When comparing Visual Studio Code vs SmartGit, the Slant community recommends SmartGit for most people. In the question“What are the best Git clients for Windows?” SmartGit is ranked 1st while Visual Studio Code is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose SmartGit is:
SmartGit can be used free of charge by Open Source developers, teachers and their students, or for hobby, non-paid usage. However, some features are only available with paid versions, like JIRA/GitHub Entreprise/Bitbucket integration, distributed review, DeepGit.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
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.
Pro Integrated debugging
VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.
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.
Pro Integrated terminal
There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~
is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal.
Pro Great performance
For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.
Pro Libre/open source
Released under the MIT License.
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.
Pro JavaScript IntelliSense support
JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.
Pro Embedded Git control
Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
Pro Updated frequently
There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily.
Pro ESLint integration
ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style.
Pro Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript
Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.
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.
Pro Integrated task runners
Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse.
Pro It has gotten really good
All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need.
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.
Pro Huge community behind it
The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.
Pro JS typechecking
It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true
option.
Pro Python support
Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension.
Pro Good support for new Emmet syntax
Pro High fidelity C# plugin
The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support.
Pro Support RTL languages
It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it.
Pro Inline definition picking and usages finding
These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed.
Pro Free for non-commercial use (with some restrictions)
SmartGit can be used free of charge by Open Source developers, teachers and their students, or for hobby, non-paid usage. However, some features are only available with paid versions, like JIRA/GitHub Entreprise/Bitbucket integration, distributed review, DeepGit.
Pro Uncluttered UI
SmartGit has a rather clean and uncluttered user interface. All the most useful tools and information are displayed at all times or are otherwise just a couple of clicks away.
All repositories are displayed in the sidebar and through a tabbed interface you can view various info about a specific repository (files, branches, branch graph, etc). The most used git commands like pull
, push
, sync
, commit
and merge
are always available on top.
Pro Easy to use
The clean and intuitive UI makes SmartGit very easy even for people with no prior experience with Git, even after reading just a bit on how Git works and what the main commands are.
Pro Great overview of the project/repository's log
SmartGit's log viewer displays the full commit history in a clean UI. This can be filtered to only show commits matching a certain criterion (e.g. branch).
Pro Supports GitFlow
GitFlow provides a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. SmartGit allows for setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model.
Pro Smart embedded difference viewer
When the changes affect only a few characters in a line of code, the embedded difference viewers in the majority of competitors (such as SourceTree) show the whole line as removed and re-added. SmartGit highlights the characters that have been removed / added, so they are easier to read.
Pro Can be integrated with Github, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Atlassian Stash
Using OAuth, you can connect SmartGit with your accounts in Github, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Stash and access the remote repositories there. You can then clone, fork, commit or push to your remote repositories from inside SmartGit. You can also view and manage pull requests for your open source projects from SmartGit.
Pro Has the most features and most logical layout
Compared to gitk, git gui, SourceTree, GitKraken.
Pro Can edit file in workspace or index directly from the compare view
This is very useful when reviewing files before committing and finding a needed quick tweak.
Pro Syntax coloring for many languages
The built-in compare and conflict solver has syntax coloring with customizable colors.
Pro Auto stash
If normal Git commands would abort because of local modifications, SmartGit can stash them and apply later after the command ran successfully, e.g. a rebase.
Pro Supports Mercurial & SVN
Apart from Git, SmartGit supports both Mercurial and SVN via a git bridge.
Pro Log with fine-grained display of branches
There is no option of just showing the current branch or all branches, but you can select very fine-grained what branches/forks should be displayed.
Pro Auto-detects repositories on disk
You don't have to search all the repositories when trying out SmartGit the 1st time, but it finds all of them magically.
Pro Excellent dark theme
And support for own themes.
Pro Allows rearranging views
If screen space is limited, one can stack some views onto another. 2 layouts are available - "Main" and "Review" - with independent view positions.
Pro Great support
Support responds quickly and they genuinely try to help you! If it's a bug, it will often be fixed within days.
Pro Log: ability to see dangling commits and stash commits
Rebased, but not yet garbage-collected commits can be easily made accessible again, e.g. after a reset hard.
Pro Extendable with external tools
External tools (which have a command line support) can be integrated to be used to open/view files, for diff or as conflict solvers. E.g. editors like Notepad++ or VS Code, p4merge to diff images or kdiff3 as diff view/conflict solver.
Pro Great conflict resolver
Pro Portable version for Windows is available
SmartGit also has a portable bundle that can be downloaded and can be run from external devices (such as a flash drive for example) or to test-drive without leaving traces on the machine after removing.
Pro Best submodule workflow on the market
You can easily update submodules from the containing repo, unlike other GUIs that require you to open each repo separately. Saves a lot of time when working on a monorepo managed using submodules.
Pro Great filtering options
The file list view can be tweaked and filtered in many ways (e.g. regex can be used).
Pro The best multi-repository support
Can make a repo group containing multiple repos; it acts as a meta repo.
Can submit selected files from multiple repos in a repo group in one commit action; uses the same commit message in all the repo commits.
Pro Journal dedicated for current branch history
Showing commits from the current branch, its remote branch and one auxiliary branch. Independent of the that, there is a log window available that allows to view all (other) commits.
Pro Easy recover from mistakes
Across all those years, every mistake I did I was able to recover.
Pro Every git command is available through the GUI
Not every, but nearly all.
Pro Can rearrange Repository window and Log window views/panels
This allows great layouts as desired.
Pro Offers life-time updates
One payment, get updates for all future versions.
Pro Cross-platform
Pro GPG support
GPG in SmartGit makes for added security.
Pro Ability to follow only first parent in the Log window
This is extremely useful in histories with a lot of merges. You can focus on the changes on the main branch and expand into a merged branch with a single click when you need to.
Pro Evolution submission program
See here.
Pro Can detect issue numbers and links to the issue tracker
Supports GitBugTraq file.
Pro Supports selecting open issues from JIRA
Allows you to select the desired issue, instead of having to do it manually.
Pro Can handle big repositories with long history
4GB, 10 years. Most other graphical clients either slow down to a crawl or even crash, or don't support some of the needed features.
Pro UX design is synergy with how a developer actually works
It may look confusing at first, but once you know each part, you love how useful they are.
Pro Git squash
Git squash is a pain on CLI, and most Git clients allow some kind of squash during Rebase only. Ctrl+J shortcut helps for simple squash commits.
Pro Hotkeys for everything
Or nearly everything.
Cons
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.
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.
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.
Con Project search limits results
Because file search is so slow your results are limited in order to simulate a faster search.
Con Very bad auto import
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.
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)
Con Poor error fix suggestions
Error detection and suggestions/fixes are poor compared to IntelliJ platforms
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.
Con Slow launch time
Slower than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text.
Con Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags
Con Have no good default js style analyzer
In WebStorm there is analyzer that checks for warnings and highlight this in yellow, here you cannot find or add it even with plugins. It is possible to have it as errors with linter but while you are actively changing file that's not very nice.
Con .sass linting is terrible
Con Is not an IDE, is a text editor
Con Very expensive and no multi-user licences
91 EUR per year per person for the base version is more expensive than top development IDEs, and is exaggerated.
No multi-user and no site licence either, which makes the licence management a pain.
Con Proprietary license
Not an open source license.
Con There is no lite version
A lite version would allow the user to do all the basic tasks quickly. If you need more complex tasks, you can also install the regular version beside it. A lite version would also be less memory hungry and would work on systems using low memory.
Con Free version doesn't support Gitlab Community Edition
It requires paid commercial version.
Con It is slower than the older versions
As more and more features are adding, the more slow the application becomes.
Con Diff display doesn't show long lines well
If changes are made in very long lines, the diff display is hard to navigate.
Con Absolute git beginners will find it very complicated
If you're just starting out with git, SmartGit might feel overwhelming as it does not dumb-down the complexities of git but exposes everything.
Con Font size too small and cannot be changed
Con Unintuitive UI
At first glance, the sub windows are poorly organized. For example, there isn't an easy way to navigate the files in the repository. It's drastically differently designed than other popular source control clients.
Con Currently lacks support for git subtree
It's a useful feature when developing several independent project modules in parallel.
Con Requires non-beginner level of GIT to appreciate fully
Con Handling of git repository security tokens & credentials
The handling of git repository security tokens & credentials is bad: one usually has to ask google, read discussions and then start to use try & error to get working access.
You would expect much more from software that calls itself smart.
Con Uses Atlassian JIRA for Support
Uses Atlassian JIRA for support. That requires you to provide Atlassian with personal information, including email addresses. Also doesn't work with JavaScript disabled.
Con The top 5-10 git Use Cases are not intuitive without knowing git
SmartGit fails to abstract git in a way that makes it easy / intuitive to use. For software that calls itself smart, you would expect someone who has worked with any version of control software for years to get up to speed quickly with SmartGit - without studying the Git Manual.
Con Doesn' t support remote coding or WSL
To work alongside tools like VSCode it really needs to be able to work with remote code by ssh and on Windows support for running git within WSL where the code is being developed.
Con Some git functionality has been renamed
In order to preserve the same interface across Git and Mercurial, some naming compromises have been made so that the various VCS it supports are all consistent with each other.
Con It can be slow and resource hungry
It was written in Java, which is known for being a resource hog, and it can be slow on some machines, as well as prone to errors if developers are not very experienced.
