cd ~

My Favorite Neovim Plugins (2025 Edition)

Neovim keeps getting better - almost like it’s trying to prove a point to Emacs.

After years of endless tinkering, plugin roulette, and configuration Stockholm syndrome, I’ve finally landed on a setup that’s powerful enough to make Emacs users nervous, yet lightweight enough to boot before I forget what I was doing.

And yes, I still refuse to touch the mouse - that’s for GUI peasants.

Here’s a rundown of my favorite Neovim plugins that I use daily.

snacks.nvim - because your editor needs a treat

snacks.nvim is a total game-changer - the kind of plugin that makes you question why you ever tolerated your old setup. It’s like Folke looked at half the Neovim ecosystem (Telescope, Notify, NvimTree, etc.), muttered “hold my beer,” and just rewrote everything - but cleaner, faster, and actually consistent.

Here’s what I use the most:

  • Picker – a lightning-fast file and symbol picker. Think Telescope, but without the CPU fan trying to achieve liftoff.
  • Notifier – replaces nvim-notify with sleek fade animations that make your terminal feel like a tiling window manager on a good day.
  • Indent guides – because staring at Python code without them is basically playing Vim Minesweeper.

Everything in Snacks feels like it belongs together - no visual whiplash, no config gymnastics, no random “Lua nil value” errors when you sneeze. It’s polished, cohesive, and so smooth it could make even a grumpy Linux sysadmin smile (briefly, before grumbling about systemd).

neogit - because typing git is for mortals

neogit drags the unholy brilliance of Magit out of Emacs and into Neovim - where it belongs, free from Lisp-induced suffering. It’s a full-blown, buffer-based Git interface that turns version control from an act of self-harm into something almost pleasant.

With neogit, I can commit, stage, diff, and branch without ever leaving Vim - which means fewer opportunities for me to fat-finger a command and summon a merge conflict from hell. I haven’t touched git in the terminal for weeks, and honestly, I don’t miss it. Rebases, amends, and even those cursed cherry-picks are now just a few keystrokes away - no sacrifices to the Git gods required.

grapple.nvim - hook, line and sinker for your files

grapple.nvim is basically Harpoon after it discovered caffeine and a sense of self-worth. Imagine slapping little teleportation beacons on your files and then zipping around them like a caffeinated squirrel on roller skates - that’s Grapple.

Why I worship it in the temple of Neovim:

  • Smarter file tracking – it knows where your files are better than your own brain, which is still buffering from last week’s pizza.
  • Clean UI – like a Scandinavian furniture store collided with a rainbow unicorn.
  • No daemon, no config – zero rituals required, unlike that weird Git summoning circle you tried last Tuesday.

Once you start using it, jumping between files feels less like work and more like accidentally discovering a wormhole to Narnia. Warning: you may develop a mild addiction to pressing the jump keys and giggling like a confused wizard.

obsidian.nvim - because your notes deserve a magic portal

obsidian.nvim is like a secret tunnel between Neovim and Obsidian - it lets your markdown notes travel safely from your laptop to your phone without ever touching a GUI. It keeps everything in sync so I can jot down ideas, daily logs, or existential dread wherever I am, all while pretending I’m not procrastinating like a responsible Linux sysadmin who hasn’t rebooted in six months.

Highlights:

  • Wiki-style links ([[like this]]) – because typing full paths is for people who enjoy suffering.
  • Daily notes – perfect for keeping track of which server exploded last.
  • Obsidian vault integration – like a VPN for your notes, without the corporate firewall headaches.
  • Markdown preview and search – so you don’t have to grep through hundreds of files wondering where you documented that “incident” involving cron, sed, and catastrophic backups.

It’s a workflow that makes Zettelkasten-style thinking feel productive, while letting you cling to Vim productivity like a sysadmin clinging to their last working init script.

bqf.nvim - because quickfix shouldn’t feel like quicksand

bqf.nvim turns Neovim’s quickfix window from a sad little post-it note into a superhero cape - and trust me, I use it way too much. Whether it’s search results, diagnostics, or LSP references, bqf makes your quickfix experience feel like it finally got a promotion:

  • Better navigation – because blindly hopping through errors is so 2010.
  • Previews – see what’s coming before you accidentally break everything.
  • Syntax highlighting – because even your errors deserve to look pretty.
  • Custom keybindings – bind it, twist it, or just make it do the Macarena if you want.

If you spend half your life in quickfix like I do, bqf is basically the caffeine your workflow was crying for.

Runner-ups

Not quite essential, but still awesome:

date-time-inserter.nvim - because your notes need timestamps

date-time-inserter.nvim is a tiny plugin that does one thing and does it flawlessly — insert timestamps faster than you can say “I forgot what day it is.” I use it all the time in my notes and logs, and it saves me from the eternal struggle of typing :r!date.

portal.nvim - beam me up scotty, TO MY LAST EDIT

portal.nvim turns your jumplist and changelist into a warp-capable navigation system. You can visualize your edits and move between jumps like you’re beaming through the space-time continuum. It’s the kind of plugin that makes Neovim feel less like a terminal and more like the USS Enterprise of text editing — engage!

Closing Thoughts

All of these plugins share one glorious trait: they feel native, fast, and annoyingly cohesive — the kind of software that makes you wonder if your old configs were secretly plotting against you. They don’t just add features; they supercharge the Vim way of doing things without turning your editor into a confusing IKEA manual.

If you’re tweaking your Neovim setup, give these a spin. You might just discover a workflow so smooth that even your cat stops walking across the keyboard in awe.