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DevelopmentLinuxWindowsDeveloper ToolsProgrammingIDEC++

What are the best C++ IDEs?

17

Options
Considered

322

User
Recs.

Jul 21, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

15 Options Considered

Best C++ IDEs	Price	Platforms	License
83 CLion	Free / paid	Windows, Linux, Mac	Proprietary
82 Qt Creator	-	Windows, macOS, Linux	-
-- CodeLite	free	Windows, Linux, Mac	GPL
-- Code::Blocks	Free	Windows, Linux, MacOS(outdated version)	GPL
62 Microsoft Visual Studio	Free / paid	Windows, Mac OS X	Proprietary

CLion

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Top Con

Slow

Top Pro

Intelligent code completion

CLion has an intelligent autocompletion engine that tries to predict the symbol you are typing based on your previous history and the context in which it's being typed. See More

DependableIakhsari's Experience

Honestly the best IDE for C++ I found. Incredibly fast, autocompletion is really intelligent. And it's free for me since I'm a student. Better than Codeblocks and Visual Studio in my opinion. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

License:Proprietary

Auto Complete:Yes

Top Con

Proprietary

Clion is proprietary software which costs $199/1st year for a business license or $89/1st year for an individual license. See More

Top Pro

Plugins

IDE extensible with Plugins from repositories or third-party. Some Plugins available are Unreal Engine Plugin, BashSupport and Markdown Support. See More

CheerfulAtaguchu's Experience

OK when it works, but damn slow with larger projects (even on 32 core machine), eats Ram like there is no tomorrow, and is regularly tripped up in syntax highlighting and code inspection. See More

Top Con

Can be ugly due to the use of Java

Top Pro

Cross platform

Clion works on Windows, Linux and OSX. See More

HermitTheCrab's Experience

By far the best IDE when it comes to using C++ and CMake. See More

Top Con

Can not have multiple projects in one window

It is currently not possible to have mutliple C/C++ projects open in one window. See More

Top Pro

Free for students

DeterminedUttu's Experience

paid for?!... no thanks when there are other better options See More

Top Con

No MSVC support

You can't debug MSVC applications on Windows (mind you, Qt makes a mess of this too). See More

Top Pro

Very fast

Loading times and even code completion is fast due to IntelliJ. See More

CredibleHesat's Experience

One of the best C++ IDE's i have seen so far. See More

Top Con

Build Tool Integration is messy/over complicated

It's just over complex to add 3rd party libraries etc. Netbeans/Eclipse etc are much better integrated with the build tools. See More

Top Pro

Power saving mode

This mode disables some code analysis in favor of saving power. See More

HonorableAnat's Experience

By far the best C++ IDE i ever tried. VS may not be bad too, but the usability in CLion and the additional features are undefeatable. I love working with CLion. See More

Top Pro

CMake integration

CLion was built around the CMake build system, and you can feel that. Everything works seamless, new files are automatically added to CMake, include directories etc. are indexed etc. See More

Lucifer Morningstar's Experience

Top Pro

User interface

Many IDEs have an inconvenient user interface which requires one to switch between many tabs or views in order to get the information you need. CLion did, in my opinion, a great job here. E.g. searching in all files, an overlay window pop ups and you see everything you need immediately, including results. No tampering with your main view happens here, if you are done, just click somewhere else and the window is gone. See More

RobustBeletSeri's Experience

Great autocomplete and much faster than anything else (XCode, VS Code, etc) See More

Top Pro

Git integration

Git integration is done very well. No fancy tab/view switching, everything is shown clear and nice. See More

Qt Creator

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Top Pro

Very responsive when compared to similar software

Top Con

Poor multi-window mode support

While multiple windows are supported, many operations will activate in the primary window (search, debug, goto-line... etc). See More

DeterminedUttu's Experience

Excellent lightweight and really easy to pickup/use. Its very code-centric and all the options are not hidden away in some sub menu/dialog box (looking at you MSVS). Its built to be setup with whatever compiler you want and really just supports everything you need it to... See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes

Integrated Debugger:Yes

Code Templates:Yes

Top Pro

Build in Qt GUI editor

Allows for the creation of a window based UI in a graphical editor, no code required to build the UI. See More

Top Con

Qt-focused

Qt Creator is focused on being an IDE for Qt, as a general purpose IDE it performs quite well, but there are areas which are lacking such as project file support (support for generic/CMake projects lags behind Qt projects). See More

SpontaneousNintinugga's Experience

Faster than the alternatives See More

Top Pro

Much space dedicated to the code

Small and beautiful UI, almost all the space is dedicated to the text with hardly any toolbars. Can actually be used on a 1024x768 pixel screen. See More

Top Con

No tab view of open files

Open files get shown in a list which gets pretty confusing with lots of open files. See More

HermitTheCrab's Experience

Too bloated, expensive, butchers C++ with it's home-made expansion when using MOC. See More

Top Pro

Supports CMake

Top Con

Expensive as a hell

For desktop development, it's $5,500/year. See More

Top Pro

Fast and fully keyboard-navigatable

Responsive UI, no need to use the mouse for the power users. See More

Top Con

No included terminal

Besides other ideas there is no terminal section included. See More

Top Pro

Great syntax highlighting and auto-completion

Qt Creator has a code model which basically has the same information as the compiler. So it can do really nice syntax highlighting (e.g. of virtual methods or local variables) as well as provide great code completion. See More

Top Con

Poor refactoring

QtCreator has lack of refactoring features. It's not even close to Resharper++ or CLion See More

Top Pro

Includes Vim mode

Top Con

Qt .ui-files can not get edited with editor

Because the 'malicious' developer could destroy the xml-schema of an UI, it is forbidden to edit these with the text editor. See More

Top Pro

Faster than the alternatives

Top Con

No zooming when working with the included Qt-Designer

When having GUIs bigger then the small preview section in the Qt-Designer it is necessary to scroll vertically and horizontally, which disturbs a fluid work flow and makes it impossible to get a quick overview of the according GUI. See More

Top Pro

Integrates well with non-IDE workflows

Qt Creator uses normal .pro-files, CMakeLists.txt, Makefiles.am, etc. for its projects and rarely needs special configuration for projects. Projects can be built on the command line as usual. See More

Top Con

No support for recent C++ standards

Totally outdated, still doesn't support C++11 features, such as auto statements when using "Find Usage", etc. Edit: This is not the case as it supports C++17. See More

CodeLite

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Top Pro

Rapid development cycle

CodeLite is actively developed with activity almost daily on Github. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

File Explorer-like workspace view

The workspace view, unlike other IDEs, is a reflection of the actual directory structure on the file system (with user filters applied). See More

Top Pro

RAD Tool for wxWidgets

CodeLite has a Rapid Application Development tool for building wxWidgets-based cross platform applications: wxCrafter. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find installed compilers

The search for the installed compilers is quick, and it usually yields useful results on the very first atempt. See More

Top Pro

A lot of useful plugins

CppCheck, DiffTool, Git, MemCheck (Valgrind support, Linux-only), SVN, and many other plugins extend the IDE functionality greatly! See More

Top Pro

Modest memory footprint

CodeLite takes up about 50MB when loaded into memory with a workspace opened. See More

Top Pro

Cross platform

Works on Windows, OS-X and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Open source and free

CodeLite is licensed under GPL with source code available on GitHub. See More

Code::Blocks

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Top Pro

It's free and open source

Downloading Code::Blocks is completely free. See More

Top Con

Poor code completion

The code completion for Code::Blocks is rather poor compared to other IDEs. See More

DependableIakhsari's Experience

No way to make a big project with Codeblocks. There is basically no autocompletion, and when there is it is slow. You will end up naming all your variables with a short name which is not understanble in order to gain time - don't. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, MacOS(outdated version)

Auto Complete:Yes

Top Pro

Cross-platform

It's available for Windows and Linux. See More

Top Con

You need to build the project in order to see the errors

josefelixrc7's Experience

Integrated build system. You don't use CMake or Autotools to build a project See More

Top Pro

It lets you choose the compiler

As a developer, you have more on control of the workflow because you can choose which compiler to use. See More

Top Con

It's hard to make the code readable

Due to the problems with indention, it's hard to make the code look nice. See More

Microsoft Visual Studio

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Top Pro

There's a free Community Edition

The Community Edition of Visual Studios and the Unity add-on can be downloaded and used free of charge. See More

Top Con

No Linux version available

Though there is some Linux support. See More

DependableIakhsari's Experience

Great, but heavy and some features are obscure (like templates, which are incredibly complicated to setup) See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac OS X

License:Proprietary

Auto Complete:Yes

Top Pro

IntelliSense

IntelliSense is the general term for a number of features: List Members, Parameter Info, Quick Info, and Complete Word. These features help you to learn more about the code you are using, keep track of the parameters you are typing, and add calls to properties and methods with only a few keystrokes. See More

Top Con

It's very large

The most basic Visual Studio installation will take up 5GB of disk space. See More

RobustTyphon's Experience

Top Pro

More modular installer

Visual Studio 2017 supports a much more modern and modular installer. You no longer have to install many gigabytes of stuff you don't need. Everything is broken down into much smaller pieces and it's much more apparent which pieces you need. See More

Top Con

Sluggish

Horribly slow on low-end machines due to bulky size. They should modularize it instead of trying to do everything. See More

Jeong Hwan Kim's Experience

With VisualGDB and Visual Assist X (or ReSharper C++), it is the most powerful tool including remote debugging. See More

Top Pro

GitHub integration

Makes production faster especially if git is used. One can see changed files at the go and commit (with push possibility) when ever one so desires. See More

Top Pro

One of the few bearable C++ debuggers available

Top Pro

Modern language support

The recently released 15.7 branch provides competitive modern language support. See More

Top Pro

Friendly UI

Top Pro

There's a huge library of plugins

Visual Studio has a massive library of plugins to choose from. See More

Top Pro

Embedded cloud storage

Your Visual Studio Online account gives you a place to store your code, backlog, and other project data with no servers to deploy, configure, or manage. See More

Top Pro

Comes with a Windows framework

Top Pro

Product backlog

In agile development teams, one really needs features such as product backlogs where you can assign features to team mates and track their progress on them. VS provides a web based interface for you to track your team's complete progress on the project. See More

Top Pro

Extensions

Cevelop

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Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, OS X

Auto Complete:Yes

Vim

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Top Con

Difficult learning curve

You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs. See More

PersonableKinieGer's Experience

Huge installation effort to get C++ IDE experience similar to that of other IDEs. No designer for any UI framework, only text editing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License:Vim License

Extension language:Vim

Top Con

Poor feature discoverability

Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal over SSH

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH. See More

Top Con

High effort to customize

A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware. See More

Top Con

Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms

This can be worked around if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal. See More

Top Pro

Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making most of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Con

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient. See More

Top Pro

Productivity enhancing modal paradigm

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm. See More

Top Pro

Flexible feature-set

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type. See More

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

Top Pro

Has been supported for a long time and will be supported for many years to come

Top Pro

Can never outgrow it

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh. See More

Top Pro

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes. See More

Top Pro

Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too. See More

Top Pro

Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view. See More

Top Pro

Excellent performance

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

Top Pro

Works on Android

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland

Top Pro

Amazing extensibility

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more. See More

Top Pro

Vimtutor

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete. See More

Top Pro

Everything is mnemonic

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example. See More

Top Pro

Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while. See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection. See More

Visual Studio Code

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Top Pro

Many Addons for C++ development available

Top Con

Doesn't work out of the box on Linux

It's painful to configure builds, include headers, but once you figure it out it's pretty good. The status bar is sometimes brilliant, but other times useless, seems to configure itself on a whim, and you can't seem to control it. See More

HermitTheCrab's Experience

CMake plugins don't work very good. Needs a lot of time for confugiring everything. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT, Proprietary (official builds)

Auto Complete:Yes

Integrated Debugger:Yes

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Con

Slow launch time

Than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text. See More

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows. See More

Top Con

Memory hog

Allegedly, VS Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages from Windows despite 16 GB RAM (while of course also running other things. The point is the comparison with some other IDEs/editors where running them alongside the same number of other applications doesn't cause Windows to run out of memory). See More

Top Pro

Active development

It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes. See More

Top Con

Is not an IDE, is a text editor

Top Pro

Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created. See More

Top Con

Does not support multiple Windows

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows. See More

Top Con

The autocomplete and code check is not as powerful as the one on WebStorm

Sometimes it doesn't tell you if you made a typo in a method name or if a method is not used and several other important features. See More

Top Pro

TypeScript integration

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript. See More

Top Con

Embedded Git isn't powerful enough

You can do nothing but to track changes, stage them and commit. No history, visualization, rebasing or cherry-picking – these things are left to git console or external git client. See More

Geany

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Top Pro

Cross platform

Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows. See More

Top Con

Not very advanced

Although it has some IDE features, it is not as advanced as some other text editors that can be extended to contain IDE functionality. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:GPL-2.0-only

Auto Complete:Yes

Integrated Debugger:Yes

Top Pro

Native

It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM. See More

Top Pro

Built-in plugin manager

Geany has a built-in plugin manager which can be used to install plugins and add new powerful features to the editor. See More

Top Pro

Light and fast

Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features. See More

C++Builder

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Top Pro

Cross-platform targeting

Can build targeting Windows, iOS, macOS, and Android. See More

Top Con

Expensive

€1699 for the professional edition plus renewal costs every year. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

C++Builder is available in a free Community Edition , Professional, Enterprise, and Architect editions. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Cross Platform:Yes

Top Pro

Drag and Drop Functionality

C++Builder allows. you to drag and drop components on the design form which makes the development process simple. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform UI framework

FireMonkey (FMX) is a cross-platform UI framework, GPU-accelerated, supporting native controls on some platforms, and native feel everywhere else. See More

Top Pro

Free community edition

Features are the same as Professional Edition. See More

Top Pro

Windows UI framework

The Windows framework, called VCL, wraps native WinAPI controls. It's far more powerful than something like MFC, including its visual design and the library of available first- and third-party controls. See More

Xcode

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Top Con

Made for macOS only

It is made for macOS. It means that it is not available for Windows and Linux See More

Top Pro

Live syntax checking, built-in documentation, code completion

Makes programming quick and painless. See More

Top Pro

Great iOS integration

iOS integration makes it easy to deploy apps. See More

Top Pro

Static and live analysis tools for debugging and optimisation

Xcode comes with a full suite of tools for debugging, gathering metrics and analysing your code. Want to see decompiled code? No problem. Want to check memory management? Statically analyse your code? Make tests? It's all built in. See More

Top Pro

Great for larger projects.

Wonder were you defined a function? Just right click and jump to definition. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install

Just head to AppStore and install it for free. See More

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