When comparing ipdb vs PyCharm Community Edition, the Slant community recommends PyCharm Community Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best Python debuggers?” PyCharm Community Edition is ranked 2nd while ipdb is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose PyCharm Community Edition is:
PyCharm has CVS, Git, Subversion and Mercurial integration.
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Pros
Pro Syntax color support
Pro Tab completion
Tab completion allows you to easily view all properties and methods that belong to an object.
Pro Extends pdb
ipdb extends the functionality of pdb to include iPython support, which adds features like tab completion.
Pro Version control integration
PyCharm has CVS, Git, Subversion and Mercurial integration.
Pro Sophisticated autocompletion
PyCharm includes sophisticated heuristics for determining what each variable type is and providing autocompletion suggestions for them.
Pro Excellent refactoring support
There are many refactoring options including renaming and changing signature across entire projects. It also includes the an ability to preview changes before committing and exclude anything unwanted.
Pro Excellent debugger
PyCharm can leverage run-time information when running your application with the built-in debugger to figure out what types can possibly be passed to which functions, etc.
Pro Framework support
PyCharm supports cefpython and electron.js (with c bindings).
Pro Pro features Free for students
JetBrains offers a Student Pack, which gives you a student license and access to the pro features of selected products such as PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA and Php Storm.
Cons
Con Memory-hungry
Can use a lot of memory (several GBs), especially when dealing with large projects.
Con Can sometimes become very slow, freeze, and become unresponsive
It becomes extremely frustrating when you have to wait for the text you've typed to appear in your editor. Furthermore, during these freezes the editor does not always queue what your're typing, so you might have to wait > 15 seconds before you can continue your editing. This quickly affects the concentration of a developer, causing flow interruption and general performance degradation.
Con Feature incomplete
Some features are locked behind a paywall. Although if you are a student, you can apply for the Student Pack.