy.nvim or the built-in vim.pack | | markdown-preview.nvim | 8,006 | 2023-10-17 | render-markdown.nvim | | vim-devicons | 5,807 | 2022-10-01 | nvim-web-devicons or mini.icons | | vim-startify | 5,384 | 2023-09-20 | alpha-nvim or mini.starter | | diffview.nvim | 5,833 | 2024-06-13 | Neogit's diff views, or fugitive | | Comment.nvim | 4,667 | 2024-06-09 | Built-in gc commenting, native since Neovim 0.10 | | lightspeed.nvim | 1,552 | archived | leap.nvim or flash.nvim | | LunarVim | 19,265 | 2025-06-05 | LazyVim or kickstart.nvim |

Comment.nvim is the instructive case: it did not decay so much as get absorbed. Neovim now comments code out of the box, which is a pattern worth expecting more of.

Do you still need a plugin manager?

Less than before. Neovim 0.12 ships vim.pack, a built-in plugin manager, and the latest release (v0.12.5) came out on 23 August 2026. For a small config it is enough.

lazy.nvim (21,613 stars) is still the manager behind most starter configs, including LazyVim, and it still works well. It is also worth knowing that its last commit was on 17 December 2025, and several of the same author's widely used plugins are similarly quiet: which-key.nvim (last commit 2025-10-28), trouble.nvim (2025-10-31) and noice.nvim (2025-11-03). LazyVim itself is still shipping (2026-09-08). None of that is a reason to rip anything out today. It is a reason not to assume the most-recommended plugin is the most-maintained one.

Where should a new Neovim user start?

With a starter configuration rather than a blank init.lua. kickstart.nvim (31,524 stars, commit 2026-09-14) is a single, heavily commented file that teaches you what each part does. LazyVim (27,575, 2026-09-08) is a complete, opinionated setup you customise from the outside. AstroNvim (14,443, 2026-09-04) sits between the two.

If you are still choosing an editor, our code editor ranking compares Neovim with VS Code, Zed, Helix and the JetBrains IDEs, and the editor category lists 44 editors and IDEs, including Vim itself. Neovim lives in a terminal, so the terminal category covers the other half of the setup.

Frequently asked questions

What are the must-have Neovim plugins?

For most people: nvim-treesitter for syntax, nvim-lspconfig and mason.nvim for language servers, a completion plugin such as blink.cmp, a fuzzy finder such as fzf-lua or Telescope, and gitsigns.nvim. That set covers roughly what an IDE gives you out of the box, and all six are actively maintained.

Is lazy.nvim still the best plugin manager?

It is still the most widely used and it works well, but its last commit was in December 2025. Neovim 0.12 now includes vim.pack, which is enough for a small config. If you use LazyVim, stay on lazy.nvim, because the distribution is built around it.

Is packer.nvim deprecated?

Its repository has had no commit since August 2023, and nearly every current starter config has moved to lazy.nvim or the built-in vim.pack. If an old config still uses packer, migrating is usually an afternoon's work.

Telescope or fzf-lua?

Both are maintained. Telescope has the larger extension ecosystem and more stars, while fzf-lua is faster on large repositories and has been committed to more recently. For a new config, fzf-lua or the picker built into mini.nvim are both good defaults.

How many plugins should a Neovim config have?

As few as cover what you actually use. The six must-haves above plus a file manager and a formatter make a complete setup, and every plugin you add is another repository whose last commit date you now depend on.