You don’t really need a Vim plugin manager, especially if you use git for your dotfiles.

Installing a plugin merely requires placing its files (eg: cloning its repository) into a well-known location. You can just do that.

If you track your config with git, you can track plugins with submodules. This has the added advantage of pinning the exact version (and tracking that version in for).

> If you track your config with git, you can track plugins with submodules. This has the added advantage of pinning the exact version (and tracking that version in for).

I did this for a year or so, with the motivation that submodules could replace all tool-specific package managers (for vim, tmux, zsh, etc.).

But honestly managing Git submodules felt like a chore compared to my old `vim-plug` setup. Basically because submodules are a neat concept but not implemented very ergonomically in Git. Eventually I just went back.

If someone has a setup using built-in vim pack that feels more ergonomic than vim-plug et al. then I’m very interested to hear.

I find myself enabling and disabling some plugins frequently and find it easy via the com config than the shell/filesystem . However, more importantly plugins can be activated easily based on file-type. Most plugin managers are anyway only a small wrapper around git, I guess.