Vim Classic debuts with its first release as a Vim fork without AI assistance

Vim Classic, a Vim fork rejecting LLM code, released its first stable 8.3.0 based on older Vim 8.2 for simplicity and compatibility tradeoffs.

David Uzondu Neowin · Jun 3, 2026 00:04 EDT with 0 comments

A new fork of Vim, dubbed Vim Classic, has successfully launched its first stable version, 8.3.0, completely free of code generated by LLMs.

The development team based Vim Classic 8.3.0 on Vim 8.2.0148 because they wanted to dodge the heavy maintenance footprint of the newer Vim9 Script engine. They selected this older baseline to keep the codebase simple, although this decision breaks compatibility with several modern plugins.

We elected to clean up this version of Vim, prepare it for a release, and imagine an alternate history where Vim 8.3 was released without Vim9 script. The result is Vim Classic 8.3. We chose to take this approach in order to reduce the long-term maintenance burden of Vim Classic, acknowledging that our fork lacks the resources and institutional knowledge available to Vim upstream. However, a consequence is that there are some Vim plugins which are not compatible with Vim Classic.

The Vim Classic team promised to "continue supporting Bram's passion of providing for children in need in Uganda" by keeping the original charityware model. To secure this release, the developers made a "special effort to assess patches from Vim upstream" that address security flaws, warning early adopters that some bugs might remain hidden in the system.

Drew DeVault started the project out of a deep opposition to generative AI. In a blog post that DeVault published on March 25, 2026, he shared his disdain for generative AI, arguing that the technology enriches a few, centralizes power, supercharges propaganda (enabling fascism), and generates "slop" (low-quality, AI-generated code/text). Because both the Vim and NeoVim projects now accept LLM-assisted contributions, DeVault decided he could no longer use them with a clear conscience.

Vim introduced an official LLM policy last December, allowing contributors to submit AI-generated code provided they explicitly disclose it and ensure the code matches the historical style of the Vim codebase. Meanwhile, a large segment of the Vim/NeoVim userbase is leaning heavily into AI, with plugins like VimLM for offline-first local coding assistance, llmswap to query multiple external LLM providers, llama.vim to run local FIM completions, and dwight.nvim to coordinate agentic task planning.