What are the best IDEs for C++ on Linux?

Question

26

Options
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1.1K

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19 mins

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Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 24 OptionsWhy?

Best IDEs for C++ on Linux	Price	Platforms	Auto Complete
91 Qt Creator	-	Linux; Windows; MacOS	yes
86 Vim	Free	Linux, macOS, Windows	-
85 CodeLite	Free	Windows, OS-X and Linux	-
84 CLion	Paid	-	Yes
82 Geany	Free	Windows; OSX; *nix	Yes

See Full List

23 Other Options Considered

Vim

Top Pro

Available on every *nix system

You'll find it not only working but often provided in nearly all Linux distributions by default. See More

Top Con

Not an 'IDE' by default

Vim is very configurable so it can be made to perform as an IDE. However out-of-the-box, it doesn't have many things associated with IDE's (concept of a project with project specific options, integrated debugger, context aware auto-complete). See More

RespectfulAoide's Experience

Top Pro

Modest memory footprint

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

Top Con

Bland UI

The UI is fairly boring and has limited customization options. There is a dark theme available, however it only applies to the editor. The surrounding windows and borders remain light. You can see a collection of screenshots here. See More

EnthusiasticCocytus's Experience

It over-wrote my Makefile when I was trying to set it up to build my project with Make without asking, that's right, it deleted an important file without any hint or confirmation. I can't trust that. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, OS-X and Linux

Top Pro

Great interface

JetBrains products are always a pleasure to work with. Their UI is clean and intuitive, and doesn't get in your way. See More

Top Con

Not free

It's quite expensive for a new developer, you either work a lot with C++ projects or for the price it isn't worth it. See More

n1kk's Experience

If you are looking for a good C++ IDE under Linux it will do the job great. Great IDE, build profiles, configurable pipelines, lots of plugins for all your needs. Yes it's not free, but you get your moneys worth. JetBrains in general is a great platform with support for many languages and coding environments, all IDEs are cross platform and extremely configurable. See More

Top Pro

Excellent CMake integration

Top Con

Background parser can be very slow at times

Pietro Mele's Experience

Top Pro

Infinitely customisable

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect. A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza). See More

Top Con

Not set up as an IDE by default

Requires customization to get IDE-like features. Luckily a few features such as compilation, debugging, and syntax highlighting are included. See More

Specs

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

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

GenuineHunHunahpu's Experience

Awesome debugger See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes

License:MIT

Multi Language Support:Yes

Top Pro

Extendable through plugins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plugins available to extend its functionality. Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript. See More

Top Con

Slow launch time

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

ExcitedAnnaPerenna's Experience

For C++ on Linux, it's almost like a notepad. IOW most features don't work at all. See More

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for GDB, LLDB (OS X), or the Visual Studio Windows Debugger. See More

Top Con

File search is extremely slow

See All

Code::Blocks

Top Con

A little slow to load

The Netbeans IDE is known to take a large memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available in the market. Slowdown can decrease productivity and frustrate programmers. See More

Top Pro

Autocompletes your code

Code auto-completion is of great help in agile development environments, where you're pumping out a new version as soon as possible. In such environments you need your IDE to be "as fast as you code", hence Netbeans can be of great assistance in such situations. The IDE will auto-complete your code (variable names / function references / library functions / classes / ids) wherever possible, so you can code at speed. See More

FerventTelete's Experience

Really easy to use and is flexible See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Top Pro

Fast

Although the performance may be affected depending on the installed extensions, the editor is generally extremely fast to start and browse code files, even with relatively large projects. See More

Top Con

No toolbar

Sublime Text is more focused on keyboard users, meaning it doesn't come with a tool bar. Even plugins can't toggle bookmarks using the mouse. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

Top Pro

Free and cross-platform

Eclipse runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. See More

Top Con

Resource hog

JollyIlmatar's Experience

Free. Large community. Lots of functionalities. Huge number of high-quality plugins. Once you're familiar with eclipse, you can use it for many different programming languages: Java, C, C++, Javascript, etc, etc See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, MacOS X

Platforms:Windows, Linux, OS X

Auto Complete:Yes

Neovim

Top Pro

Powerful plugin model

Vim plugins have always been useful, but tied to specific languages. Neovim's architecture provides better separation between plugins and the core product, so that plugins are completely flexible and can be written in any language. See More

Top Con

Not an 'IDE' by default

OpinionatedBoreas's Experience

Never want back to plain vim See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, macOS, *nix, Android

Top Pro

Incredibly customizable

Top Con

Not an IDE by default

It has syntax highlighting and some snippets for C++, but without plugins it can't lint or build. See More

SomeCallMeTim's Experience

Performance on large files was abysmal. See More

Specs

Platforms:Microsoft Windows®, macOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes (plugin)

License:MIT

Cross Platform:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Themes

You can theme and customize Atom to your liking. See More

Top Con

No text UI

Top Pro

Templating

Good templates available to build applications, even to build gnome applications. See More

See All

Microsoft Visual Studio

Top Con

Windows only

Top Pro

Usable code completion for C++

Nothing as good as this is available for Linux. See More

InterestingAglibol's Experience

As an IDE for C/C++, this is the absolute best available. It may be big and bulky, but no other IDE I have ever tried even gets close when it comes to pure programming efficiency and ease of use. I just hate that it isn't available on Linux, and that it's a bit costly for commercial use. Excellent debugger and supported directly by CMake. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac OS X

Auto Complete:Yes

Qt Creator

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

Specs

Platforms:Linux; Windows; MacOS

Auto Complete:yes

Cross Platform:Yes

Code Templates:yes

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

See All

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What are the best IDEs for C++ on Linux?

The Best 1 of 24 OptionsWhy?

Qt Creator

My Recommendation for Qt Creator

My Recommendation for Qt Creator

Great syntax highlighting and auto-completion

Poor refactoring

Fast and fully keyboard-navigatable

Qt-focused

Integrates well with non-IDE workflows

Poor multi-window mode support

Supports CMake

Much space dedicated to the code

Very responsive when compared to similar software

Built-in Qt GUI editor

23 Other Options Considered

Vim

My Recommendation for Vim

My Recommendation for Vim

Available on every *nix system

Not an 'IDE' by default

Works well through SSH

Difficult learning curve

Extensive abilities

High effort to customize

Great autocompletion with the YouCompleteMe plugin

UI designed before anyone had a clue about UI design

More effect on typing

Key bindings are non-standard

Not bloated as most IDEs

Poor feature discoverability

Excellent performance

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Free and open-source software

A lot to remember

Extremely portable

Unintuitive mode switching

Tons of plugins/add-ons

No smooth scrolling

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

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

Works in terminal over SSH

No GUI

Can edit remote files via SCP

Poor support for external tooling

Flexible feature-set

Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box

Can set up keymapping

Slow when opening files with very long lines

Amazing extensibility

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

Multiple clipboards

Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left

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

User must remember commands instead of point at them in a menu

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Solves problems non-existent in GUI IDEs

Works on Android

Can't debug

Lightweight and fast

It's difficult to figure out

Vim encourages discipline

By default in Linux

Great productivity

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

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

Useful undo features

Asynchronous I/O support

Productivity enhancing modal paradigm

Macros increase productivity

Everything is mnemonic

Built-in package management

Can never outgrow it

Vimtutor

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

Has multiple distinct editing modes

Super-configurable

CodeLite

My Recommendation for CodeLite

My Recommendation for CodeLite