Emmanuel Mumba

Posted on May 22

Awesome Neovim Plugins That You Must Try

#webdev #programming #javascript #ai

Neovim’s plugin ecosystem is exploding. Lua-first scripting, asynchronous job control, and a thriving community mean there’s now a plugin for almost every workflow—from talking to GPT-4 inside a floating window to previewing Typst documents in real time. But with thousands of repositories to sift through, it’s hard to know which ones are worth the install.

Building APIs alongside code? Apidog unifies schema modeling, mock servers, test suites, and one-click OpenAPI docs—so your backend workflow is as streamlined as your newly AI-powered Neovim front end.

Below you’ll find twelve hand-picked plugins (grouped by category) that strike the right balance between stability, active maintenance, and sheer “wow” factor. Whether you’re craving AI pair programming, lightning-fast completion, or language-specific tooling, these are the Neovim add-ons you should not miss this year.

1. AI-Powered Assistants

olimorris/codecompanion.nvim

If you gravitate to GitHub Copilot Chat but want more model choice, codecompanion.nvim is for you. It opens a resizable floating panel where you can talk to Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Ollama, or plain OpenAI. Inline edits (“fix this function” or “add unit tests”) are just a visual-mode mapping away, and every conversation gets stored so you can scroll back for context.

gsuuon/model.nvim

model.nvim is a Swiss-army knife for LLMs. Instead of binding to one provider, it exposes a prompt-builder API you script in Lua. Switch from GPT-4 to a local Llama-2 quantization with a single config line, or combine multiple providers in one workflow. Ideal for privacy-sensitive or budget-conscious teams.

dense-analysis/neural

Part of the Dense Analysis ecosystem, neural delivers inline GPT suggestions with near-zero configuration. Highlight code, run :Neural rewrite optimize, and watch a side buffer populate with an optimized version. Because it’s built by the maintainers of ALE, it fits naturally alongside lint diagnostics and code actions.

Aaronik/GPTModels.nvim

GPTModels.nvim opts for a multi-window interface: chat in one split, reference docs in another, and your code remains full-width. The key selling point is stability; the author focuses on graceful error handling and connection retries so your Insert-mode never freezes waiting on the network.

2. Completion Engines & Enhancers

hrsh7th/nvim-cmp

If you use Neovim and haven’t tried nvim-cmp, start here. It’s the de-facto completion framework, written in Lua, feeding on LSP, path, buffer, snippet, and AI sources. Everything in the popup—icons, ghost text, documentation windows—is customizable, and its community drives dozens of extension sources.

ms-jpq/coq_nvim

Performance junkies love coq_nvim. It pre-parses completion candidates into a tiny SQLite DB, kicks off concurrent workers, and returns suggestions fast enough to keep up with 120 Hz typing. Unlike nvim-cmp, COQ is monolithic—you get speed at the cost of fewer external sources.

lukas-reineke/cmp-under-comparator

A minuscule Lua file that patches nvim-cmp’s sorting algorithm. By emphasizing underscore and camel-case word boundaries, it rockets my_variable_name above myVariableNameSomethingElse when both are viable matches. One of those quality-of-life tweaks you notice immediately.

3. General-Purpose Language & File Helpers

Julian/lean.nvim

Proof assistants are niche—but if you study Lean, lean.nvim feels magical. It shows goal states in virtual text, recommends tactics, and even auto-formats proofs. The plugin single-handedly makes Neovim a serious alternative to VS Code in the formal-methods space.

gennaro-tedesco/nvim-jqx

Wrangling a 2-MB JSON file? nvim-jqx opens a sidebar where you run jq filters, explore nodes, and push results back into your buffer. No more piping through command-line jq and losing your place.

4. Essential Golang Tooling

ray-x/go.nvim

Install one plugin, run :GoInstallBinaries, and you have formatting, LSP, debugging, test runners, go vet, and code lens—all in Lua, all lazily loaded. The author tracks upstream Go releases aggressively, so you typically get new language features within days.

edolphin-ydf/goimpl.nvim

Generating interface stubs is routine but tedious. With goimpl.nvim, you place your cursor on a type, call :GoImpl io.Reader, and the plugin writes every method with TODO bodies ready for implementation.

yanskun/gotests.nvim

Testing in Go lives on table-driven patterns. gotests.nvim wraps the popular gotests CLI, letting you generate tests for the function under cursor with a single command. It even respects build tags and vendor directories.

How to Pick (and Combine) Your Plugin Stack

Choosing plugins is like configuring a tiling window manager: powerful, but overwhelming. Use this five-step matrix to keep sanity:

Define your goal first — Chat? Inline fix-ups? Just completion?
Measure latency — Heavy cloud calls can block Insert mode; look for async jobs.
Mind token costs — Pair a local model (Ollama) with GPT-4 only for final polish.
Watch keymap sprawl — Namespace your shortcuts (<leader>a for AI, <leader>g for Go).
Iterate prompts — Template-driven plugins (gp.nvim, CodeCompanion) let you version-control prompt libraries with your code.

A balanced starter stack could be:

olimorris/codecompanion.nvim (chat + inline)
hrsh7th/nvim-cmp + cmp-tabnine + cmp-under-comparator (completion)
ray-x/go.nvim (language support)

Keep everything lazy-loaded with [lazy.nvim] and you’ll retain Neovim’s trademark speed.

Conclusion

Neovim has always been about turning a lean editor into your editor. In 2025, that means embedding AI copilots, instant table-driven Go tests, Lean proof states, and smarter completion ranking—all without sacrificing the muscle-memory-driven workflow that makes Vim great.

The twelve plugins above are more than novelty add-ons; they’re cohesive, production-ready tools that will change how you write, navigate, and reason about code. Install a few, tweak your prompts, and let Neovim feel brand-new again—supercharged by the smartest models available.

Happy hacking, and may your buffers stay green.