IntelliJ IDEA vs. Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
IntelliJ IDEA	Score 9.3 out of 10	N/A	IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE that aims to give Java and Kotlin developers everything they need out of the box, including a smart code editor, built-in developer tools, framework support, database support, web development support, and much more.	$16.90 per month
Microsoft Visual Studio Code	Score 9.1 out of 10	N/A	Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, a text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.	$0

Pricing

IntelliJ IDEA

Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Editions & Modules

For Individual Use: $16.90
per month
All Products Pack (For Individual Use): $28.90
per month
For Organizations: $59.90
per month
All Products Pack (For Organizations): $77.90
per month

No answers on this topic

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
IntelliJ IDEA	Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Free Trial
Yes	No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes	Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

Yearly subscriptions: For Individual Use – $169 /1st year, $ 135 /2nd year and $ 101 /3d year onwards For Organizations – $599 /1st year, $479 /2nd year and $ 359 /3rd year onwards All Products Pack (For Individual Use) – $289 /1st year, $ 231 /2nd year and $ 173 /3d year onwards All Products Pack (For Organizations) – $799 /1st year, $623 /2nd year and $ 467 /3rd year onwards

—

More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	IntelliJ IDEA	Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Considered Both Products	IntelliJ IDEA David Tanner Sr Software Engineer Chose IntelliJ IDEA Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS) requires a lot of textual configuration, where IntelliJ IDEA provides a graphical interface with configuration options displayed. This matters a lot to me as I don't want to hunt around the internet to remember how to set different parameters … Incentivized Helpful? Dushyant Pathak (DKP) Technology Analyst Chose IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ IDEA has several benefits over vs code when it comes to Java applications, including in-built Java compilers, Maven lifecycle support, Lombok preprocessing, and sonar integration. While vs code is largely generic, IntelliJ IDEA has focused primarily on Java … Incentivized Helpful? LS Lakshita Salian Manager Chose IntelliJ IDEA Intellij is faster and smoother. SO it saves development time Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Engineer Chose IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ IDEA is one of the products of JetBrains and it beats every IDE in the market in terms of performance, user experience, and productivity. Incentivized Helpful? Balázs Kiss Software Developer Chose IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ surpassed every single competitor. The only viable alternative I still use is VisualStudio Code build in a browser for demo purposes... other than that, IDEA does everything better, faster, and in a more comfy way. This is the best IDE out there. This is just as good … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Administrator Chose IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ IDEA includes FTP deployment which is ideal for legacy web applications and simple projects that don't use CI/CD. The outline view which lists methods within a class (ColdFusion component) is the easiest to use out of any other IDE and makes navigating large files a … Incentivized Helpful? KV Kunal Verma Software Engineer Intern Chose IntelliJ IDEA They are memory friendly. The boot-up really fast as compared to IntelliJ IDE. Open-source and freely available to use is one of the major reasons if someone can switch from IntelliJ. Vast community support is available in case of any issue. They occupy less space as compared … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Engineer Chose IntelliJ IDEA Since we are primarily a Scala shop, I only evaluated other tools based on their support for Scala. As I hinted at before, Vim and Sublime Text 3 have practically no support for Scala as all the Scala plugins that worked were never finished and abandoned and only work for Scala … Incentivized Helpful? Zhann Goloborodko Senior Programmer/Analyst Chose IntelliJ IDEA Eclipse is an amazing all-purpose IDE. However, when it comes to developing Java applications, IntelliJ is far better suited. Incentivized Helpful? Rahul Rajput Data Engineer Chose IntelliJ IDEA Chosen for its feature of auto-downloading dependencies and intelligent suggestions. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ IDEA is the best we have found so far for development and querying CRM and databases. We buy licenses for several users to speed up our development and configuration processes. It really accelerates our development and productivity. It is stable and fast and easier to … Incentivized Helpful? Dhruba Jyoti Nag Associate Chose IntelliJ IDEA The main competitors of IntelliJ IDEA in the Java world must be Eclipse and Spring Tools Suite. It performs better than both in code refactoring, code completion and debugging (the features of an IDE) but the plugin support is much better in the other 2 products, since they are … Incentivized Helpful?	Microsoft Visual Studio Code Verified User Director Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code There are many IDEs available but I don't think anyone is better than Visual Studio Code. Most others are language dependent softwares while VS Code supports all the languages. There are others popular available like Atom, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, and WebStorm but none of them … Incentivized Helpful? Greg Garnhart Research & Development: Product Intern Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code VS Code is much more lightweight than IntelliJ and Eclipse and is certainly comparable to Atom. I find that for most of my projects, VS Code is the most stable option, and is generally the quickest to boot. Generally, trying out all four can't hurt, but VS Code has been the … Incentivized Helpful? Apurv Doshi Senior Solutions Architect Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code I think VS Code is much better as compared to all the tools mentioned above. Just waiting for its support for iOS and Android development. currently, it misses support for them. That's where you will require Xcode and Android Studio. Incentivized Helpful? Jude Allred Co-Founder & CTA Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code When you start using [Microsoft Visual Studio Code], it lands more on the "text editor" side of the spectrum, akin to Vim/Emacs/Sublime. Aligned with this, it's fast and easy to install and setup, and competes with the best of them as a great general purpose tool. But then it … Incentivized Helpful? Balázs Kiss Software Developer Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code Visual Studio Code is one of the peak engineering tools you can use today on the market. It's one of the most advanced IDE, and, currently, a de-facto top-used IDE. This alone should be proof to use it. Incentivized Helpful? Tharsanan Kurukulasingam Software Engineer Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code When it comes to UI and light weightiness, Visual Code is the winner. But when it comes to Intelli-Sense and autosuggestion IntelliJ works better in my view. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Engineer Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code Compared against a lot of other popular IDEs, I would say that VSCode is the perfect balance between complexity, language support, etc, for web languages. It's faster than most (though not quite as fast as native ones like Notepad++ or Sublime Text), and very flexible. Even in … Incentivized Helpful? SM Saad Moumen Software Engineer Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code The main plus for me was the speed, sleek UI, and the memorable shortcuts for VS Code. Also the smart auto-complete as well as version management (Git), Chrome debugging, and the possibility of plugging in multiple language-specific linters for a better code. The auto-complete … Incentivized Helpful? Javier Carrion Quality Assurance Analyst Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code VS Code feels sometimes heavier compared to other text editors like Notepad++. You can choose windows PowerShell, CMD, bash or node, and the terminal will just be as powerful within the VS Code as it is on it is own. it's free and open source. It's also being updated on a … Incentivized Helpful?
Top Pros	Pro Code completion Pro Version control Pro Easy to use	Pro Programming languages Pro Git integration Pro Easy to use
Top Cons	Minus Learning curve Minus Large projects Minus Community edition	Minus Not very good Minus Bit confusing Minus Set up

TrustRadius Insights
	IntelliJ IDEA	Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Highlights	Research Team Insight Published February 5, 2024 IntelliJ IDEA’s customers frequently mention its broad range of use cases, from developing desktop and mobile applications to working on complex enterprise-level projects. Its users appreciate the vast array of built-in tools for coding, debugging, and testing, and report regularly using the tool’s extensive integration capabilities with frameworks and languages like Java, Python, and Scala. The product’s capacity to handle large codebases is consistently highlighted, making IntelliJ a popular choice amongst those working on substantial, intricate projects. In contrast, Visual Studio Code’s users regularly cite its effectiveness for smaller-scale projects, particularly when using languages like JavaScript and TypeScript. Users often remark on its speed and efficiency, with a lighter resource footprint than IntelliJ, making it appropriate for use in low-resource environments or with less demanding projects. The extensibility via plugins for virtually every language and framework is frequently mentioned, demonstrating a broad range of use cases for this product. Although the tool’s users find it lacks some of IntelliJ’s integrated functionality, the flexibility to customize VS Code to individual needs via extensions is highly valued.

Best Alternatives
	IntelliJ IDEA	Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Small Businesses	PyCharm Score 9.0 out of 10	BBEdit Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	PyCharm Score 9.0 out of 10	Vim Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises	PyCharm Score 9.0 out of 10	Vim Score 9.7 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	IntelliJ IDEA	Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend	8.4 (55 ratings)	8.7 (89 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	5.0 (1 ratings)	9.4 (2 ratings)
Usability	9.1 (4 ratings)	10.0 (5 ratings)
Support Rating	8.9 (15 ratings)	9.7 (24 ratings)
Implementation Rating	9.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	IntelliJ IDEA	Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend	JetBrains For a modern software project, where you want to store everything as code, from the backend to the frontend, to the DB patch scripts, to the documents, API specs, diagrams, infrastructure-as-code, etc. IntelliJ is basically your one-stop. In the same IDE, you can write code, write a spec, draw diagrams, make changes to patch scripts, infrastructure definition. Incentivized Tung Vu Senior Software Engineer Read full review	Microsoft Microsoft Visual Studio Code is highly recommended for the development of systems and / or complex applications entrusted to work teams under a specific methodology, and its use is also recommended for the maintenance of previously developed applications. It is not recommended as a learning environment for developers with little experience as the learning curve would be too high Incentivized Moris Mendez Ing. de Sistemas Informaticos Read full review
Pros	JetBrains Unit testing: Fully integrated into IntelliJ IDEA. Your unit tests will run smoothly and efficiently, with excellent debugging tools for when things get tricky. Spring integration: Our Spring project using Maven works flawlessly in IntelliJ IDEA. I know firsthand that Apache is also easily and readily supported too. The integration is seamless and very easy to set up using IntelliJ IDEA's set up wizard when importing new projects. Customization: IntelliJ IDEA comes out of the box with a bunch of handy shortcuts, as well as text prediction, syntax error detection, and other tools to help keep your code clean. But even better is that it allows for total customization of shortcuts you can easily create to suit your needs. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Microsoft Very accessible -- it's compatible with all platforms and environments, free to install, and fast to open Strong native support for many languages, and very strong extensibility to provide advanced language features Git integration is top-notch, often displaying a better history, diff, and merge interface that is otherwise available in version control systems Incentivized Jude Allred Co-Founder & CTA Read full review
Cons	JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA wins as long as the language is Java. Outside that , e.g., in other languages, it is not so advanced. It is licensed, with a steep licensing cost. All features are not included in the free edition. It is not as light as Eclipse, so in a weak system, it can be a pain. Incentivized Dhruba Jyoti Nag Associate Read full review	Microsoft Lack of button bar like ones found in Visual Studio. Lack of integrated help that could link to YouTube, Channel 9, or other Microsoft videos on how to learn about features. Integration with Team Foundation Server. Would like to see it having some sort of integration into a Web API testing harness. Incentivized Mark Orlando Senior Developer Analyst Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	JetBrains VS Code is maturing and has a Scala plugin now. The overall experience with VS Code - for web development at least - is very snappy/fast. IntelliJ feels a bit sluggish in comparison. If that Scala plugin for VS Code is deemed mature enough - we may not bother renewing and resort to the Community Edition if we need it. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Microsoft Solid tool that provides everything you need to develop most types of applications. The only reason not a 10 is that if you are doing large distributed teams on Enterprise level, Professional does provide more tools to support that and would be worth the cost. Incentivized Steven Gockley, MBA, MCSA DBA / Sr. Data Analyst Read full review
Usability	JetBrains The user interface for IntelliJ Idea is phenomenal. It's got the usual JetBrains interface but it works well to support all Java processes. All in all, it is a solid product and to be expected from JetBrains who creates this integrated development environment software. It allows me to test in the IDE and run other manual workflows automatically such as install packages. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Microsoft This is a tool for programmers and it works like many others. If you are in the development world already then you will be sailing in no time with Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It is also great for new developers and it is very easy to use and you can get all the tools you need in one place as you begin to learn. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Support Rating	JetBrains Customer support is really good in the case of IntelliJ. If you are paying for this product then, the company makes sure that you will get all the services adequately. Regular update patches are provided to improve the IDE. An online bug report makes it easier for the developers to find the solution as fast as possible. The large online community also helps to find the various solutions to the issues. Incentivized KV Kunal Verma Software Engineer Intern Read full review	Microsoft Active development means filing a bug on the GitHub repo typically gets you a response within 4 days. There are plugins for almost everything you need, whether it be linting, Vim emulation, even language servers (which I use to code in Scala). There is well-maintained official documentation. The only thing missing is forums. The closest thing is GitHub issues, which typically has the answers but is hard to sift through -- there are currently 78k issues. Incentivized Patrick Fong Senior Software Engineer Read full review
Implementation Rating	JetBrains This installs just like any other application - its pretty straight forward. Perhaps licensing could be more challenging - but if you use the cloud licensing they offer its as simple as having engineers login to the application and it just works. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Microsoft No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered	JetBrains Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS) requires a lot of textual configuration, where IntelliJ IDEA provides a graphical interface with configuration options displayed. This matters a lot to me as I don't want to hunt around the internet to remember how to set different parameters that I don't use very often. This may be the biggest reason I don't use VS. Eclipse was great for when I was in college, but the power offered by IDEA is so much better that I haven't actually looked back since. Incentivized David Tanner Sr Software Engineer Read full review	Microsoft [Microsoft] Visual Studio Code beats the competition due to its extensibility. Their robust extensions architecture combined with the plethora of mostly free extensions written by the community can't be beaten. The fact that this tool itself is provided by a world-recognized company, Microsoft, free of charge is phenomenal. The goodwill garnered by them is immeasurable. Other tools I've used were missing features or were just too rigid, too complicated, or too unsophisticated for my liking. The fact that VS Code is easy to mold to my will with the right extensions seals the deal. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Return on Investment	JetBrains IntelliJ wasn't provided as complimentary, but the pricing was reasonable. We're healthcare organization of which our applications used to be mission critical and affect to patient safety, we were willing to pay the price. With the pricing, business support was good and well conducted during the project. Overall it was cost-effective as it saved our developers' time in general. (We don't have quantitative measure but we got feedback from them) Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Microsoft Positive impact on minimizing time wasted by employees with software installation and setup Positive impact on reducing spend on software licensing Positive impact on minimizing time used to manage different applications for different purposes - this performs all of the functions we need in basic coding Incentivized Ryan McGarry Vice President of Research, Head Neuroscientist Read full review
ScreenShots	IntelliJ IDEA Screenshots