Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code

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Notepad++

19.8K
16.3K
+ 1
417
Visual Studio Code

174.1K
157K
+ 1
2.3K
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Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code are both popular code editors used by developers. While they share similarities in some aspects, there are also key differences between the two.

  1. Functionality: Notepad++ is a lightweight code editor that focuses on providing essential features for editing code. It offers syntax highlighting, code folding, and search/replace functionalities. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, is a full-fledged integrated development environment (IDE) that includes features like debugging, Git integration, and extensions support, making it more powerful and versatile.

  2. Supported Languages: Notepad++ supports a wide range of programming languages, including C/C++, Java, HTML, and PHP. However, its language support is limited compared to Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code has extensive language support with its wide range of extensions, allowing developers to work with various programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, Go, and many more.

  3. User Interface: Notepad++ has a simple and straightforward user interface with minimal customization options. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code provides a customizable and flexible user interface. Users can personalize their workspace layout, install different color themes, and customize keyboard shortcuts according to their preferences.

  4. Debugging: Notepad++ does not have built-in debugging capabilities. Visual Studio Code, however, provides powerful debugging tools, allowing developers to set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables, making it easier to identify and fix issues in code.

  5. Version Control: Notepad++ does not have built-in version control integration. Visual Studio Code, on the other hand, comes with built-in Git integration, making it easier for developers to work with repositories, commit changes, and manage branches directly from the editor.

  6. Community and Support: Notepad++ has a large and active community of users, providing support through forums and online resources. However, Visual Studio Code has a much larger community and extensive documentation, offering better support for troubleshooting issues and finding solutions to problems.

In summary, while Notepad++ is a lightweight code editor with essential features, Visual Studio Code is a full-fledged IDE with advanced functionalities, extensive language support, debugging tools, built-in version control integration, and a larger community for support.

Decisions about Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code
Samriddhi Sinha
Machine Learning Engineer at Chefling · | 6 upvotes · 968.7K views

Lightweight and versatile. Huge library of extensions that enable you to integrate a host of services to your development environment. VS Code's biggest strength is its library of extensions which enables it to directly compete with every single major IDE for almost all major programming languages.

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Kamaleshwar BN
Senior Software Engineer at Pulley · | 12 upvotes · 1.3M views

Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.

Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.

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Andrey Ginger
Managing Partner at WhiteLabelDevelopers · | 3 upvotes · 491.4K views

Since communication with Github is not necessary, the Atom is less convenient in working with text and code. Sublim's support and understanding of projects is best for us. Notepad for us is a completely outdated solution with an unacceptable interface. We use a good theme for Sublim ayu-dark

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Simon Ibssa
Student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo · | 2 upvotes · 1.2M views

I decided to choose VSCode over Sublime text for my Systems Programming class in C. What I love about VSCode is its awesome ability to add extensions. Intellisense is a beautiful debugger, and Remote SSH allows me to login and make real-time changes in VSCode to files on my university server. This is an awesome alternative to going back and forth on pushing/pulling code and logging into servers in the terminal. Great choice for anyone interested in C programming!

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Pros of Notepad++
Pros of Visual Studio Code
  • 103
    Syntax for all languages that i use
  • 59
    Tabbed ui
  • 56
    Great code editor
  • 53
    Fast and lightweight
  • 38
    Plugins
  • 28
    Nice GUI
  • 26
    Regex & Special Character Search & Replace
  • 16
    Fast startup
  • 9
    Application is free, and plugins are too
  • 9
    Themes
  • 6
    Free
  • 4
    Very Lightweight
  • 3
    100% Free
  • 2
    Column selection
  • 1
    Awesome autocomplete
  • 1
    Easy edit on FTP servers (NppFTP)
  • 1
    Cos it's seck
  • 1
    Nice gui. are you kidding me?
  • 1
    Open Sourced
  • 339
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 308
    Fast
  • 193
    Front-end develop out of the box
  • 158
    Support TypeScript IntelliSense
  • 142
    Very basic but free
  • 126
    Git integration
  • 106
    Intellisense
  • 78
    Faster than Atom
  • 53
    Better ui, easy plugins, and nice git integration
  • 45
    Great Refactoring Tools
  • 44
    Good Plugins
  • 42
    Terminal
  • 38
    Superb markdown support
  • 36
    Open Source
  • 34
    Extensions
  • 26
    Large & up-to-date extension community
  • 26
    Awesome UI
  • 24
    Powerful and fast
  • 22
    Portable
  • 18
    Best editor
  • 18
    Best code editor
  • 17
    Easy to get started with
  • 15
    Lots of extensions
  • 15
    Built on Electron
  • 15
    Crossplatform
  • 15
    Good for begginers
  • 14
    Extensions for everything
  • 14
    Open, cross-platform, fast, monthly updates
  • 14
    All Languages Support
  • 13
    Easy to use and learn
  • 12
    Extensible
  • 12
    "fast, stable & easy to use"
  • 11
    Totally customizable
  • 11
    Git out of the box
  • 11
    Faster edit for slow computer
  • 11
    Ui design is great
  • 11
    Useful for begginer
  • 10
    Great community
  • 10
    SSH support
  • 10
    Fast Startup
  • 9
    It has terminal and there are lots of shortcuts in it
  • 9
    Powerful Debugger
  • 9
    Great language support
  • 9
    Works With Almost EveryThing You Need
  • 8
    Python extension is fast
  • 8
    Can compile and run .py files
  • 7
    Great document formater
  • 7
    Features rich
  • 6
    He is not Michael
  • 6
    Awesome multi cursor support
  • 6
    Extension Echosystem
  • 6
    She is not Rachel
  • 5
    Language server client
  • 5
    Easy azure
  • 5
    SFTP Workspace
  • 5
    VSCode.pro Course makes it easy to learn
  • 5
    Very proffesional
  • 4
    Supports lots of operating systems
  • 4
    Has better support and more extentions for debugging
  • 4
    Excellent as git difftool and mergetool
  • 4
    Virtualenv integration
  • 3
    Has more than enough languages for any developer
  • 3
    Better autocompletes than Atom
  • 3
    Emmet preinstalled
  • 3
    'batteries included'
  • 3
    More tools to integrate with vs
  • 2
    VS Code Server: Browser version of VS Code
  • 2
    Big extension marketplace
  • 2
    Customizable
  • 2
    Microsoft
  • 2
    Light
  • 2
    Fast and ruby is built right in
  • 2
    CMake support with autocomplete

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Cons of Notepad++
Cons of Visual Studio Code
  • 3
    No default plugin manager
  • 2
    Can't install more advanced packets
  • 46
    Slow startup
  • 29
    Resource hog at times
  • 20
    Poor refactoring
  • 16
    Microsoft
  • 13
    Poor UI Designer
  • 11
    Weak Ui design tools
  • 10
    Poor autocomplete
  • 8
    Super Slow
  • 8
    Microsoft sends telemetry data
  • 7
    Poor in PHP
  • 7
    Huge cpu usage with few installed extension
  • 6
    It's MicroSoft
  • 3
    No built in live Preview
  • 3
    No Built in Browser Preview
  • 3
    Poor in Python
  • 3
    Electron
  • 3
    No color Intergrator
  • 3
    Very basic for java development and buggy at times
  • 2
    Powered by Electron
  • 2
    Bad Plugin Architecture
  • 1
    Terminal does not identify path vars sometimes
  • 1
    Slow C++ Language Server

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- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Notepad++?

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

What is Visual Studio Code?

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

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What companies use Notepad++?
What companies use Visual Studio Code?
See which teams inside your own company are using Notepad++ or Visual Studio Code.
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What tools integrate with Notepad++?
What tools integrate with Visual Studio Code?

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What are some alternatives to Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code?
Sublime Text
Sublime Text is available for OS X, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses. Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit, optimized for speed and beauty, while taking advantage of native functionality on each platform.
Atom
At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.
UltraEdit
It is a powerful, fast, and secure text editor whose helpful features make every day life easier for any user type and programming language. Windows, Mac, Linux.
Vim
Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.
Emacs
GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.
See all alternatives