Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code

Overview

Notepad++

Stacks20.4K

Followers16.8K

Votes421

Visual Studio Code

Stacks186.5K

Followers169.1K

Votes2.3K

GitHub Stars178.2K

Forks35.9K

Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code are both popular code editors used by developers. While they share similarities in some aspects, there are also key differences between the two.

Functionality: Notepad++ is a lightweight code editor that focuses on providing essential features for editing code. It offers syntax highlighting, code folding, and search/replace functionalities. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is a full-fledged integrated development environment (IDE) that includes features like debugging, Git integration, and extensions support, making it more powerful and versatile.
Supported Languages: Notepad++ supports a wide range of programming languages, including C/C++, Java, HTML, and PHP. However, its language support is limited compared to Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code has extensive language support with its wide range of extensions, allowing developers to work with various programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, Go, and many more.
User Interface: Notepad++ has a simple and straightforward user interface with minimal customization options. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code provides a customizable and flexible user interface. Users can personalize their workspace layout, install different color themes, and customize keyboard shortcuts according to their preferences.
Debugging: Notepad++ does not have built-in debugging capabilities. Visual Studio Code, however, provides powerful debugging tools, allowing developers to set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables, making it easier to identify and fix issues in code.
Version Control: Notepad++ does not have built-in version control integration. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, comes with built-in Git integration, making it easier for developers to work with repositories, commit changes, and manage branches directly from the editor.
Community and Support: Notepad++ has a large and active community of users, providing support through forums and online resources. However, Visual Studio Code has a much larger community and extensive documentation, offering better support for troubleshooting issues and finding solutions to problems.

In summary, while Notepad++ is a lightweight code editor with essential features, Visual Studio Code is a full-fledged IDE with advanced functionalities, extensive language support, debugging tools, built-in version control integration, and a larger community for support.

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Advice on Notepad++, Visual Studio Code

Kamaleshwar

Software Engineer at Dibiz Pte. Ltd.

Jul 8, 2020

Decided

Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.

Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.

1.36M views1.36M

Comments

Samriddhi

Machine Learning Engineer at Chefling

Sep 26, 2020

Decided

Lightweight and versatile. Huge library of extensions that enable you to integrate a host of services to your development environment. VS Code's biggest strength is its library of extensions which enables it to directly compete with every single major IDE for almost all major programming languages.

1.04M views1.04M

Comments

410-Ventures

Nov 18, 2020

Review

PyCharm (pro)

great editor designed specifically for Python and python apps
complex (good for configurability, bad for simplicity)
expensive ($200 first year, $120 third year)

PyCharm (free)

same as above but without a REST client or support for other web development tools (which you will likely end up using)
ok to get your feet wet (you can always upgrade later) Full comparison: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/features/editions_comparison_matrix.html

VS Code (free)

Configurable "IDE" with support for most modern languages
TONS of simple-to-install extensions that add functionality
Great docs and UI

Sublime Text (free)

one of the most minimal editors out there
it just works

It's really down to personal preference. But I would recommend downloading all of the FREE editors, getting setup in each, and keeping only the ones you like.

My personal choice for web development is VS Code but I started with Pycharm (free), and use Sublime text on occasion.

Just focus on learning and developing and you will find what features you're looking for.

12.1k views12.1k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Notepad++	Visual Studio Code
Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.	Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding;User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding: screenshot 1, screenshot 2, screenshot 3 and screenshot 4;PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace;GUI entirely customizable: minimalist, tab with close button, multi-line tab, vertical tab and vertical document list;Document Map;Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion and Function parameters hint;Multi-Document (Tab interface);Multi-View;WYSIWYG (Printing);Zoom in and zoom out;Multi-Language environment supported;Bookmark;Macro recording and playback;Launch with different arguments	Combines UI of a modern editor with code assistance and navigation; Integrated debugging experience
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 178.2K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 35.9K
Stacks 20.4K	Stacks 186.5K
Followers 16.8K	Followers 169.1K
Votes 421	Votes 2.3K
Pros & Cons
Pros 104 Syntax for all languages that i use 60 Tabbed ui 56 Great code editor 54 Fast and lightweight 38 Plugins Cons 3 No default plugin manager 2 Can't install more advanced packets	Pros 341 Powerful multilanguage IDE 310 Fast 194 Front-end develop out of the box 158 Support TypeScript IntelliSense 142 Very basic but free Cons 46 Slow startup 29 Resource hog at times 20 Poor refactoring 14 Poor UI Designer 11 Weak Ui design tools

What are some alternatives to Notepad++, Visual Studio Code?

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is available for OS X, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses. Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit, optimized for speed and beauty, while taking advantage of native functionality on each platform.

Atom

At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.

Vim

Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.

Emacs

GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.

Brackets

With focused visual tools and preprocessor support, it is a modern text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser.

Neovim

Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to: simplify maintenance and encourage contributions, split the work between multiple developers, enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source, and improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.

VSCodium

It is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VSCode.

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

gedit

gedit is the GNOME text editor. While aiming at simplicity and ease of use, gedit is a powerful general purpose text editor.

Kakoune

Kakoune is a code editor heavily inspired by Vim, as such most of its commands are similar to vi’s ones. Kakoune can operate in two modes, normal and insertion. In insertion mode, keys are directly inserted into the current buffer. In normal mode, keys are used to manipulate the current selection and to enter insertion mode.

Related Comparisons

Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code are both popular code editors used by developers. While they share similarities in some aspects, there are also key differences between the two.

Functionality: Notepad++ is a lightweight code editor that focuses on providing essential features for editing code. It offers syntax highlighting, code folding, and search/replace functionalities. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is a full-fledged integrated development environment (IDE) that includes features like debugging, Git integration, and extensions support, making it more powerful and versatile.
Supported Languages: Notepad++ supports a wide range of programming languages, including C/C++, Java, HTML, and PHP. However, its language support is limited compared to Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code has extensive language support with its wide range of extensions, allowing developers to work with various programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, Go, and many more.
User Interface: Notepad++ has a simple and straightforward user interface with minimal customization options. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code provides a customizable and flexible user interface. Users can personalize their workspace layout, install different color themes, and customize keyboard shortcuts according to their preferences.
Debugging: Notepad++ does not have built-in debugging capabilities. Visual Studio Code, however, provides powerful debugging tools, allowing developers to set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables, making it easier to identify and fix issues in code.
Version Control: Notepad++ does not have built-in version control integration. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, comes with built-in Git integration, making it easier for developers to work with repositories, commit changes, and manage branches directly from the editor.
Community and Support: Notepad++ has a large and active community of users, providing support through forums and online resources. However, Visual Studio Code has a much larger community and extensive documentation, offering better support for troubleshooting issues and finding solutions to problems.

Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code

Overview