CLion from JetBrains and Microsoft’s Visual Studio are cross-platform integrated development environments (IDEs). CLion is built to support development in C and C++ and is a paid service with advanced features. Visual Studio is freemium that offers paid editions as well. Its editors support a variety of languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JSON,etc.), and it can be used as an XML editor. Visual Studio is one of the most widely used IDEs in the world and is deployed at businesses of all sizes, and in home studios used actively by solo devs. CLion, as a paid service focused on C/C++ development, is deployed primarily at larger entities, often purchased as part of JetBrains All Products Pack where it sits beside the company’s more commonly used products (e.g. IntelliJ Idea).
Features
For building applications, there are plenty of reasons to use either Visual Studio, or CLion.
Visual Studio is a well regarded all-in-one IDE for development, available offline or online with strong debugging, as well as IntelliSense autocomplete, and refactoring. Because of its freemium delivery model and strength in supporting Windows .NET development (or full stack development) it is an integral part of many developer’s toolboxes. You will use it for something, and you probably won’t mind. Because it is easy to look at with a pleasing and efficiency generating UI (users like the light, love the dark), clear outputs that are easy to understand, and integration with Azure DevOps and Git, or other frequently used version control systems and DevOps tools.
CLion is a strong IDE, but primarily for C and C++ development, though it supports other languages. It is not an all-in-one, rather it is a power tool for C/C++ with an overall high rating for core IDE functionality. It resembles other JetBrains products in its look and functionality, so users of products such as IntelliJ Idea, WebStorm, or PyCharm may find it easy to use, with similar strengths to those products. It supports CMake, and VIM for coding, is easy to grasp with almost no learning curve at all for JetBrains pros, and while there is no free version, its price is regarded as cheap and fair, and it has a free student license to help get student developers get trained up and familiar with JetBrains’ tools.
Limitations
While both products are complete IDE tools, there are some limitations for each that may dissuade users from choosing Visual Studio or CLion for their particular project.
CLion is not the first choice for development that is not in C/C++. Also, it lacks a built-in compiler and compiler installation is subpar. Furthermore, it only runs on 64 bit systems (not 32 bit systems).
Visual Studio can struggle with speed, sporting a slow startup, sluggish performance during operation, and frustratingly high memory consumption throughout. It is a feature loaded tool, but many features are difficult to locate, difficult to remember where they are or even difficult to understand what they do. While Visual Studio is well supported and regularly updated, users express annoyance at excess shuffling and change in the functionality, location, or operability of seldom used but needed features that can create aggravation.
Pricing
Both CLion and Visual Studio can be tried, learned, and used for free; Visual Studio is free for all, and CLion is available for free on a student license. Otherwise, CLion is available per user for $199 the first year, $159 the second, and $119 subsequent years. A better option may be to obtain it on the JetBrains All Products Pack, bundled with IntelliJ Idea and other popular IDEs and tools, for $649 first year, $519 second year, and $389 subsequent years. For Microsoft’s Visual Studio, its Professional plan includes extra features and services as well as Azure DevOps/Azure DevOps Server features for $1,199 per year (optionally, $45 monthly), and $799 for renewals.The Visual Studio Enterprise plans includes Azure DevOps features (Test Plans, Artifacts, self-hosted pipelines) for a $250 monthly subscription, or with advanced support for annual subscriptions starting at $5,999 the first year, and $2,569 for renewals.
