Rider and Unity: A Great Combination
September 07, 2020

Rider and Unity: A Great Combination

Rajan Tande | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with JetBrains Rider

JetBrains Rider is used as the primary IDE by a number of Unity developers. It is a replacement for Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and Visual Studio Mac. JetBrains Rider is used for both development and debugging C# code in Unity.
  • Useful C# refactoring suggestions with indications of which options are available for different versions of the C# language
  • Deep understanding of the Unity game engine, which means that Rider can flag potential problems such as being careful with the use of the null coalescing and null propagation/conditional operators on types that derive from UnityEngine.Object.
  • Good searching and navigation facilities make it easier to understand unfamiliar code.
  • Rider is slower to start up than, for example, Visual Studio Code so I do find myself using Code for quick edits to files.
  • Rider does appear to be more resource-intensive than Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio.
  • Writing clearer C# code based on refactoring suggestions
  • Avoiding some obscure bugs that Rider has flagged in the IDE that would have taken a lot of time and effort to find and fix through testing
  • Cost of licenses, though the benefits outweigh the costs
JetBrains Rider provides better refactoring suggestions and support than Visual Studio, and uniquely, it provides specific recommendations for the Unity engine.
The support forums and knowledge base are extensive and the JetBrains support staff respond quickly to new posts and help resolve issues. There is also a publicly accessible issue tracking system, which allows you to stay on top of any bug fixes or enhancement requests.
Rider is a great IDE with extensive C# refactoring support and .NET-specific knowledge. This is great for building .NET applications but for our purposes, the Unity specific suggestions are really helpful.

JetBrains Rider is great as an editing and debugging environment. It reliably connects to the Unity editor and allows debugging, which some IDEs are not as reliable at doing.

Do you think JetBrains Rider delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with JetBrains Rider's feature set?

Yes

Did JetBrains Rider live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of JetBrains Rider go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy JetBrains Rider again?

Yes

Our experience of JetBrains Rider is that it is very good for both standalone C# applications and for developing Unity games. Its C# refactoring suggestions are useful most of the time, and it also has specific Unity recommendations that are helpful to close the gap between experienced and less experienced Unity developers.