...It also supports “infecting” arbitrary directory patterns, so you can keep your plugin directories wherever you like and still have them load seamlessly. While Vim 8 and newer include native “packages” support, Pathogen remains valued for its simplicity and for backward compatibility with older Vim versions. The README emphasises minimal fuss: once execute pathogen#infect() is in your vimrc, you can clone plugin repositories and they just work. Overall, Pathogen gives you a clean, maintainable plugin-directory structure.