HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
altercation
solarized
Vim Script2011–2024
altercation / solarized

solarized

precision color scheme for multiple applications (terminal, vim, etc.) with both dark/light modes

Developer ToolsCommand LineLanguages & Compilers
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
9Distinct people
9Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
16KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

precision color scheme for multiple applications (terminal, vim, etc.) with both dark/light modes

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

In general, and for working outside especially, i recommend the Solarized colorscheme. It is optimized for good readability and contrast, while being easy on the eyes.…

scns used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year9 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2011-04-01 05:04:32 UTC to 2024-10-03 15:36:19 UTC.

01232011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments20112012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20112011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

9 sources
fwip·Oct 3, 2024
Solarized Dark, specifically, is not well-suited for terminal use, because the author has assigned "bright black" to nearly the same color as the background. Many applications expect that 'bright black' text will be visible against the background. See here for many examples: https://github.com/altercation/solarized/issues/220 Nearly all other colorschemes represent 'bright black' as a gray color, which is readable against the black background.
In Terminal colours are tricky
pyre·May 4, 2012
One example would be: * https://github.com/altercation/solarized * https://github.com/altercation/vim-colors-solarized The vim-colors-solarized repo is a subtree of the solarized repo. This is mostly a convenience for vim users that use something like pathogen + git-submodule to keep their plugins up-to-date. This way you can create a submodule @ ~/.vim/bundle/vim-colors-solarized and it would be the root of the bundle tree. If the vim colorscheme was only part of the larger repo, then users would be forced to create their own repos, or else do something like: git submodule .vim/bundle/.vim-colors-solarized ln -s .vim-colors-solarized/vim-colors-solarized .vim/bundle/
In Git Subtree merged into mainline git

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.