21 Best Vim Themes
Vim is an open-source and free text editor that operates like any other text editor, for example, Notepad ++ and Sublime.
To run Vim, one needs to use the command-line interface (CLI) or else graphical user interface, which is GUI.
When we use the word themes, it is basically color schemes, which lets you combine colors to create an appealing aesthetic when you use them. The Vim feature is ready-to-use.
Here in this article, we will talk about the 21 best Vim themes that you can go for.
1. Gruvbox
Gruvbox theme is available both in light and dark versions. The theme is designed as a bright them with pastel retro groove colors and it seems to be heavily inspired by solarized, badwolf, and jellybeans.
The main focus when developing Gruvbox is to keep colors easily distinguishable, contrast enough, and still be pleasant for the eyes.
Pros
Gruvbox is available in both dark and light colors, and the reddish background makes it look consistent when you toggle between the two colors.
The theme offers multiple contrast settings. There are three variants available, each with different contrasts.
Gruvbox can be customized in detail. You can customize the size of the tabs, contrast of color schemes, icons of file types, an indentation in the sidebar and more.
Cons
There is no list of supported editors
2. Molokai
Molokai is a Vim port of the monokai theme for TextMate. The theme was created by Wimer Hazenberg.
By default, it has a dark gray background, and 256-color terminals are also supported.
However, only the dark gray background style is supported on terminal vim at this time.
Pros
Molokai theme looks great
It has a strong contrast
One of the most downloaded themes for an IDE
The theme is easy to install with Vundle
Cons
No cons as of now
3. Solarized Dark
Solarized Dark is created by Ethan Schoonover. This theme is available both in light and dark mode. It is a sixteen-color palette, eight accent colors, and eight monotones.
Solarized Dark has several unique properties and is designed with both precise CIELAB lightness relationships and a refined set of hues based on fixed color wheel relationships.
The theme has been tested extensively on color calibrated displays and a variety of lighting conditions.
Pros
The color scheme has been designed with huge background knowledge
There are ready-made packages for Vim, IntelliJ, iTerm, and Emacs
Works well with multiple fonts
Cons
Some of the version may not work such as Vanilla
The theme is not useful for night use
Have very low contrast against the background which makes it hard to read.
4. onehalf light
onehalf light color scheme is clean, vibrant, modern, and pleasing light/dark color schemes for Sublime Text, (Neo) Vim, iTerm, and more.
It offers consistent gui colors and cterm, plus matching themes for plugins such as vim-airline, lightline or NERDTree. onehalf light provides harmonious colors and styles for all UI elements and syntax groups.
Pros
onehalf light is available in both light and dark color schemes
The theme supports an array of terminals and editors offering consistent color theme
Cons
None found
5. Dracula
Dracula is a dark theme for Vim, Emacs, Brackets, Atom, Alfred, Notepad++, iTerm, TextMate, Gedit, LightPaper, and more.
Pros
The colors used are comfortable on eyes and do not pop
The colors are properly separated so the text is always clear
It is well designed
Available for tons of terminals, editors, and more
Cons
The dark contrast could be hard on eyes
6. Base16 family
Base16 family is architecture for building themes based on carefully chosen syntax highlighting using a base of sixteen colors. Base16 family provides a set of guidelines on how to style syntax and how to cod a builder for compiling base 16 schemes and templates.
Pros
Base16 family has many color schemes
The support team of the Base16 family is outstanding
It is a Solarized Dark scheme and compatible with htop
Cons
It just offers 16 colors
Each theme needs manual tweaking
7. Zenburn
Zenburn is a low-contrast color scheme for Vim. It is easy on eyes and designed to keep one in the zone for long programming sessions.
This color scheme has been ported to many different editors and environments.
Pros
Zenburn has a low blue-light color, which is not harmful to the eyes.
Low contrast reduces eyestrain
The theme is color-blind friendly
Cons
Some may find the contrast to be too low
8. vim-atom-dark
The vim-atom-dark theme’s colors are inspired by the excellent One Dark syntax theme for the Atom text editor.
Pros
Vim-atom-dark color scheme is easy on the eyes
Cons
None found
9. papercolor-theme light
papercolor-theme light is a light and dark color scheme for terminal and graphic Vim awesome editor. The theme is inspired by Google’s Material Design and has improved code readability and is great for making presentations.
Pros
Papercolor-theme light has a clean and readable look
Supports True color/GUI-color and identical 236-color
Cons
None found
10. Tender
Tender is a dark and fresh 24-bit color scheme for Vim, Airline, and Lightline. This theme is generated by Estilo.
Pros
Tender is suitable for long coding sessions
Looks great with nvim and lightline
Cons
The theme doesn’t go well with the older versions of vim
11. Badwolf
Badwolf is a color scheme for Vim created by Steve Losh. It is a high-contrast color scheme with dark background making it great for coding.
Pros
A high-contrast color scheme for Vim
Easy to use
Cons
Scope of improvement in HTML
12. nord-vim
Nord-Vim is an arctic, north bluish clean and elegant color scheme for Vim.
It is built for Vim’s terminal and GUI mode with true colors and support for many third-party syntax and UI plugins such as bundled themes for lightline, vim, and vim-airline.
Pros
The unified UI and editor syntax element design provides clutter-free appearance
Supports a wide range of programming languages
Cons
None found
13. Jellybeans.vim
Jellybeans.vim is a colorful, dark color scheme inspired by ir_black and twilight. The theme is mainly designed for graphical Vim but supports various color terminals such as 24-bit, 256, 88, 16, and 8.
Jellybeans.vim color scheme is created by Nano Tech.
Pros
Very versatile, both on dark and light background
Cons
None found
14. hyper-snazzy
hyper-snazzy is an elegant color scheme with bright colors and was created by Sindre Sorhus.
Pros
Dimmed colors are available to distract elements, for example, braces, and punctuations
The colors are consistent
Cons
Some may find the contrast hard on the eye
15. vim-one
vim-one is an adaptation of one-light and one-dark color schemes for Vim and was created by Ramzi Akremi. It supports true colors and is one of the best Atom Color scheme which is now for Vim and NeoVim.
Pros
Looks polished
Clone of Atom theme
Cons
None found
16. oceanic-next
oceanic-next is a neovim theme inspired by Oceanic Next for Sublime.
It is not a direct port but uses some colors from the sublime theme that are fitted to work with neovim and vim8.
The dark-bluish color theme is classic and quite soothing.
Pros
A classic theme
Looks great and isn’t hard on the eyes
Cons
Some people may find the theme to be challenging to work with
17. ayu-light
ayu-light is a simple, bright, and elegant theme for modern Vim. It is available both in dark and light format.
The light format of ayu-light is exceptionally pleasing and has bright and distinctive colors. This simple theme allows you to work for long hours.
Pros
Easy on the eyes
The theme allows you to work for long hours
Cons
The white background makes the color pop-out
18. Solarized light
In the solarized dark version, we already shared that the theme is available in light version too.
The color palette has a nice feel to it and was created by Ethan Schoonover. Solarized light is one of the most popular vim themes and is available for terminal emulators and code editors.
Pros
The theme has been nicely created
Various versions available
It works very well with different fonts
Cons
The contrast is low
19. Inkpot
Inkpot is a dark color scheme for VIM created by Ciaran McCreesh. It works well in the GUI and in some 88 color terminals and 256 color terminals.
The theme has been downloaded more than 30,000 times.
Pros
The dark theme looks great
Cons
The contrast could be too harsh for a few people
20. Purify
Purify is a clean and vibrant color scheme for Vim created by Kyoz. This color scheme supports almost all languages.
Pros
The theme is very simple and beautiful
It is clean and vibrant
Supports almost all the languages
Cons:
None found
21. Palenight
Palenight is a soothing color scheme for Neovim/Vim. This theme is based on Material Pale Night. The lovely yellow, purple, and orange color makes it look livelier. Drew Tempelmeyer is the creator of Palenight
Pros
The colors are lively
Easy to install
Cons
The bright colors may appear to pop-up
Conclusion
Depending on the taste of the user, you may choose to go with the dark or light color vim themes.
All of the themes that we have mentioned here are popular, and you can pick any of them or multiple of them and keep changing the vim themes from time to time.