Overview

IntelliJ IDEA

Stacks7

Followers36.9K

Votes1.5K

Visual Studio Code

Stacks40

Followers169.1K

Votes2.3K

GitHub Stars178.2K

Forks35.9K

IntelliJ IDEA vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

Key Differences between IntelliJ IDEA and Visual Studio Code

IntelliJ IDEA and Visual Studio Code are two popular integrated development environments (IDEs) used by developers for software development. While both have their own unique features and capabilities, there are several key differences between the two:

Interface and User Experience: IntelliJ IDEA provides a more feature-rich and complex interface, with a variety of tools and options available for customization. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code offers a simpler and more lightweight interface, focusing on providing a smooth and efficient user experience.
Language Support: IntelliJ IDEA is primarily focused on Java development, providing extensive support and features specifically designed for Java projects. However, it also offers support for other programming languages like Kotlin, Scala, and more. In contrast, Visual Studio Code is a versatile IDE that supports a wide range of programming languages out of the box, including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C++, and many others.
Plugins and Extensions: IntelliJ IDEA has a vast ecosystem of plugins and extensions available, providing additional functionalities and integrations with various frameworks and tools. It has a strong community support and a dedicated marketplace for these plugins. Visual Studio Code also offers a rich collection of extensions, and its marketplace provides a wide range of options for enhancing the IDE's capabilities.
Debugging and Testing Tools: IntelliJ IDEA offers comprehensive debugging and testing tools, with advanced features like support for remote debugging, code coverage analysis, and integrated test runners. Visual Studio Code also provides debugging and testing capabilities, but its focus is more on simplicity and ease of use, with features like inline debugging and integrated terminal.
Integrations and Ecosystem: IntelliJ IDEA has strong integrations with various build tools, version control systems, and development frameworks, making it a preferred choice for enterprise-level development. It also offers seamless integration with other JetBrains tools, creating a unified development experience. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is highly extensible and integrates well with various tools and frameworks, catering to a wide range of development needs.
Performance and Resource Usage: IntelliJ IDEA is known for its robustness and powerful features, but it consumes more system resources compared to Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code is optimized for lightweight development and focuses on providing a fast and responsive coding experience even on lower-end machines.

In summary, IntelliJ IDEA is a feature-rich and powerful IDE primarily focused on Java development, while Visual Studio Code is a versatile and lightweight IDE with support for multiple programming languages. IntelliJ IDEA has a more complex interface and extensive plugin ecosystem, ideal for enterprise-level development, while Visual Studio Code offers simplicity, ease of use, and strong community support. Choose the IDE that suits your specific development needs and preferences.

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Advice on IntelliJ IDEA, Visual Studio Code

Camila

Developer

Jun 25, 2020

Decided

Comparison points:

Free advanced tools vs Unaffordable pro license
Simplicity vs Complexity (ie, indexing backgound tasks)
Lightweight vs Heavyweight UX
Extensibility vs Too many bundled features
Intuitive keyboard shortcuts vs Keymap reference
Full-stack user base vs Backend-oriented user base

IntelliJ code suggestions and superb Kotlin support are some features still missing in VSCode, but for everything else it's a simpler choice of IDE, and #vscodecandothat too.

77.6k views77.6k

Comments

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

christy

Program Manager

Jul 1, 2020

Needs adviceon

Python

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

UPDATE: Thanks for the great response. I am going to start with VSCode based on the open source and free version that will allow me to grow into other languages, but not cost me a license ..yet.

I have been working with software development for 12 years, but I am just beginning my journey to learn to code. I am starting with Python following the suggestion of some of my coworkers. They are split between Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA for IDEs that they use and PyCharm is new to me. Which IDE would you suggest for a beginner that will allow expansion to Java, JavaScript, and eventually AngularJS and possibly mobile applications?

2.03M views2.03M

Comments

Detailed Comparison

IntelliJ IDEA	Visual Studio Code
Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.	Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
Smart Code Completion;On-the-fly Code Analysis;Advanced Refactorings;Database Tools;UML Designer;Version Control Tools;Build Tools	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 7	Stacks 40
Followers 36.9K	Followers 169.1K
Votes 1.5K	Votes 2.3K
Pros & Cons
Pros 301 Fantastically intelligent 242 Best-in-class ide 190 Many languages support 158 Java 121 Fast Cons 20 Large footprint required to really enjoy (mem/disc) 16 Very slow 8 Bad for beginners 7 UI is not intuitive 5 Not nearly as many tools to integrate as vs code	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
Integrations
Java	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to IntelliJ IDEA, 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.

PhpStorm

PhpStorm is a PHP IDE which keeps up with latest PHP & web languages trends, integrates a variety of modern tools, and brings even more extensibility with support for major PHP frameworks.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.

WebStorm

WebStorm is a lightweight and intelligent IDE for front-end development and server-side JavaScript.

NetBeans IDE

NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.

PyCharm

PyCharm’s smart code editor provides first-class support for Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, CSS, popular template languages and more. Take advantage of language-aware code completion, error detection, and on-the-fly code fixes!

Notepad++

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.

Eclipse

Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.