Microsoft Visual Studio Code vs. Notepad++

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Notepad++
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Notepad++ is a popular free and open source text editor available under the GPL license, featuring syntax highlighting and folding, auto-complete, multi-document management, and ac customizable GUI.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeNotepad++
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeNotepad++
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeNotepad++
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeNotepad++
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeNotepad++
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeNotepad++
Likelihood to Recommend
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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I believe Notepad++ will meet the needs of the vast majority of Microsoft Windows users looking for a more robust (and free) text editor than Notepad, which comes bundled with the Windows operating system. Notepad++ is packed with features, frequently updated, and consumes little resources. And incredibly, this software is free of charge
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Pros
  • 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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  • Persistent tabs that save content even when shutting down the program or dreaded BSOD
  • Vertical selection for multi-line deletes and edits
  • Regular expression search & replace
  • Quick conversion of encoding and newline characters
  • Toggle word wrap and hidden characters
  • Lots of plugin support
  • Notifies if a file has been changed on disk by another app
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Cons
  • 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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  • It is only available for Windows (sorry, Linux and Mac users!).
  • It lacks some of the features of higher-order integrated development environments or code editors like Visual Studio Code, such as integration with Git or other versioning tools.
  • It works best for small text files and lighter tasks such as indenting text blocks you copy and paste from elsewhere. You could use this for all your programming needs, but there are better options out there for a primary tool for that purpose.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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I use it every day for 13 years already and it never disappointed me
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Usability
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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There are lot of features to talk about. Especially the usability is good. Everyone can easily to use and user-friendly. Can also update easily. Can also write and execute the programming languages like C, C++ etc. Encoding is also the major feature that helps me a lot and converter as well.
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Support Rating
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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I haven't needed to utilize any support related to Notepad++. I guess this is a good thing because I found it to be quite intuitive. There are almost infinite features you can tweak and plugins you can download but I haven't had to do that because Notepad++ is really good right out of the box.
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Alternatives Considered
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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If you're looking for a free and feature-rich option with an active plugin ecosystem, extensive language support, and regular expression capabilities, Notepad++ is a strong choice.If you prefer a straightforward, user-friendly interface and don't require as many advanced features, TextPad could be a good fit. TextPad is also an option if you're comfortable with its licensing terms. I use Notepad++ as its free and open source with lot of plugins to play with and modify your code
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Return on Investment
  • 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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  • Productivity has increased for developers.
  • It's free so instead of buying a piece of software, you can use this to replace many of them that may only specialize in one thing.
  • It gives our developers confidence knowing they have such a reliable, free tool at their disposal.
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ScreenShots