vim-plug is the de-facto standard plugin manager for Vim. With 10+ years of history, it’s no longer new and shiny, but it’s extremely reliable and gets the job done with minimal fuss.
Pros. #
- Minimalist design
- Just one file with no dependencies. Super easy to set up.
- Concise, intuitive syntax that you can learn within minutes. No boilerplate code required.
- No feature bloat
- Extremely stable with flawless backward compatibility
- Works perfectly with all versions of Vim since 2006 and all versions of Neovim ever released 1
- Super-fast parallel installation/update 2
- Creates shallow clones to minimize disk space usage and download time
- On-demand loading for faster startup time
- Can review and rollback updates
- Branch/tag/commit support
- Post-update hooks
- Support for externally managed plugins
Cons. #
- Probably not the best choice if you’re heavily into Lua plugin ecosystem of Neovim. vim-plug can install and manage Lua plugins, but it doesn’t provide Lua-specific features. But if you’re a regular Vim user, look no further.