SourceTree vs Visual Studio Code

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SourceTree

10.4K
7.9K
+ 1
727
Visual Studio Code

173.6K
157.6K
+ 1
2.3K
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SourceTree vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

SourceTree is a Git GUI client, providing a graphical interface for managing Git repositories, while Visual Studio Code is a versatile source code editor with built-in Git integration, offering a broader range of features for coding, debugging, and extensions support. Let's explore the key differences between them:

  1. User Interface: SourceTree provides a graphical user interface (GUI) that helps users visualize the Git workflows and operations. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code is primarily a code editor but does offer some Git integration features. However, it lacks the comprehensive GUI provided by SourceTree, making it a better choice for developers who prefer a more visual representation of their Git activities.

  2. Code Editing Features: Visual Studio Code is designed as a versatile code editor, providing a wide range of features such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and debugging capabilities. While SourceTree does provide some code editing features, its main focus is on Git functionality. Therefore, Visual Studio Code offers a more robust set of code editing features compared to SourceTree.

  3. Integration with Other Tools: Visual Studio Code has strong integration capabilities with various tools and services such as Azure, Docker, and extensions for different programming languages. This enables developers to have a seamless workflow by accessing these tools directly within the code editor. On the other hand, SourceTree primarily focuses on integrating with Git and may not offer the same level of integration with other tools and services.

  4. Collaboration and Teamwork: SourceTree offers features that facilitate collaboration and teamwork, such as the ability to view and manage branches, handle conflicts, and perform code reviews. While Visual Studio Code does have some collaboration features, such as live sharing and code review extensions, it doesn't provide the same level of team-oriented functionalities as SourceTree.

  5. Platform Compatibility: Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform code editor, available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. This makes it accessible for developers using different operating systems. On the other hand, SourceTree is primarily designed for Windows and macOS, limiting its availability for Linux users.

  6. Extensibility and Customization: Visual Studio Code has a rich ecosystem of extensions that allow users to customize and enhance their coding experience. These extensions offer additional functionality, language support or integrate with other tools. In contrast, while SourceTree does provide some level of customization, it may not have the same extensive library of extensions as Visual Studio Code.

In summary, SourceTree provides a comprehensive GUI for Git workflows and operations, while Visual Studio Code excels in code editing features, integration with other tools, and cross-platform compatibility.

Decisions about SourceTree and Visual Studio Code
Samriddhi Sinha
Machine Learning Engineer at Chefling · | 6 upvotes · 972.4K views

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.

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Kamaleshwar BN
Senior Software Engineer at Pulley · | 12 upvotes · 1.3M views

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.

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I explored many Git Desktop tools for the Mac and my final decision was to use Fork. What I love about for that it contains three features, I like about a Git Client tool.

It allows * to handle day to day git operations (least important for me as I am cli junkie) * it helps to investigate the history * most important of all, it has a repo manager which many other tools are missing.

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Simon Ibssa
Student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo · | 2 upvotes · 1.2M views

I decided to choose VSCode over Sublime text for my Systems Programming class in C. What I love about VSCode is its awesome ability to add extensions. Intellisense is a beautiful debugger, and Remote SSH allows me to login and make real-time changes in VSCode to files on my university server. This is an awesome alternative to going back and forth on pushing/pulling code and logging into servers in the terminal. Great choice for anyone interested in C programming!

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Pros of SourceTree
Pros of Visual Studio Code
  • 205
    Visual history and branch view
  • 164
    Beautiful UI
  • 134
    Easy repository browsing
  • 87
    Gitflow support
  • 75
    Interactive stage or discard by hunks or lines
  • 22
    Great branch visualization
  • 18
    Ui/ux and user-friendliness
  • 8
    Best Git Client UI/Features
  • 7
    Search commit messages
  • 5
    Available for Windows and macOS
  • 1
    Log only one file
  • 1
    Search file content
  • 339
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 308
    Fast
  • 193
    Front-end develop out of the box
  • 158
    Support TypeScript IntelliSense
  • 142
    Very basic but free
  • 126
    Git integration
  • 106
    Intellisense
  • 78
    Faster than Atom
  • 53
    Better ui, easy plugins, and nice git integration
  • 45
    Great Refactoring Tools
  • 44
    Good Plugins
  • 42
    Terminal
  • 38
    Superb markdown support
  • 36
    Open Source
  • 34
    Extensions
  • 26
    Large & up-to-date extension community
  • 26
    Awesome UI
  • 24
    Powerful and fast
  • 22
    Portable
  • 18
    Best editor
  • 18
    Best code editor
  • 17
    Easy to get started with
  • 15
    Lots of extensions
  • 15
    Built on Electron
  • 15
    Crossplatform
  • 15
    Good for begginers
  • 14
    Extensions for everything
  • 14
    Open, cross-platform, fast, monthly updates
  • 14
    All Languages Support
  • 13
    Easy to use and learn
  • 12
    Extensible
  • 12
    "fast, stable & easy to use"
  • 11
    Totally customizable
  • 11
    Git out of the box
  • 11
    Faster edit for slow computer
  • 11
    Ui design is great
  • 11
    Useful for begginer
  • 10
    Great community
  • 10
    SSH support
  • 10
    Fast Startup
  • 9
    It has terminal and there are lots of shortcuts in it
  • 9
    Powerful Debugger
  • 9
    Great language support
  • 9
    Works With Almost EveryThing You Need
  • 8
    Python extension is fast
  • 8
    Can compile and run .py files
  • 7
    Great document formater
  • 7
    Features rich
  • 6
    He is not Michael
  • 6
    Awesome multi cursor support
  • 6
    Extension Echosystem
  • 6
    She is not Rachel
  • 5
    Language server client
  • 5
    Easy azure
  • 5
    SFTP Workspace
  • 5
    VSCode.pro Course makes it easy to learn
  • 5
    Very proffesional
  • 4
    Supports lots of operating systems
  • 4
    Has better support and more extentions for debugging
  • 4
    Excellent as git difftool and mergetool
  • 4
    Virtualenv integration
  • 3
    Has more than enough languages for any developer
  • 3
    Better autocompletes than Atom
  • 3
    Emmet preinstalled
  • 3
    'batteries included'
  • 3
    More tools to integrate with vs
  • 2
    VS Code Server: Browser version of VS Code
  • 2
    Big extension marketplace
  • 2
    Customizable
  • 2
    Microsoft
  • 2
    Light
  • 2
    Fast and ruby is built right in
  • 2
    CMake support with autocomplete

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Cons of SourceTree
Cons of Visual Studio Code
  • 12
    Crashes often
  • 8
    So many bugs
  • 7
    Fetching is slow sometimes
  • 5
    No dark theme (Windows)
  • 5
    Extremely slow
  • 5
    Very unstable
  • 4
    Can't select text in diff (windows)
  • 3
    Freezes quite frequently
  • 3
    Can't scale window from top corners
  • 2
    UI blinking
  • 2
    Windows version worse than mac version
  • 2
    Installs to AppData folder (windows)
  • 2
    Diff makes tab indentation look like spaces
  • 2
    Windows and Mac versions are very different
  • 2
    Diff appears as if space indented even if its tabs
  • 2
    Doesn't have an option for git init
  • 2
    Useless for merge conflict resolution
  • 2
    Doesn't differentiate submodules from parent repos
  • 2
    Requires bitbucket account
  • 1
    Generally hard to like
  • 1
    No reflog support
  • 1
    Bases binary check on filesize
  • 1
    Can't add remotes by right clicking remotes (windows)
  • 46
    Slow startup
  • 29
    Resource hog at times
  • 20
    Poor refactoring
  • 13
    Poor UI Designer
  • 11
    Weak Ui design tools
  • 10
    Poor autocomplete
  • 8
    Super Slow
  • 8
    Huge cpu usage with few installed extension
  • 8
    Microsoft sends telemetry data
  • 7
    Poor in PHP
  • 6
    It's MicroSoft
  • 3
    Poor in Python
  • 3
    No Built in Browser Preview
  • 3
    No color Intergrator
  • 3
    Very basic for java development and buggy at times
  • 3
    No built in live Preview
  • 3
    Electron
  • 2
    Bad Plugin Architecture
  • 2
    Powered by Electron
  • 1
    Terminal does not identify path vars sometimes
  • 1
    Slow C++ Language Server

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- No public GitHub repository available -

What is SourceTree?

Use the full capability of Git and Mercurial in the SourceTree desktop app. Manage all your repositories, hosted or local, through SourceTree's simple interface.

What is Visual Studio Code?

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

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What companies use SourceTree?
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What tools integrate with SourceTree?
What tools integrate with Visual Studio Code?

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What are some alternatives to SourceTree and Visual Studio Code?
GitKraken
The downright luxurious Git client for Windows, Mac and Linux. Cross-platform, 100% standalone, and free.
Bitbucket
Bitbucket gives teams one place to plan projects, collaborate on code, test and deploy, all with free private Git repositories. Teams choose Bitbucket because it has a superior Jira integration, built-in CI/CD, & is free for up to 5 users.
Tower
Use all of Git's powerful feature set - in a GUI that makes you more productive.
GitHub
GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over three million people use GitHub to build amazing things together.
Fork
Manage your repositories without leaving the application. Organize the repositores into categories. Fork's Diff Viewer provides a clear view to spot the changes in your source code quickly.
See all alternatives