When comparing Geany vs CLion, the Slant community recommends Geany for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs for C++ on UNIX-like systems?” Geany is ranked 3rd while CLion is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Geany is:
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Light and fast
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Pro Built-in plugin manager
Geany has a built-in plugin manager which can be used to install plugins and add new powerful features to the editor.
Pro Quick search on large files
In Geany you technically search once for a whole search query, unlike Gedit, where once you start typing, the file is searched for in accordance with each substring of what you're typing, all the while leading to terribly annoying lag.
Pro Cross platform
Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.
Pro Build in terminal
Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.
Pro Actively developed Free (as in freedom) Software
This software respects your freedom.
Pro Real syntax parsing (not just coloring)
Hence it is capable of showing the methods and inner classes of, e.g., a Java source file.
Pro Simple project management
Pro Native
It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM.
Pro Options in the menu are easy to find
For example, there is an easy way to change the font and theme in the View menu. No need to search through several syntax styles like in Notepad++ just to be able to change the used font.
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.
Cons
Con Not very advanced
Although it has some IDE features, it is not as advanced as some other text editors that can be extended to contain IDE functionality.
Con Windows installer not digitally signed
Con Not many third-party plugins
Geany is not as popular as some other text editors with plugin support. As such it's understandable that it's missing lots of powerful plugins available in other editors.
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