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Add to SafariWhen comparing CLion vs Microsoft's Visual Studio, the Slant community recommends CLion for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs for C on Windows?” CLion is ranked 2nd while Microsoft's Visual Studio is ranked 10th. 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
Question Ranking
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 Javascript Intellisense support
Javascript Intellisense allows Visual Studio to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.
Pro Clean UI
Visual Studio has a clean, intuitive user interface.
Pro 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 Product backlog
In agile development teams, one really needs features such as product backlogs where you can assign features to teammates 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 Very good XML/XSD support
Syntax highlighting, Intellisense, and jump to declaration all work in XML documents.
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 Tons of feature bloat
If you're doing simple web frontend dev, then VS is far too arcane and feature bloated for most of your work.
Con Not cross-platform
Visual Studio is only available on Windows, which causes platform lock-in.
Con Slow
Visual Studio can be quite laggy.
Con Takes up a lot of space
Visual Studio can use about 6 GBs which a lot of space to be taken from your computer.
Con Terribly slow development
Keep dreaming about features already provided by alternative products.
Con Non-native window frame
The IDE main window lacks a standard window frame (titlebar/borders). A custom solution is used where the 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).
Con Terrible UI
Con Extensions
