Besides VSCodium (which isn’t really a fork, it’s just building from the source code of VSCode without the Microsoft stuff), there aren’t any VSCode forks/derivatives that aren’t AI-assisted editors (see Cursor, Windsurf, those are the main two, right?).
That feels a bit weird to me, as many other pieces of software have lots of forks and derivatives (browsers, operating systems, email clients, emulators, PDF viewers, Fediverse clients, etc.). I guess people who would bother to create a fork and doesn’t want to put AI in everything just uses a different editor.
There’s nothing wrong with VSCodium, it’s awesome. My only gripe with it is that the rpm package takes ages to update compared to everything else I use, which is weird. Other than that issue, it runs fine, and I like the flexibility that plugins give me. I just find it odd that there aren’t any other VSCode derivatives/forks.
From what I’ve heard, a big reason is that Microsoft keeps essential language support plugins proprietary. If your fork would become too successful, Microsoft could make more plugins proprietary or somehow limit access to their plugin ecosystem.
I guess, I should throw in that there is Eclipse Theia, which tries to establish an own plugin ecosystem: https://theia-ide.org/