When comparing Gruvbox vs Leuven, the Slant community recommends Gruvbox for most people. In the question“What are the best color themes for text editors?” Gruvbox is ranked 2nd while Leuven is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose Gruvbox is:
Three different variants are available, each with different contrasts.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Multiple contrast options
Three different variants are available, each with different contrasts.
Pro Very easy on the eyes
Both the light and dark version have a reddish background for a consistent look when toggling between them.
Pro Have light and dark version
Dark background has brown-yellowish retro colors, light background is yellowish with pastel highlights.
Pro Made ready for multiple text-editors
Ports for Atom, Sublime, TextMate and Emacs and other text editors are available.
For a full list of available ports.
If you are using a Jetbrains IDE.
Pro You can go all day with Gruvbox
Pro It can be customized in detail
Size of the tabs, icons of file types, contrast of the color schemes, accented colors, indentation in the sidebar, sizes of the status bar and dozens more.
Pro Helpful for people with astigmatism
People with astigmatism prefer the bright white background since the extra light causes your pupils to contract, which makes your focus sharper.
Pro Helpful for people with deuteranomaly
Leuven is a high-contrast theme preferring blue hues to red ones which makes it easier for people with deuteranomaly (most common form of red-green blindness) to distinguish different syntactical elements.
Cons
Con That white is very painful to look at using an F.lux like applications
While it looks quite good for some time, using Night Shift/F.lux applications just makes reading things with Gruvbox quite painful.
Con May cause eye strain
People with blue-light sensitivity may prefer a dark theme.