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SourceTree vs WebStorm: What are the differences?

SourceTree vs WebStorm

SourceTree and WebStorm are both popular tools used in web development, but they have some key differences that set them apart from each other.

  1. Version Control Management: SourceTree is primarily a graphical user interface (GUI) client for Git and Mercurial, designed to simplify the process of version control management. It provides a comprehensive set of features for visualizing and managing repositories, including branch visualization, commit history, and merging. On the other hand, WebStorm has built-in version control support, but it is more focused on integrating with Git and other version control systems within the IDE itself.

  2. Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Features: WebStorm is a full-fledged IDE specifically designed for web development, offering a wide range of advanced features like intelligent code completion, debugging tools, code refactoring, and testing support. It provides a comprehensive development environment, including support for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and various web frameworks. SourceTree, on the other hand, is a standalone version control client that does not provide the same level of comprehensive development features as WebStorm.

  3. Code Editing Capabilities: WebStorm excels in code editing capabilities, providing powerful code analysis, navigation, and debugging tools. It offers features like intelligent code completion, syntax highlighting, code formatting, and code inspections to assist developers in writing clean and error-free code. SourceTree, being primarily a version control client, does not have the same level of code editing capabilities as WebStorm.

  4. Cross-Platform Support: SourceTree is available for both Windows and macOS, making it a suitable choice for developers working on different operating systems. WebStorm, on the other hand, supports multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it more versatile and accessible to developers on various operating systems.

  5. Ease of Use: SourceTree provides a user-friendly interface with intuitive features that make it easy to understand and use, especially for beginners in version control management. It offers a visual representation of branches, commits, and other version control operations, simplifying the learning curve. WebStorm, though feature-rich, can be more complex due to its comprehensive IDE capabilities, making it better suited for experienced developers.

  6. Cost: SourceTree is a free tool provided by Atlassian, making it an attractive choice for individual developers and small teams. WebStorm, on the other hand, is a commercial IDE that requires a paid license, although it offers a free trial period. The cost factor should be considered when choosing between SourceTree and WebStorm.

In summary, SourceTree is a user-friendly version control client that simplifies the process of Git and Mercurial management, while WebStorm is a powerful IDE with advanced development features specifically designed for web development. Choose SourceTree for a simple version control management tool, and WebStorm for a comprehensive IDE with enhanced code editing capabilities.

Advice on SourceTree and WebStorm
Johnny Bell

When I switched to Visual Studio Code 12 months ago from PhpStorm I was in love, it was great. However after using VS Code for a year, I see myself switching back and forth between WebStorm and VS Code. The VS Code plugins are great however I notice Prettier, auto importing of components and linking to the definitions often break, and I have to restart VS Code multiple times a week and sometimes a day.

We use Ruby here so I do like that Visual Studio Code highlights that for me out of the box, with WebStorm I'd need to probably also install RubyMine and have 2 IDE's going at the same time.

Should I stick with Visual Studio Code, or switch to something else? #help

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Replies (15)
Erik Ostrom
Recommends
on
RubyMineRubyMine

If you're working with both Ruby and JavaScript, buy RubyMine and shut down the other two. It's much better for Ruby than Visual Studio Code is. It can also do everything WebStorm does, if you install the plugins you need from JetBrains, and they all work together nicely.

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Marc Swikull
Recommends
on
RubyMineRubyMine

If you install RubyMine, you shouldn't need WebStorm, as all the functionality of WebStorm appears to be included in RubyMine. (See here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/132950).

I've used PhpStorm for several years and have never needed to open (or even download) WebStorm for anything front-end or JavaScript related.

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Russel Werner
Lead Engineer at StackShare · | 6 upvotes · 274.7K views
Recommends
on
WebStormWebStorm
at

I work at the same company as you and I use WebStorm for 99% of my tasks. I also have RubyMine installed and use that when I have to tweak some backend code. I tried using RubyMine for JavaScript but was unhappy with how it felt and I believe that WebStorm is faster because it has less plugins and language extensions running. Summary: Buy and use WebStorm for primary development and keep VS Code around for when you have to touch Ruby.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I've never had much issue running multiple IDEs and generally pick them based on the languages they best support. For front end work where I mainly use TypeScript, I stick heavily with Visual Studio Code. However, for backend work which we do primarily in Python, PyCharm is my go-to editor. The one thing that I do however is I do remap keyboard shortcuts so I get consistent keyboard ability even when I switch IDEs.

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Danny Battison
Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

JetBrains all the way - my entire team uses PhpStorm and none of us would even consider switching.

The availability of IDEs for other languages along with consistency in environment and keyboard shortcuts is also a godsend, which is the reason I'd also choose Rider over Visual Studio (but also VS for Mac is trash, but I digress...)

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Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

So here is the deal man, bottom line you want to write code. All of these tools are built in a mouse-driven world, they are designed not for engineers, but office monkeys. If you want a real workflow that gives you ultimate performance, customization and speed you need to use a modal editor, I suggest NeoVim. Start using it 20% of the time on single file edits, watch youtube videos about it and teach yourself vim gestures. It will infuriate you for 6 weeks, make you cry for another 2 months. But as you use it more, as long as your usage goes over 40% of the time, in 6 months you will understand why most of the world's too engineers use it. Settling on lesser editors out of laziness is exactly the attitude that results in shitty the engineering. Yeah it's hard. You're smart. You do hard things. Once it isn't hard anymore you will blow yourself away at how much more efficiently you edit files.

Also vim keybindings in a mouse driven editor does not cut it. Managing files, buffers and workflow is half of the value of vim/neovim. It is OK if you have to use an IDE (currently I only use an IDE for java development, so I have little choice)

So use VSCode while you teach yourself vim.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a text editor. And this is best option in my opinion. For Ruby, I cannot say how VS Code is good. If you wanna choose IDE, RubyMine should fit your needs. Because IDEs are more compatible with major needs. But text editors are just text editor. You can do same things with also text editors. I recommend to try both VS Code and RubyMine. And you will be able to find which fits better for your needs

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

If I have to choose one I would go with VS Code; it’s become pretty mature and keeps getting better. If those plugins are creating problems for you then just uninstall them, find an alternative, or make a PR to fix. But at the end of the day these are IDE’s and they are meant to save you time. I would go with whatever helps you develop code faster. If restarting VS code slows you down then make a switch, that personally would annoying the crap out of me. Else maybe it’s a quick restart, not the end of the word, hopefully someone will fix at some point.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

If you find something that works and are comfortable with it, stay with it. Changing IDE's and learning their idiosyncrasies takes valuable time away from programming while learning setups and keyboard short cuts. I personally use VS Code for cost and decent multiple language support. I've had issues occasionally with it locking up, but it is under heavy development and continually improving. I have also found it more intuitive for new programmers. ** Having profiles for different languages can reduce the amount of plugins running and issues they can cause.

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Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

I usually have both running but do the bulk of my language work in the appropriate JetBrains flavor. One thing to watch out for in VS is that under the hood it is running the tools needed for whatever language you are working with. This is where tools like JetBrains shine. While I am sure you can tune the heck out of what you use in VS, the provides context and clarity...

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Kyle Schoonover
Senior Software Engineer at Nordstrom · | 2 upvotes · 237K views
Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I'm personally a Visual Studio Code fan. I've used it for both Go and Java. It really depends on the quality and support of the plugins. Typically VS Code doesn't crash as much as a bad plugin causes an unforeseen error. Make sure you stay up to date and look at alternative plugins.

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Lungu Alexandru-Mihai
Recommends
on
VimVim

Well you can try for a while MacVim because it is already configured with tons of plugins. My favourite text editors are Sublime Text and TextMate which are lightweight and speedy. My feeling is that JetBrains IDEs are making you brainless.

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Recommends
at

Visiual Studio is the best

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Recommends

An integrated development environment software with huge potential in the future is VS Code. So I would personally say you can use VS code.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Are you using the prettier-vscode VSCode extension or prettier via prettier-eslint? The prettier-vscode extension recommends you...

Use prettier-eslint instead of prettier. Other settings will only be fallbacks in case they could not be inferred from ESLint rules.

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Decisions about SourceTree and WebStorm

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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Pros of SourceTree
Pros of WebStorm
  • 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
  • 187
    Intelligent ide
  • 128
    Smart development environment
  • 108
    Easy js debugging
  • 97
    Code inspection
  • 95
    Support for the Latest Technologies
  • 55
    Created by jetbrains
  • 53
    Cross-platform ide
  • 36
    Integration
  • 30
    Spellchecker
  • 24
    Language Mixing/Injection
  • 11
    Debugger
  • 10
    Local History
  • 8
    Web developer can't live without this
  • 7
    Fast search
  • 7
    Git support
  • 6
    Angular.js support
  • 6
    Sass autocompletion
  • 5
    Better refactoring options
  • 5
    FTP
  • 5
    There is no need to setup plugins (all from the box)
  • 5
    Show color on the border next to hex string in CSS
  • 5
    Smart autocompletion
  • 5
    JSON Schema
  • 5
    Awesome
  • 5
    Built-in js debugger
  • 5
    Running and debugging Node.js apps remotely
  • 4
    Easy to use
  • 4
    A modern IDE stuck in the 90s
  • 4
    TypeScript support
  • 4
    Smart coding assistance for React
  • 4
    Node.js integration
  • 4
    111
  • 4
    Protractor support out of the box
  • 4
    Intelligent
  • 4
    Paid but easy to crack
  • 3
    Dart support
  • 3
    Solid intelligent features
  • 3
    Great app
  • 3
    Integrated terminal
  • 3
    Vagrant and SSH Console
  • 3
    Free for students
  • 3
    Unused imports inspection
  • 3
    Docker intergration
  • 2
    Remote Files Syncronization
  • 2
    Grate debug tools for React Apps
  • 2
    Easier to keep running than eclipse
  • 1
    Auto imports
  • 1
    Vim support
  • 1
    Rename helpers
  • 1
    Auto refactoring helpers
  • 1
    Less autocompletion
  • 1
    GIT partial commits

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Cons of SourceTree
Cons of WebStorm
  • 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)
  • 4
    Paid
  • 1
    Expensive

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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 WebStorm?

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

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What companies use SourceTree?
What companies use WebStorm?
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What tools integrate with SourceTree?
What tools integrate with WebStorm?

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What are some alternatives to SourceTree and WebStorm?
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