Vim Awesome Plugin Directory Scraper

Extract structured data from Vim Awesome — the comprehensive directory of 19,000+ Vim plugins — using its public REST API. No authentication, no cookies, no proxy required.

Browse the most popular plugins, search by keyword, filter by sort order, or fetch the full details of any specific plugin by its slug.

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What You Get

Each record represents one Vim plugin and includes:

Field	Type	Description
slug	string	URL slug, e.g. vim-fugitive-vim-scripts
name	string	Plugin display name
author	string	Plugin author
short_description	string	One-line description
tags	array of strings	Topic tags (e.g. ["Git", "SCM"])
github_url	string	GitHub repository URL (if available)
vimorg_url	string	vim.org page URL (if available)
github_stars	integer	GitHub star count (if available)
vimorg_downloads	integer	vim.org download count (if available)
compatible_vims	array of strings	Supported editors, e.g. ["Vim", "NeoVim"]
created_at	string	ISO 8601 creation date
updated_at	string	ISO 8601 last-updated date
requires_vundle	boolean	Vundle installation supported (only present when true)
requires_pathogen	boolean	Pathogen installation supported (only present when true)
requires_neobundle	boolean	NeoBundle installation supported (only present when true)
url	string	Canonical Vim Awesome page URL
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when this record was collected

Fields that are absent or null in the upstream API are omitted from the output — you will never receive a field set to null.

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Input

Mode

Value	Description
browsePlugins (default)	Browse all plugins with optional keyword search and sort order
getPlugin	Fetch a single plugin by its Vim Awesome slug

All Input Fields

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	browsePlugins	What to fetch (see above)
query	string	(empty)	Free-text keyword search (mode=browsePlugins). Leave blank to browse all plugins.
sort	select	popular	Sort order: popular, new, or updated (mode=browsePlugins)
slug	string	(required for getPlugin)	Plugin slug from the Vim Awesome URL (mode=getPlugin)
maxItems	integer	100	Maximum number of plugins to return (mode=browsePlugins). Range: 1–5000.

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Example Inputs

Browse the 50 most popular plugins

{
  "mode": "browsePlugins",
  "sort": "popular",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Search for git-related plugins

{
  "mode": "browsePlugins",
  "query": "git",
  "sort": "popular",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Find the newest plugins

{
  "mode": "browsePlugins",
  "sort": "new",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Get a single plugin by slug

{
  "mode": "getPlugin",
  "slug": "vim-fugitive-vim-scripts"
}

Collect up to 500 recently updated plugins

{
  "mode": "browsePlugins",
  "sort": "updated",
  "maxItems": 500
}

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Example Output

{
  "slug": "vim-fugitive-vim-scripts",
  "name": "vim-fugitive",
  "author": "Tim Pope",
  "short_description": "A Git wrapper so awesome, it should be illegal",
  "tags": ["Git", "SCM"],
  "github_url": "https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive",
  "vimorg_url": "https://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2975",
  "github_stars": 9500,
  "vimorg_downloads": 456789,
  "compatible_vims": ["Vim", "NeoVim"],
  "created_at": "2010-04-01T00:00:00+00:00",
  "updated_at": "2023-08-15T12:00:00+00:00",
  "requires_vundle": true,
  "requires_pathogen": true,
  "url": "https://vimawesome.com/plugin/vim-fugitive-vim-scripts",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T10:00:00+00:00"
}

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Use Cases

• Plugin research: Discover the most popular and actively maintained Vim/NeoVim plugins for any use case.
• Ecosystem analysis: Track trends in the Vim plugin ecosystem — what's gaining stars, what's being updated.
• Dataset building: Create datasets for machine learning, NLP, or recommendation systems around developer tooling.
• Developer tooling: Build automated Vim configuration generators or plugin recommendation engines.
• Competitive analysis: Compare plugin popularity, star counts, and download volumes across categories.
• Archiving: Snapshot the full Vim plugin directory for historical records.

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FAQ

How many plugins does Vim Awesome have? Vim Awesome indexes approximately 19,400 plugins as of mid-2026. Set maxItems up to 5000 per run to collect large batches.

Does this require any API key or authentication? No. Vim Awesome's public REST API requires no authentication, cookies, or proxy. The actor works out-of-the-box on any Apify plan.

What does the slug look like? The slug is the last segment of the Vim Awesome URL. For https://vimawesome.com/plugin/vim-fugitive-vim-scripts, the slug is vim-fugitive-vim-scripts.

How fast does the actor run? Each page returns ~20 plugins. A run collecting 100 plugins takes under 30 seconds. Collecting all 19,000+ plugins takes a few minutes.

Are null fields included in the output? No. Fields that are absent or empty in the upstream API (e.g., vimorg_url for GitHub-only plugins) are omitted entirely from the output record.

Can I search for plugins by tag or category? Use the query field with keywords matching tags or descriptions. For example, query: "colorscheme" returns plugins tagged with color schemes.

What sort orders are available?

• popular — sorted by a combined popularity score (GitHub stars + vim.org downloads)
• new — sorted by creation date (newest first)
• updated — sorted by last-update date (most recently updated first)

Why are some plugins missing github_stars or vimorg_downloads? Some plugins are hosted exclusively on GitHub (no vim.org page) or only on vim.org (no GitHub repo). Fields that don't apply to a plugin are simply omitted from its record.