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The Best Neovim Themes in 2026, Ranked

Quick answer: Catppuccin is the Neovim theme to install first in 2026: on 29 October 2026 its repository showed a commit on 9 August, a v2.0.0 release in April and 7 open issues. Pick Tokyo Night for the most-starred scheme with zero open issues, Moonfly for the newest commit, and skip Nord and the GitHub theme, which have stopped.

We ranked 13 Neovim colorschemes on what their GitHub repositories showed on 29 October 2026, written against Neovim v0.12.6 (released 9 October 2026). The page ranking first for this search on 19 October 2026 was a list from 2021. Five years is long enough for a theme to stop, and two of the 13 here have.

How did we rank them?

Four signals per repository, all read through the GitHub API on 29 October 2026:

  • Last commit, the newest one on the main branch. Under 12 months counts as maintained; newer ranks higher.
  • Latest release. A tagged release lets you pin a version; "none" means you track the branch.
  • Open issues, pull requests excluded, read against the size of the project.
  • Stars, as a rough count of how many configs depend on the scheme.

We did not rank on palette. Color is taste, and the screenshots in each README show it better than prose. We also left out feature columns (light variants, plugin integrations, transparency): we did not read the READMEs for this post, and we state no feature we could not check.

Which Neovim themes are worth installing?

1. Catppuccin

catppuccin/nvim has 7,655 stars, a last commit on 9 August 2026, a v2.0.0 release on 2 April 2026 and 7 open issues. It is the only scheme in the set with a major release in 2026, and the issue count is low for a repository of its size. The repository is named nvim, so give it a name in your plugin spec (see the install example below).

Verdict: the first scheme to try, with the strongest maintenance record of the 13.

2. Tokyo Night

folke/tokyonight.nvim has 8,228 stars, the most in the set, and 0 open issues. The last commit landed on 24 March 2026 and the latest release, v4.14.1, on 23 October 2025, so the pace slowed in 2026. An empty issue tracker on the most-starred scheme reads as a settled project, not an abandoned one.

Verdict: the most-used Neovim theme and a safe install; ranked below Catppuccin only on commit recency.

3. Moonfly

bluz71/vim-moonfly-colors has 1,348 stars, a last commit on 3 September 2026 (the newest of all 13) and 0 open issues. It publishes no tagged releases. The vim- prefix is accurate: the same scheme loads in Vim and Neovim.

Verdict: the best-kept small scheme; pick it if you share one config between Vim and Neovim.

4. Everforest

sainnhe/everforest has 4,264 stars, a last commit on 8 June 2026 and 6 open issues, with no tagged releases. Like Gruvbox Material further down, it comes from sainnhe and carries no .nvim suffix, because it serves both editors.

Verdict: a well-kept alternative with a short issue list; track the branch, since there is no release to pin.

5. Kanagawa

rebelot/kanagawa.nvim has 6,434 stars, third in the set, and a last commit on 10 May 2026. It publishes no releases, and its 57 open issues are the most of any scheme here: more than Tokyo Night and Catppuccin combined.

Verdict: popular and still committing; expect to search the issue tracker when a highlight looks wrong.

6. Rosé Pine

rose-pine/neovim has 3,107 stars, a last commit on 15 May 2026, a v3.0.2 release on 3 February 2025 and 5 open issues.

Verdict: a tidy repository with versioned releases, for anyone who prefers pinning a tag to tracking a branch.

7. Nightfox

EdenEast/nightfox.nvim has 4,096 stars, a last commit on 4 July 2026 and 23 open issues. Its latest release, v3.10.0, dates from 22 July 2024: the branch moves, the tags do not.

Verdict: maintained on the branch; pin a commit rather than the two-year-old tag.

8. Gruvbox Material

sainnhe/gruvbox-material has 2,657 stars, a last commit on 15 April 2026 and 9 open issues, with no releases.

Verdict: the better-kept of the two Gruvbox options in this list.

9. Gruvbox (gruvbox.nvim)

ellisonleao/gruvbox.nvim has 2,623 stars and a last commit on the same day as Gruvbox Material, 15 April 2026. Its 25 open issues and a latest release from 1 October 2023 (2.0.0) put it one place lower.

Verdict: fine if you want the Lua-only package; otherwise take Gruvbox Material.

10. OneDark

navarasu/onedark.nvim has 2,012 stars, a last commit on 13 April 2026, a v1.0.3 release on 24 November 2025 and 49 open issues, the second-highest count in the set.

Verdict: still released, but the issue backlog is large for its size.

11. Dracula

Mofiqul/dracula.nvim has 789 stars, 22 open issues, no releases, and a last commit on 5 November 2025. That is just inside our 12-month line on the read date and will cross it within a week.

Verdict: it still loads, but it is the next candidate for the stopped list.

The repository data side by side

| Scheme (repository) | Stars | Last commit | Latest release | Open issues | |---|---|---|---|---| | catppuccin/nvim | 7,655 | 2026-08-09 | v2.0.0 (2026-04-02) | 7 | | folke/tokyonight.nvim | 8,228 | 2026-03-24 | v4.14.1 (2025-10-23) | 0 | | bluz71/vim-moonfly-colors | 1,348 | 2026-09-03 | none | 0 | | sainnhe/everforest | 4,264 | 2026-06-08 | none | 6 | | rebelot/kanagawa.nvim | 6,434 | 2026-05-10 | none | 57 | | rose-pine/neovim | 3,107 | 2026-05-15 | v3.0.2 (2025-02-03) | 5 | | EdenEast/nightfox.nvim | 4,096 | 2026-07-04 | v3.10.0 (2024-07-22) | 23 | | sainnhe/gruvbox-material | 2,657 | 2026-04-15 | none | 9 | | ellisonleao/gruvbox.nvim | 2,623 | 2026-04-15 | 2.0.0 (2023-10-01) | 25 | | navarasu/onedark.nvim | 2,012 | 2026-04-13 | v1.0.3 (2025-11-24) | 49 | | Mofiqul/dracula.nvim | 789 | 2025-11-05 | none | 22 | | projekt0n/github-nvim-theme | 2,475 | 2024-12-31 | v1.1.2 (2024-08-05) | 23 | | shaunsingh/nord.nvim | 1,022 | 2023-12-20 | none | 31 | | neovim/neovim (reference) | 103,251 | 2026-10-29 | v0.12.6 (2026-10-09) | 1,675 |

Source: GitHub API, read on 29 October 2026. Open issues exclude pull requests; "none" means the repository publishes no GitHub release.

Which themes stopped being maintained?

Two of the 13. projekt0n/github-nvim-theme last committed on 31 December 2024 and last released v1.1.2 on 5 August 2024, with 23 issues open. Its repository still held position 7 for this search on 19 October 2026, so plenty of people land on it. shaunsingh/nord.nvim last committed on 20 December 2023 and carries 31 open issues. Both still install and load; nobody is fixing what a new Neovim release breaks.

That is 2 of 13, or 15.4%, without a commit in 12 months. For plugins the share is double: when we checked 1,411 repositories for our ranking of Neovim plugins that still ship on 30 September 2026, 450 (31.9%) had gone a year without a commit. Our theme sample is small and made of popular schemes, so read the lower share as "the well-known themes are mostly alive", not as a rule for all colorschemes.

How do you install and switch a colorscheme?

With lazy.nvim, add one spec file and load the scheme before other plugins, so they read its highlight groups:

-- lua/plugins/colorscheme.lua
return {
  "catppuccin/nvim",
  name = "catppuccin",
  lazy = false,
  priority = 1000,
  config = function()
    vim.cmd.colorscheme("catppuccin")
  end,
}

Neovim 0.12 also ships vim.pack, a built-in plugin manager, which is enough for a small config:

-- init.lua
vim.pack.add({ "https://github.com/catppuccin/nvim" })
vim.cmd.colorscheme("catppuccin")

To try another scheme without editing a file, type :colorscheme and press Tab to cycle through what is installed. When one sticks, change the name in the vim.cmd.colorscheme line; that line is the only thing that decides the scheme at startup.

Do old Vim colorschemes still work in Neovim?

Yes. Neovim loads Vimscript colorschemes from any colors/ directory on the runtime path, so a scheme written for Vim years ago still applies. What it lacks are definitions for the newer highlight groups, such as Tree-sitter captures and LSP semantic tokens; Neovim links those to the classic groups by default, so code still gets colored, with less variety. Moonfly, Everforest and Gruvbox Material in the list above are maintained for both editors, and our Vim plugins ranking covers the Vim side of the setup.

What the directory says

Dev Resources, a community-curated directory of developer tools, lists no Neovim colorscheme on 29 October 2026, so this ranking rests on GitHub data, not on our own listings. The closest entry is the Dracula Theme listing, the palette behind dracula.nvim. Editors themselves are collected in our editor category, and if you want the same palette across tools, our VS Code themes ranking and coding fonts list cover the rest of the look.

FAQ

What is a good Neovim color scheme?

On repository data from 29 October 2026, Catppuccin and Tokyo Night are the two safest picks: both are widely used and both keep their issue lists short. Moonfly is the best-maintained small scheme. Pick between them on the screenshots in each README, since all three are actively kept.

How do I build my own Neovim colorscheme in Lua?

Create colors/<name>.lua on your runtime path, start it with vim.cmd("hi clear") and set vim.g.colors_name, then define groups with vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "Normal", { fg = "#c0c0c0", bg = "#101010" }). Begin with the classic groups (Normal, Comment, String, Keyword), then add Tree-sitter captures such as @function as you need them. Reading one maintained scheme from the table above is the fastest way to see which groups matter.

How do I get colors like my terminal in Neovim?

Turn off termguicolors (vim.opt.termguicolors = false) and Neovim draws with your terminal's 16-color palette, so the editor follows the terminal theme. With it on, the colorscheme's own hex colors win. The other route is to run the same scheme in both; our Ghostty themes ranking covers the terminal half.

How do I know if my current theme is still maintained?

Open its GitHub repository and check when the main branch last moved and the open-issue count. A year without a commit is the line we use above. If your scheme is past it, switch before the next Neovim release rather than after, and keep the old spec commented out in case you want to compare.

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