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Building Neovim from source

Neovim is a highly customizable and lightweight text editor (it can be configured to something much more!) While it may be installed to your system by using your favorite package manager, it is best used if you build it from source! So enough talking and let’s start building 🧱!

Alright, let’s get our hands dirty and build Neovim from scratch!

Prerequisites

Before we dive in, make sure your system is ready by installing some essential dependencies. On Ubuntu/Debian, fire up your terminal and run:

For Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ninja-build gettext libtool libtool-bin autoconf automake cmake g++ pkg-config unzip curl doxygen

For CentOS/RHEL/Fedora

sudo yum -y install ninja-build libtool autoconf automake cmake gcc gcc-c++ make pkgconfig unzip patch gettext curl

For openSUSE

sudo zypper install ninja libtool autoconf automake cmake gcc-c++ gettext-tools curl

For Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S base-devel cmake unzip ninja tree-sitter curl

For Alpine Linux

apk add build-base cmake automake autoconf libtool pkgconf coreutils curl unzip gettext-tiny-dev

For Void Linux

xbps-install base-devel cmake curl git

For FreeBSD

sudo pkg install cmake gmake libtool sha automake pkgconf unzip wget gettext curl

For OpenBSD

doas pkg_add gmake cmake libtool unzip autoconf-2.69p2 automake-1.15p0 curl
export AUTOCONF_VERSION=2.69
export AUTOMAKE_VERSION=1.15

For MacOS/Homebrew

brew install ninja libtool automake cmake pkg-config gettext curl

Building neovim

Once you have installed the dependencies, you can start building Neovim. The following steps will guide you through the process:

1. Clone the Neovim repository

git clone https://github.com/neovim/neovim.git

2. Navigate to the cloned repository

cd neovim

3. Build neovim

make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

This might take some time, so while you wait, you can go get a cup of Mocha ☕

1. Install Neovim system-wide Great! You’ve built neovim. But now, you need to install it on your system

sudo make install

2. Now if that’s finished you should be able to start Neovim by typing neovim in your terminal of choice. If Neovim is successfully installed, this command should start the editor.

That’s it! You’ve successfully built neovim from the source!

4. Run neovim

nvim

If Neovim is successfully installed, this command should start the editor.

Congratulations, you have successfully built Neovim from the source!