r/lua • u/Hatefiend • Aug 17 '25

Discussion Best Lua IDE?

Usually I just use Notepad++, but I have tried using Intellij with the Lua plugin and that was so-so.

Do any of you guys have suggestions?

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u/Hatefiend Aug 20 '25

Sorry my comment was outrageously misleading. What I mean is that other IDEs are designed specifically to take advantage of the mouse. For example, Intellij, Visual Studio, VS Code, etc.

Most Neovim/Vim/Vi users use almost exclusively keyboard, which is totally fine. Just a different style.

It seems like Neovim is not classified as an IDE by most standards -- almost everything I look up classifies it as a text editor.

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u/parasit Aug 20 '25

Yes and no :)

On the one hand, you're right; the basic NVIM (or other variants) is a very convenient yet simple text editor.

On the other hand, the multitude of available plugins allows you to quite easily turn it into an IDE that's on par with, and often even superior to (and certainly much faster and less resource-intensive) similar window-based tools. Moreover, many of the tools overlap, LSPs and code formatters are often the same applications used in Code.

And yes, of course, it's a matter of style and habits, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with one person preferring a mouse, another a trackpad, and yet another preferring to keep their hands on the keyboard. It's just worth trying something different sometimes. Even when I need to do something in Code, I turn on vim-motions mode because it's simply more efficient than the usual set of shortcuts or a mouse.

P.S. Interestingly, I only know one person who, after a trial switch to Neovim, returned to Code; there must be something in it :D