When comparing Pathogen vs Janus, the Slant community recommends Pathogen for most people. In the question“What are the best plugin managers for vim?” Pathogen is ranked 2nd while Janus is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Pathogen is:
Done.
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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 Builds atop Pathogen
Janus actually uses Pathogen to manage its chosen plugins, and lets you add your own, just as you would with Pathogen.
Pro Great set of defaults
Janus is a great place to start with Vim, with much of the functionality that you would expect from a modern editor, without you having to configure it all.
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.