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

Question

26

Options
Considered

745

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8 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
87 Vim	Free	Linux, macOS, Windows	Yes (with aid of ctags better)
85 CodeLite	Free	Windows, OS-X and Linux	-
81 CLion	Paid	Windows, MacOS, Linux	Yes
80 GNU Emacs	Free	-	-

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

DevotedIucharba's Experience

VIM is fast and intuitive once learned to a certain degree. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows

Auto Complete:Yes (with aid of ctags better)

License:GPL

Cross Platform:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

More effect on typing

Although vim has a lot of shortcuts and commands, you don't need to use all of them. After learning a few essentials, using vim is way faster than any other IDEs or even text editors. Also, it's highly customizable with a .vimrc file. See More

Top Con

A lot to remember

Not for the faint of heart. Has more shortcuts and options than most people will ever know or use. See More

NeighborlySandas's Experience

Not an IDE, ridiculous learning curve. See More

Top Pro

Extensive abilities

The few things it can't do can usually be added with plugins. See More

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

Doug Bromley's Experience

Fantastic from beginning and to death. You never become an expert in this editor as you can learn something new every day. Best editor if you want something with infinite customisability, lots to learn with a permanent learning curve then Vim is for you. See More

Top Pro

Works well through SSH

SSH slows down inputs/feedbacks and may not correctly handle arrows (if not setup properly) but VIM supports many motion shortcuts using only [a-z] keys, and its cursor motions make it fast to move around to a specific location without instant cursor location update (e.g., "f." on a line "Hi there." will move the cursor on the dot (.)). See More

Top Con

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing. See More

CredibleGeb's Experience

to hard to access the tool shortcuts , documentations is not clear not enough not easy to navigate for spesific feater not even possibl eto find a ansver if a feature is available or not. See More

Top Pro

Great autocompletion with the YouCompleteMe plugin

Depending on your preferences, there are also other autocompletion plugins that are more or less heavy handed (i.e.: supertab). See More

Top Con

UI designed before anyone had a clue about UI design

I've used VIM extensively, and it positively is NOT a well-designed user interface. Its design dates back to the time when all microwaves still needed instructions and VCRs universally displayed a flashing 12:00 because no one could figure out how to operate them. See More

PracticalJatasur's Experience

Very customizable See More

Top Pro

Can edit remote files via SCP

It will download a temp copy of the file and upload the updated file when you are done editing. See More

Top Con

High effort to customize

VimScript was the invention of a sadist as it has no syntax in common with other languages. Making it nigh on impossible to learn. See More

VivaciousDayanDeerh's Experience

Mj 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

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

Vim encourages discipline

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

Top Con

Key bindings are non-standard

You could be editing the text in Chrome, or using Firefox, Edge, or any other browser, or Notepad, or even Libreoffice or Microsoft Word, and in ALL of those cases, keys would work exactly the same way, including how to jump around by word, select words, cut/copy/paste, etc. Pretty much all modern editors share the same basic key combinations, from Visual Studio to Sublime to Atom to VS Code to Xcode. Becoming a VIM expert means you need to mode-shift between code editing and editing in your browser; adding VIM modes to SOME apps means you need to remember which key bindings to use where. The cognitive load added by switching between VIM and other text editors is not worth it, especially since all the advantages of VIM are now available in free editors elsewhere. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

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

Top Con

Unintuitive mode switching

Top Pro

Not bloated as most IDEs

Vim by default is powerful, yet minimal and one can extend it to your own needs. See More

Top Con

No smooth scrolling

Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

Top Con

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

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

Top Con

No GUI

Although powerful, it's not suited for newcomers and people that want a 'clickable' IDE. 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 Con

Poor support for external tooling

Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling. 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

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

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

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

A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts. For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY. See More

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Con

Slow when opening files with very long lines

A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file. See More

Top Pro

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

Top Con

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

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 Con

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

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 Con

Solves problems non-existent in GUI IDEs

Using a mouse to easily point at things is extremely more intuitive and faster than trying to explain what does one want to do via text commands. Most of Vim's features are related to problems that graphical IDEs simply don't have. See More

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

Top Con

Can't debug

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 Con

It's difficult to figure out

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". 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

Asynchronous I/O support

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze. 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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

Top Pro

Works on Android

Top Pro

Has multiple distinct editing modes

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim. See More

Top Pro

Super-configurable

It makes it harder to use, but extremely powerful. You can make it do whatever you want (basically). See More

See All

CodeLite

Top Pro

Rapid development cycle

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

Top Con

No good code completion

At least in C++ it CodeLite doesn't recognize a lot of default keywords and functions, nor is it able to look for functions in included headers. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, OS-X and Linux

License:GPL

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

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 attempt. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

It's harder to learn than many other (more modern) IDEs. See More

Top Pro

Cross platform

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

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

Intelligent code completion

Top Pro

Open source and free

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

Top Pro

Git integration

See All

CLion

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

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes

License:Proprietary

Top Pro

Feature-complete out of the box

JetBrains products always have more creature-comfort features than anything else. See More

Top Con

Heavy

Over 1GB RAM, even for small projects. Leaves the CPU always running. However, you can customize the amount of RAM because it runs on the JVM, and there is a Power Save Mode which disables some features to reduce CPU usage. See More

ReliableBadb's Experience

Amazing if you're a student. You'll have to pay otherwise, but even then the cmake integration is amazing and if you're creating C++ programs in linux, you should know cmake. See More

Top Pro

Part of Jetbrains Dev Suit

Familiar environment across different Jetbrains IDEs makes developing polyglot projects more productive. Also, CLion has a chance of being implemented as a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA - the Java IDE by Jetbrains - which will make a single IDE, with support for lots of languages, as it already has support for many through plugins. See More

Top Con

It's buggy

There are too many completion glitches that are not likely be fixed in near future. See More

Top Pro

Student license available

Top Con

Projects built with ninja are not supported

Since this is the only sensible build tool for modern C++ projects with a large number of files on Linux/UNIX, it makes CLion a poor choice for these platforms. See More

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

Top Con

Only handles CMake projects (no autotools)

Top Pro

Cross platform

Clion works on Windows, Linux and OSX. See More

Top Con

Very slow

CLion is a very slow IDE. Even MSVS with Resharper++ has better performance. Zero-latency typing just disables auto-completion and auto-highlight features. Routines performed by this IDE can freeze it up to minute (and even more!) on a i7 3770. See More

Top Pro

Integrate with cmake

Top Con

Unable to debug programs requiring piped input

There has been a bug for this for a long time, which can be upvoted, and hopefully at one point JetBrains will indeed act on this and make it possible. See More

Top Pro

Very good choice

This is the first IDE which can work with CMake directly -- moving folders with sources make clear refactor with automatically changing CMakeLists.txt files. See More

Top Con

Many false positives

Many false positives when writing modern C++. See More

Top Pro

There's a less resouce-hungry mode

If Power Save Mode is activated, it disables a couple of features to reduce the CPU usage and extend battery life. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Top Pro

Plugins available

A big repository of plugins available for all your needs. Custom scripts, tools, VCSs, whatever your heart desires. See More

Top Pro

Advanced Git integration

It can show a consolidated view of multiple commits, great for code reviews. See More

See All

GNU Emacs

Top Pro

Completely free

Licensed under GNU GPL. 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

Top Pro

Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. See More

Top Con

Learning curve is steep

While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts. See More

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

Non-standard keyboard commands

I'm editing this in Chrome, but I could be using Firefox, Edge, or any other browser, or Notepad, or even Libreoffice or Microsoft Word, and in ALL of those cases, keys would work exactly the same way, including how to jump around by word, select words, cut/copy/paste, etc. Pretty much all modern editors share the same basic key combinations, from Visual Studio to Sublime to Atom to VS Code to Xcode. Becoming an Emacs expert means you need to mode-shift between code editing and editing in your browser; adding Emacs modes to SOME apps means you need to remember which key bindings to use where. The cognitive load added by switching between Emacs and other text editors is not worth it, especially since all the advantages of Emacs are now available in free editors elsewhere. See More

Top Pro

Has Vim emulation

Evil-mode makes Emacs actually usable as an editor. See More

Top Con

A UI designed before anyone had a clue about UI design

Emacs is positively NOT a well-designed user interface. Its design dates back to the time when all microwaves still needed instructions and VCRs universally displayed a flashing 12:00 because no one could figure out how to operate them. Many modern editors have 100% of the power of Emacs with none of the hassle. See More

Top Pro

Self documenting

Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t. See More

Top Con

Chorded keyboard combinations can be baffling

For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal

You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface. See More

Top Pro

Has turn-key packages for IDE work

Packs like spacemacs make it easy to get started and bring the learning curve down from an infinitely regressing spiral to something more manageable. See More

Top Pro

Great Integration

Emacs has modes for nearly every use case, even ones like mail and internet browsing. It has often been said that Emacs is essentially an operating system on its own. See More

Top Pro

Works over SSH

See All

Netbeans

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

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

ImmaculateXochiquetzal's Experience

No other IDE for C++ comes close to matching Netbeans before version 9. It's mildly annoying that more recent versions have dropped c++ support, although I understand it is on the table t return in an upcoming release. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Top Pro

Multiple revision control system integration

Top Con

C++ no longer supported in version 10 and 11

May return in version 12. See More

ArtisticDamu's Experience

Really powerful and intuitive. Point error quickly and auto completion is very good. Has a first class integration with the debugger (GDB). The last versions (9,10,11) of the IDE support the C/C++ plugin from version 8. Version 12 will have a new C/C++ plugin. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source and cross-platform

NetBeans is a free, GPL-licensed IDE. It can can run on any computer with a Java virtual machine. If a computer has a Java virtual machine (JVM), Netbeans can run on it. Netbeans can therefore run on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, *nix, and Mac OS. Being open source means that developers can contribute changes to the code to have the IDE better serve them. See More

Top Con

Debugger hangs with gdb on linux

You're debugging and press F8 (Next) and then, nothing else happens until you restart the debugger. See More

LikableFodbgen's Experience

I have been using it for development of C++ and Java for years on both Windows and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Powerful debugging and performance optimization

Netbeans not only debugs your code, and points out errors but also gives you hints on which sections of your code could be further optimized. See More

Top Con

Bland UI

The UI is very cluttered, somewhat hard to find features in (they're there, well hidden somewhere in the least logical spot) and overall just very "outdated looking" See More

FerventTelete's Experience

Really easy to use and is flexible See More

Top Pro

C++ 0x/1y syntax highlighting and code completion

Netbeans can successfully resolve some auto variables, correctly indents lambdas and initialiser lists. See More

Top Con

Messy to work in teams

Under the nbproject directory, it's not clear what is automatically generated and what should go to the remote repository. As a result of this, many conflicts arise inside that directory. See More

Top Pro

Remote Build/debugging

Haven't seen anything compared to NetBeans' remote build & debug capabilities. See More

Top Con

Cross platform projects

If you create a project in a linux box and try to open it in a Windows or Mac box, netbeans will bug you with some warning. This should be transparent once the environment is properly configured. See More

Top Pro

Powerful native refactoring

Flawlessly identifies the scopes of identifiers across source files and makes even very large scale changes feasible. See More

Top Con

Slows down occasionally

The Netbeans IDE is known to take a large memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available on the market. Slowdowns can decrease productivity and cause frustration. See More

Top Pro

Built-in terminal

Top Con

Automatic insertion of include directive

This is both a pro and a con: Sometimes it'll just insert any include because you've used autocompletion and then you'll have to remove manually that. See More

Top Pro

Linux terminal inside IDE

You can run Linux terminal inside the IDE. See More

Top Pro

FTP/SFTP synchronization

Supports synchronization with projects stored remotely through FTP or SFTP. See More

Top Pro

Funtionality can be extend with community plugins

Top Pro

Automatic insertion of include directive

Once you use autocompletion to insert a function that hasn't been included, Netbeans will insert the include for you. See More

See All

Visual Studio Code

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

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

GenuineHunHunahpu's Experience

Awesome debugger See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

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

No refactor for C/C++

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

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

Not an IDE by default

Requires the install of a C/C++ plug-in to work as an IDE. See More

Abe TRS's Experience

Great. The plugins are amazing the customization top-notch. The only problem I encountered was the glitchy Debugger. It was quite slow for me and it left a bad taste in my mouth. However I work with JS so there are a lot of debugging libraries I can use so it didn't really ruin the experience. 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

Slow launch time

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

Top Pro

Integrated terminal

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. See More

Top Con

Intellisense and error markers aren't always correct for C++

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

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

Top Con

A "me too" offering from MS, far behind other well established editors that it attempts to clone

Other IDEs specific to a language often offer better tools for deep programming. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well. 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

Ready to use out of the box

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered. See More

Top Con

Generalized

VS Code is a general code/scripting IDE built to be lightweight and for people familiar with their language of choice, not directly comparable to Visual Studio in power or scope. See More

Top Pro

JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code. See More

Top Con

File search is extremely sLow

It's absolutely not possible to use this tool with big projects given how long it takes to search for files. See More

Top Pro

Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse. See More

Top Con

Does not work out of the box

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

No find symbol references or type hierarchy for C++

Top Pro

Great symbol referencing

A recent addition, but extremely useful for C/C++ 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

Custom snippets support

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable. See More

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 Pro

It has gotten really good

All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need. See More

Top Pro

Python support

Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension. See More

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality. See More

Top Pro

High fidelity C# plugin

The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support. See More

See All

Code::Blocks

Top Pro

Easy to use

Top Con

Not very feature rich

By default it's not much more than "What if Gedit had a compiler and a terminal built in?" (or: "What if Notepad had colour coding, auto indents, file structure, a compiler and a terminal built in?") There are far more professional IDEs out there. This one is much too basic for any efficient use. See More

DeliberateAcheron's Experience

In ubuntu 18.04 and gnu c++ it was impossible to create something different from a console application... Like using vi... See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Lots of functionality is encountered only in plugins

You can't change keyboard shortcuts, neither share themes with vanilla codeblocks, for example. See More

Liam McGillivray's Experience

It is in some ways "cleaner" than Netbeans, I am slowed down immensely by the inability to goto implementation/declaration using ctrl+leftclick. In some cases it takes more effort to set-up a project than in Netbeans, it's more flexible with build options. See More

Top Pro

Simple Library import

Top Con

Slow navigation using mouse

In most IDE's, you can "goto declaration"/"implementation" by holding CTRL and left-clicking on an identifier or include directory. This does not work in Code::Blocks no matter what settings you have. Right-clicking will bring-up a menu that includes these "goto" options, but it's not instant and you'll be slowed down immensely depending on how often you have to do it. See More

Top Con

Can get quite slow and doesn't look all that good

See All

KDevelop

Top Pro

Informative clang parser

Gives you a nice overview of types, functions, declarations, and definitions. Is even able to parse complex template structures. See More

Top Con

Can not fully setup new project from existing make file

Pietro Mele's Experience

It is fast and it is not resource hungry. Could it be because it is written in C++, and not in Java. See More

Top Pro

Custom layouts

You can configure and customize your preferred layout, such as one look for code reviews, another for programming, and then a third one for debugging. See More

Top Con

Works with no problems only on Linux

KDevelop is an IDE for the KDE platform. Even though it's cross-platform, it's mostly targeted at Linux systems and the versions for other operating systems are highly experimental. See More

Top Pro

Excellent CMake integration

Top Con

Custom QML

It is not able to parse custom or even (KDE's own) QML-specific items, yet. See More

Top Pro

Excellent syntax highlighting

Kdevelop has very smart syntax and semantic syntax highlighting. See More

Top Pro

Easy, but powerful navigation

Top Pro

Works across multiple platforms

It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with makefiles beautifully

Top Pro

Offers OpenCL language support

See All

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

Fresh version of vimI

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

Fast and light on memory usage

New neovim editor instance starts instantly and you can have multiple editors open at the same time, because id does not require a lot of memory to run. See More

Top Con

Ambiguity in extensive documentation

Top Pro

Still Vim but with upgraded features and some issues fixed

NeoVim was a complete rewrite of Vim, with new features added and underlying issues resolved thanks to the Vim code base. The keybindings and configuration are the same as Vim, so the switch can be pretty simple. See More

Top Con

Limited cross platform support

Neovim is not available for many legacy platforms. The Windows version is currently considered experimental. See More

Top Pro

Opens a 3Gig Text File in a few seconds

Not many editors can open such a large text file so quickly. See More

Top Pro

Modern code base

As a refactor over Vim, Neovim has greatly improved its code base. For example, some functionality is handled by libuv, the same code base that powers Node.js. See More

Top Pro

Better integration with external tools

The core text editor is "headless", meaning it's detached from the user-interface so other programs can hook into it. This enables better integration with IDEs and browsers, where "Vim mode" has typically been a poor substitute because it was a partial rewrite or a partial port at best. One of the advantages of Vim has always been ubiquity and Neovim makes it even more ubiquitous. See More

Top Pro

Async plugin execution

Top Pro

Work in TUI (Tex User Interface)

Neovim can work on terminal, on a remote server over ssh. See More

Top Pro

Active development community

Top Pro

UI Agnostic

The core functionality is handled apart from the UI, meaning that Neovim can be embedded into any other GUI system, such as Atom. See More

Top Pro

Comes with some good configurations out of the box

Some typical configurations most of VIM users make are default in Neovim. See More

Top Pro

Terminal mode is very convenient for testing code in a split window

Top Pro

Built-in terminal emulator

This avoids the user having to make any installations. See More

See All

Sublime Text

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

Not free

Sublime Text can be downloaded and evaluated for free, but, although there is no specific time limit for the evaluation, a license must be purchased for continued use. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

Top Pro

IDE features without the cruft

Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features. Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete. Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations). Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find & replace, and regular expression search Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project Snippets & Macros A Python console for everything else See More

Top Con

Not C++ specific

The program is a generic code editor, although using extensions can be a very powerful C++ IDE. See More

Top Pro

Productive

The editor implements a wide range of hotkeys and functionalities (fuzzy file search, multiple cursor edition, etc.) that boost productivity. See More

Top Pro

Very extensible

Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command. See More

Top Pro

Comfortable to work with

Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It's also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

Does not drown you in keyboard shortcuts or non-intuitive use-concepts as you start using it, but high-level functionality can still be easily accessed when the need for it arises. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and editing

Multiple cursors & column selection allow versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated add the next occurence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also allows selecting vertically. ctrl + shift + l will place a cursor on every highlighted line. See More

Top Pro

Permits instant file switching

Open Goto Anything by pressing Ctrl or Command + P and by using fuzzy search you can look for a file in your project. The file will load even without pressing enter, so you can make sure you've found the correct file without committing. See More

Top Pro

Consistent cross-platform

Sublime Text looks consistently the same across Windows, OS X, and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Support for TextMate themes and window decoration themes

Sublime Text compatibility with Textmate bundles is good, but excludes commands, which are incompatible. In general, Sublime Text syntax definitions are compatible with Textmate language files (.tmLanguage extension). See More

Top Pro

Allows for Vim-style editing

Vintage mode is Vim-style editing that's already built into the text editor. See More

Top Pro

Installable package manager

The package manager is a plugin and can be swapped with something else custom. See More

Top Pro

Distraction free editing mode

Distraction free editing takes over your screen and removes every UI element so you can focus on code. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control. See More

Top Pro

Multiple languages are supported

Top Pro

Functionality can be easily extended

Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command. See More

Top Pro

Instant file switching

Open Goto Anything by pressing Ctrl or Command + P and using fuzzy search you can look for a file in your project. The file will load even without pressing enter, so you can make sure you've found the correct file without committing. See More

See All

Spacemacs (emacs)

Top Pro

Has many out of the box working features

Features you would spend hours integrating in your Emacs are activated by simply enabling a "layer", for example "python" and "auto-complete". See More

Top Con

It's not as lightweight as GNU Emacs or VIM

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

Top Pro

Has best features from both vim and emacs worlds

Top Pro

Community driven distribution

Top Pro

Gradual learning curve

Evil package is a first class citizen and Spacemacs embraces it from day one. Evil package allows Vim users to be productive very quickly while still allowing regular Emacs users to use Spacemacs. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. See More

Top Pro

Above average documentation quality

Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layer and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format. See More

Top Pro

Simple but powerful configuration architecture

At the heart of Spacemacs, the configuration layers group packages configuration into semantic units that can be toggled on and off. The architecture is simple but powerful, allowing the user to easily manage configuration dependencies between hundreds of packages. See More

Top Pro

Amazing community support in Gitter chat

Top Pro

Extendable through extensions

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. See More

See All

Eclipse CDT

Top Pro

Free and cross-platform

Eclipse runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. See More

Top Con

Slow startup

Eclipse has a considerably slower startup compared to comparable IDEs. See More

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

Auto Complete:yes

License:EPL (Open Source)

Cross Platform:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Built-in debugging

Top Con

Plugins can be unstable

Though there are plenty of plugins to choose from, they aren't always reliable. Some aren't maintained, bug fixes can be slow, and you may need to download plugins from multiple sources. See More

Bart Mensfort's Experience

Easy to handle large C++ and python projects with may tools for code quality. Also used this for app-development before AndroidStudio made this impossible. Very reliable and easy to integrate with GIT and SVN. Unit testing is perfect with graphiics. I miss something for Doxygen, but competitors also don't have that. The startup-tiime is barely enough to get coffee. See More

Top Pro

Great refactoring tools

Top Con

Resource hog

DependableLodurr's Experience

I've yet to find an IDE that packs all the out-of-the-box features like live C++ syntax analysis, scoped variable and function name refactoring, highlighting symbols within scope, spell checking, call hierarchy, and one of the best Emacs keymap plugins ever (Emacs+). See More

Top Pro

Nice mouse hover assist during debugging

View values of variables on mouse hover during debugging. See More

Top Con

UI works poorly at low resolution/small window size

The UI feels bulky if the window size or screen resolution is small. You can minimize views away, but there is no mouse hover to temporarily add them to the window. Instead you have to click to temporarily add it and then click again to remove it. Also icons and text take up more space than technically required. At high resolution/window size it looks okay, but at low resolution/window size you can really feel it stealing screen space. See More

Top Pro

Large selection of plugins

Eclipse has a large and active community, which has resulted in a wide variety of plugins. See More

Top Con

Bad OS Integration, specially on macOS

Top Pro

Live syntax analysis

Top Con

Bad UI

There's an abundant presence of menus, forcing you to constantly click around the different menu structures. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Eclipse is an open source project and free to use. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Eclipse is an open source project and free to use. See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

Thanks to the large variety of plugins and various configuration options, Eclipse is very customizable. See More

Top Pro

Powerful integration with build, debugging, VC and CI tools

Top Pro

Suitable for cross development, including baremetal projects, remote debugging/profiling

Top Pro

Good font rendering

Because Eclipse is based on SWT, it uses the native font rendering and thus looks better than other IDEs on some Linux systems, where the Java font rendering is not optimal. See More

Top Pro

Macro definition browser

Top Pro

Call hierarchy

See All

Atom

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

Beginner friendly

One of the goals of Atom is to be a text editor for both experienced and beginner programmers. You can add keyboard shortcuts, change themes, install plugins, and change core settings by clicking through a GUI, or by manually editing config files the old-fashioned way. It has the added advantage of being built using the same engine that powers Google Chrome, so actions like opening and closing tabs feel familiar, even to new or non-programmers. See More

Top Con

Slows down exponentially with plugins

Extending it needs sacrificing responsiveness. See More

Top Pro

Multiplatform

Atom can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Has difficulty with large text files

Tends to crash or hang with large >(10MB) text files, making it less useful as a general text editor. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Atom is free, open source, and written in C++, LESS, and CoffeeScript. See More

Top Con

High memory usage

Atom has a relatively high memory usage, especially when compared to some other text editors not based on Electron. For those who develop on the go, this also tends to mean shorter battery life. See More

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Atom was built from the ground up with the community in mind. Package management is therefore a first class feature. See More

Top Con

Very slow startup time

Atom is very slow to startup, which is a big disadvantage if you are accustomed to using it to make quick changes on your files. See More

Top Pro

Extendable

Due to its modular design, almost any aspect of the editor can be changed. Even seemingly core packages, like those taking care of search and replace functionality, can be forked on GitHub, and changed and replaced in the editor. The documentation for creating new plugins is also great, making it easier for developers to jump in and create plugins for Atom. See More

Top Con

Large files can mean multiple-minute load times

Loading a large file will block until it's done. If you open a large file by accident, it will be stuck for potentially MINUTES. And if you have it configured to auto-reload files the next time, it will block for minutes when you reload as well. See More

Top Pro

Extensive list of packages

Atom has a built-in package manager and an extensive list of packages. Packages are written in CoffeeScript. See More

See All

Gnome Builder

Top Pro

Lovely find and replace tool with great REGEX support

Shows a live feedback of what matches the pattern/criteria entered. See More

Top Con

No project management

Because it is still in early development there are little project management functionalities. See More

Top Pro

Terminal built in

Fully featured terminal is packaged. See More

Top Pro

Integrates nicely into the GNOME Desktop Environment

Client-side decorations, good use of widgets. See More

Top Pro

Great language support (for linux based projects)

Python, C, Java, Javascript, Go, Vala, C++, and many more. See More

Top Pro

Tiling Editor capability

Supports Tiling. See More

Top Pro

Supports versioning (git)

Shows diff indication and has branch integration too. See More

Top Pro

Autocomplete

Fast autocomplete. See More

Top Pro

Integrated system-wide profiler for improving software performance

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

Top Pro

Extendable through plugins

Top Pro

Templating

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

See All

Cevelop

Platforms:Windows, Linux, OS X

Auto Complete:Yes

SlickEdit

Top Pro

Symbol analysis support

There are powerful symbol analysis features in SlickEdit, including context tagging and references. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Mike's Experience

One IDE on all my platforms and for all my languages. See More

Specs

Cross Platform:Yes

Top Pro

Third party tool integration

Top Con

Build system

It does generate makefiles, but they are large and repetitive and you can only maintain them from within SlickEdit. It's terrible for mixed teams where some of the team doesn't want to learn SlickEdit with all its quirks. See More

Top Pro

Scriptable

Write custom macro commands, functions, dialogs and tool windows. See More

Top Pro

Portable mode

Possibility to set up a portable installation, to run on a USB drive for example. See More

Top Pro

Over 13 emulations

Choose from fifteen keyboard emulations, containing the key bindings and behaviors necessary to emulate other editors (e.g., CUA, Vim, GNU Emacs, etc.) See More

Top Pro

Multi-Platform

Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86. See More

Top Pro

Built-in beautifier

The beautifier formats code as you type to help improve readability and consistency. See More

Top Pro

Integrated debuggers for multiple languages

Integrated debuggers for GNU C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, and PHP. See More

Top Pro

Extensive support for programming languages

SlickEdit supports over 50 programming languages on nine platforms. See More

Top Pro

Nice debugger

See All

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