lambdalisue/vim-fern

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1356 stars · 52 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Fern is a general-purpose asynchronous tree viewer and file explorer plugin written in pure Vim script, supporting both Vim and Neovim without external dependencies. It can be used as a split-window filer (netrw style) or a project drawer (NERDTree style), with an ecosystem of plugins for icons and git status.

Use cases

• browse and manage files in a vim file explorer
• replace netrw with an async tree viewer
• use a NERDTree-style project drawer in neovim
• open a file tree sidebar in vim
• navigate project directories from the editor
• view git status in a vim file tree

When to choose

• you use Vim 8.2+ or Neovim and want a fast, dependency-free file tree
• you want both drawer and split-window filer modes
• you want an extensible plugin ecosystem (nerdfont, git status renderers)

When to avoid

• you use an editor other than Vim/Neovim
• you prefer a built-in or GUI file manager outside the editor
• you need a VS Code-style explorer with rich UI beyond terminal trees

Facets

plugin · maturity active

file-system developer-tools terminal-ui developer-tools text-editors files cross-platform windows vim-plugin file-explorer tree-viewer async filer project-drawer netrw-alternative nerdtree-alternative vim neovim linux macos

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