Chrome DevTools vs. Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Chrome DevTools
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Chrome DevTools is a set of authoring, debugging, and profiling tools built into Google Chrome.N/A
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, a text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.N/A
Pricing
Chrome DevToolsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Chrome DevToolsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Chrome DevToolsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Best Alternatives
Chrome DevToolsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Small Businesses
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Chrome DevToolsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Chrome DevToolsMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
Chrome DevTools helps us identify areas to address such as optimising website performance, cross-browser compatibility, and responsive design. We use the Coverage and panel to identify any unused code, which can cause slow loading times, together with the Network panel which is crucial for analysing page load performance and optimising resources.
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If your Source Control Software is Team Foundation Server then skip Visual Studio Code. If you're using GitHub and are creating small projects Visual Studio Code is the way to go. If you need to create a large, enterprise-level application, Visual Studio Code makes it easier to set up interactions between related projects (client & server). If you're interested in getting back to the old way of using the command line to create projects and you know what to enter in the console window then Visual Studio Code is great. Visual Studio Code is a better choice if you don't know the console commands and prefer to make selections from a menu.
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Pros
  • Provides clear, easy to understand, and actionable intelligence on how the browser is retrieving, parsing and rendering the page.
  • Covers a wide gamut of front-end development tasks, from manipulating CSS rules to line-by-line debugging of JavaScript to helpful page and server insights.
  • Continuously incorporates new tools and helpful features. With nearly every major Chrome release there is a "What's new" update with at least one or two useful items.
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  • Robust plugin architecture replete with fantastic add-ons that make developer life delightful.
  • Integrated Terminal window allows you to stay in one application to perform most required tasks.
  • Customization options are robust. It is easy to modify VS Code to your own specifications.
  • It's free! Hard to believe such a well made, well maintained, robust software is a free download.
  • Command+P/Command+Shift+P key commands will improve your workflow dramatically.
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Cons
  • It would be nice in the elements panel, if clicking on a node scrolled the screen to that node. On some large pages its easy to get lost in the code and not know where the element you're inspecting resides on the screen.
  • It would be nice if, in addition to the console, there was a panel that behaved more like an editor instead of a command prompt. It may seem trivial but it would be very helpful when writing multi-line functions.
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  • Unlike for most languages I have used, Ruby and Rails support available for Code users isn't great. The most popular Ruby extension is unofficial, and leaves much to desire. As an example, code navigation even with language server Solargraph installed isn't as good as IntelliJ's RubyMine.
  • Even there is quite good support for a language or a framework, it is almost never as good as a dedicated IDE for it. In terms of the sheer number of features available, IntelliJ IDEs handily beat Code.
  • Microsoft has close-sourced some of the extensions it develops for Code itself, e.g. Pylance for Python, and that has not been perceived as a good move for open-source.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
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.
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Usability
While Chrome DevTools are very powerful, it's not the easiest thing to use, as there are so many different tools built in. It takes some exploring to discover all the options possible within DevTools, but with a little exploring, the DevTools become a very powerful asset. Accessing the basic HTML and CSS inspection is very easy though, and that's the most common usage for the DevTools.
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Looking at our current implementation, Microsoft Visual Studio Code is perfect for writing code and performing debug operations. Integration with SVN repository is easy and changes can be tracked effectively. Microsoft Visual Studio Code supports developers to write code productively using syntax check and easy customization. Microsoft Visual Studio Code also provides support for IntelliSense which prompts suggestions for code completion. It is easy to step through code using interactive debugger to inspect the root cause of error quickly.
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Support Rating
I'm not entirely sure what to rate the support for DevTools, because I don't have any experience dealing with official customer support for DevTools. I would guess the primary support for DevTools would be in a Chrome forum. Typically if I have a question or issue, I am able to find an answer from doing a quick Google search. It's pretty widely used, so it's not difficult to find answers.
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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.
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Alternatives Considered
I find them pretty much the same, they have the same tools except Firefox doesn't provide the lighthouse functionality. I do prefer firefox's dark theme and colour palette. But I use Chrome Dev tools because of the Light house functionality that analyzes the page load and scores the website on desktop and mobile experience.
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All the previously listed are incredible development environments that perfectly fulfill this function, but [Microsoft] Visual Studio Code goes one step ahead by providing flexibility, customization and adaptability to development environments with its own methodology, for all this productivity. of the work team is greatly increased helping to achieve the objectives set in the organization.
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Return on Investment
  • All positive, the tool is free so there's no need to spend money on it. Every return is positive.
  • A lot, their tools increases productivity due because it helps developers to create and test websites inside the browser.
  • Tools are intuitive so there's no need to invest in education on developers to learn these tools.
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  • Saves money by replacing suites of tools such as Visual Studio, IntelliJ, etc.
  • Speeds development time and developer environment setup time
  • Strengthens code quality with integrated autoformatting and linting
  • Strengths Git practices by keeping version control tightly connected with the code
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ScreenShots