Adobe Dreamweaver vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

Dreamweaver is a comprehensive IDE that offers a visual design interface alongside code editing capabilities. Visual Studio Code is a lightweight and highly extensible code editor that is known for its speed, versatility, and vast ecosystem of extensions. Let's explore the key differences between them.

1. Integration with Adobe Creative Cloud: Adobe Dreamweaver is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite and has close integration with other Adobe applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Users can easily import and export assets between different Adobe products, allowing for seamless collaboration and design workflow.

2. Code Autocompletion and IntelliSense: Visual Studio Code provides powerful code autocompletion and IntelliSense features. It analyzes the code and offers suggestions for code completion, function signatures, and documentation. This enhances the coding experience and helps developers write code faster and with fewer errors.

3. Extensions and Customizability: Visual Studio Code offers a wide range of extensions that can be installed to add extra functionality to the editor. These extensions can be used for specific programming languages, code formatting, debugging, and many other purposes. Users can also customize the appearance and behavior of Visual Studio Code to suit their preferences.

4. Live Preview and Design view: Adobe Dreamweaver provides a live preview feature that allows users to see the changes they make to the code in real time. It also offers a design view where users can visually design their web pages using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. This makes it easier for users who prefer visual editing to create and manipulate web content.

5. Git Integration: Visual Studio Code has built-in Git integration, allowing developers to seamlessly manage version control for their projects. Users can view and stage changes, commit and push code, and resolve merge conflicts directly within the editor. This simplifies the development process and makes it easier for teams to collaborate on code.

6. Price and Licensing: Adobe Dreamweaver is a commercial software that requires a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud. It comes with a monthly or annual fee and is not available for free. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code is an open-source code editor provided by Microsoft and is available for free. It can be downloaded and used without any licensing fees.

In summary, Adobe Dreamweaver offers seamless integration with other Adobe products, live preview, and a design view for visual editing, but comes at a cost of a subscription fee. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, provides powerful code autocompletion, extensive customization options, built-in Git integration, and is available for free.