When comparing Pathogen vs AsyncRun.vim, the Slant community recommends Pathogen for most people. In the question“What are the best plugin managers for vim?” Pathogen is ranked 2nd while AsyncRun.vim is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Pathogen is:
Done.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro git clone <URL> ~/.vim/bundle/<plugin-directory>
Done.
Pro Simple, especially useful for offline install
Minimal additions to .vimrc file, doesn't try to download anything, so no internet connection needed.
Pro Good user experience
Output is displayed in the quick fix window, errors are matched with error format. After a job is finished, it can ring a bell to notify you while you're focusing on editing.
Pro Fully asynchronous
Command is done in the background, no need to wait for the entire process to finish. You can explore the error output immediately, or keep working in vim while executing.
Pro Easy to use
Just start your background command by :AsyncRun (just like old "!" cmd). Easy to distribute, just a single self-contained asyncrun.vim source file.
Cons
Con Doesn't directly manage plugins
Other plugin managers will install, enable, and disable plugins for you. This one doesn't. If it's in the bundle directory, it gets loaded, if it's not, it doesn't. This can make it difficult to debug which plugin is causing some unexpected behaviour, as there is no simple way to enable/disable loading a plugin.