When comparing CLion vs Microsoft Visual Studio, the Slant community recommends CLion for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs for C++ on UNIX-like systems?” CLion is ranked 5th while Microsoft Visual Studio is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose CLion is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Cross platform
Clion works on Windows, Linux and OSX.
Pro Free Community Edition
The Community Edition of Visual Studios and the Unity add-on can be downloaded and used free of charge.
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.
Pro One of the few bearable C++ debuggers available
Pro There's a huge library of plugins
Visual Studio has a massive library of plugins to choose from.
Pro Extensions
Pro Modern language support
The recently released 15.7 branch provides competitive modern language support.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Friendly UI
Pro Comes with a Windows framework
Cons
Con Proprietary
Clion is proprietary software which costs $199/1st year for a business license or $89/1st year for an individual license.
Con Build Tool Integration is messy/over complicated
I have a Jetbrains annual subscription so I can use this tool for free and I've used the Java IDE for years so I really want to like CLion. But it's just over complex to add 3rd party libraries etc. Netbeans/Eclipse etc are much better integrated with the build tools
Con Sluggish
Horribly slow on low-end machines due to bulky size, they should modularize it instead of trying to do everything.
Con It's very large
The most basic Visual Studio installation will take up 5GB of disk space.
Con Non native window frame
IDE main window lacks standard window frame (titlebar/borders) - a custom solution is in use where custom titlebar contains numerous application-specific controls. This results in inconsistent UX and can also be problematic when you're using shell replacements or other various window-management software (such as bbLean).