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CLion

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CLion vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

CLion and Visual Studio Code (VS Code) are popular integrated development environments (IDEs) used for software development. Following are the key differences between CLion and Visual Studio Code:

  1. Language Support: CLion is primarily focused on C and C++ development and provides extensive support for these languages. It offers advanced code analysis, refactoring tools, and seamless integration with CMake build system. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code is a versatile IDE that supports a wide range of programming languages through extensions. It provides language-specific extensions for C and C++ development, but its language support is not as specialized as CLion.

  2. Integrated Tools and Features: CLion comes with integrated tools specifically tailored for C and C++ development. It includes a powerful debugger, code profiler, unit testing framework, and version control integration. CLion also offers advanced code completion, code navigation, and error detection capabilities. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is highly extensible and customizable. It provides a vast collection of extensions that allow developers to add functionality for various programming languages, version control systems, and other tools.

  3. Project Management: CLion offers a robust project management system that integrates with CMake build system and allows for seamless project configuration and building. It provides automatic code generation, project templates, and a visual debugger for efficient project development. Visual Studio Code, while not as specialized in project management as CLion, offers a flexible workspace environment. It provides features like multi-root workspaces, task runners, and Git integration.

  4. User Interface and Ease of Use: CLion provides a polished and dedicated IDE experience with a focused user interface tailored for C and C++ development. It offers a comprehensive set of menus, toolbars, and dedicated windows for code editing, debugging, and project management. Visual Studio Code follows a lightweight and minimalist design approach, providing a clean and customizable user interface. It allows users to personalize the layout, install custom themes, and configure various preferences.

  5. Licensing and Cost: CLion is a commercial IDE developed by JetBrains and requires a license for commercial use. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is a free and open-source IDE developed by Microsoft.

In summary, CLion is a specialized IDE for C and C++ development, offering advanced language support, integrated tools, and project management capabilities. Visual Studio Code, while not as specialized, provides a versatile and extensible development environment with support for multiple programming languages through extensions.

Decisions about CLion and Visual Studio Code
Samriddhi Sinha
Machine Learning Engineer at Chefling · | 6 upvotes · 1M 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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Simon Ibssa
Student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo · | 2 upvotes · 1.3M 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 CLion
Pros of Visual Studio Code
  • 31
    Good editor
  • 30
    Easy setup
  • 24
    Powerful refactoring, extremely smart IDE
  • 24
    Already one of the best C/C++ IDEs, even before launch
  • 21
    Cross-platform build
  • 19
    Clean, Sleek User Interface
  • 18
    Much faster and smarter than Intellisense
  • 13
    Vertically/Horizontally split windows
  • 12
    Great navigation, error messages and auto completion
  • 9
    Vim plugin
  • 9
    Not a 20gb installation
  • 6
    It is best IDE
  • 3
    Like this one because of - not a 20GB installation
  • 2
    Free Flowing C++ IDE
  • 1
    IDE supports Python with all features of PyCharm CE
  • 1
    Very good Git plugin
  • 1
    Cheap, just 99 USD for the first year
  • 340
    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
  • 35
    Extensions
  • 26
    Awesome UI
  • 26
    Large & up-to-date extension community
  • 24
    Powerful and fast
  • 22
    Portable
  • 18
    Best code editor
  • 18
    Best editor
  • 17
    Easy to get started with
  • 15
    Lots of extensions
  • 15
    Good for begginers
  • 15
    Crossplatform
  • 15
    Built on Electron
  • 14
    Extensions for everything
  • 14
    Open, cross-platform, fast, monthly updates
  • 14
    All Languages Support
  • 13
    Easy to use and learn
  • 12
    "fast, stable & easy to use"
  • 12
    Extensible
  • 11
    Ui design is great
  • 11
    Totally customizable
  • 11
    Git out of the box
  • 11
    Useful for begginer
  • 11
    Faster edit for slow computer
  • 10
    SSH support
  • 10
    Great community
  • 10
    Fast Startup
  • 9
    Works With Almost EveryThing You Need
  • 9
    Great language support
  • 9
    Powerful Debugger
  • 9
    It has terminal and there are lots of shortcuts in it
  • 8
    Can compile and run .py files
  • 8
    Python extension is fast
  • 7
    Features rich
  • 7
    Great document formater
  • 6
    He is not Michael
  • 6
    Extension Echosystem
  • 6
    She is not Rachel
  • 6
    Awesome multi cursor support
  • 5
    VSCode.pro Course makes it easy to learn
  • 5
    Language server client
  • 5
    SFTP Workspace
  • 5
    Very proffesional
  • 5
    Easy azure
  • 4
    Has better support and more extentions for debugging
  • 4
    Supports lots of operating systems
  • 4
    Excellent as git difftool and mergetool
  • 4
    Virtualenv integration
  • 3
    Better autocompletes than Atom
  • 3
    Has more than enough languages for any developer
  • 3
    'batteries included'
  • 3
    More tools to integrate with vs
  • 3
    Emmet preinstalled
  • 2
    VS Code Server: Browser version of VS Code
  • 2
    CMake support with autocomplete
  • 2
    Microsoft
  • 2
    Customizable
  • 2
    Light
  • 2
    Big extension marketplace
  • 2
    Fast and ruby is built right in
  • 1
    File:///C:/Users/ydemi/Downloads/yuksel_demirkaya_webpa

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Cons of CLion
Cons of Visual Studio Code
  • 2
    No good support for Makefiles
  • 2
    Not free, unless you are a student
  • 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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What is CLion?

Knowing your code through and through, CLion can take care of the routine while you focus on the important things. Boost your productivity with the keyboard-centric approach (Vim-emulation plugin is also available in plugin repository), full coding assistance, smart and relevant code completion, fast project navigation, intelligent intention actions, and reliable refactorings.

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

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What are some alternatives to CLion and Visual Studio Code?
Visual Studio
Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.
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.
NetBeans IDE
NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.
ReSharper
It is a popular developer productivity extension for Microsoft Visual Studio. It automates most of what can be automated in your coding routines. It finds compiler errors, runtime errors, redundancies, and code smells right as you type, suggesting intelligent corrections for them.
AppCode
It is an integrated development environment for Swift, Objective-C, C, C++, and JavaScript development built on JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA platform. It takes care of your routine tasks and saves you from extra typing.
See all alternatives