I stopped using Visual Studio Code

PublishedAugust 5, 2022

•3 min read•View as Markdown

Chris Bongers

I'm a full-stack developer from South Africa 🇿🇦. I love writing about JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

Comments (29)

Join the discussion

Sailesh Dahal3y ago

All JetBrains product are great, You cant go back once you start using them :-D

tiff3y ago

If you have to configure which package manager to use to run React/Astro/Vue etc scripts for EACH script IN THE SAME package.json file you know you've jumped the shark. I'd rather use the CLI instead of having to go through all of that just to run pnpm dev

Trong Duong3y ago

I disagree with you. I think you know the WebStorm IDE, a JetBrains product. The IDE is always good more than an editor. It needs many CPU, and RAM, for running (Compare the number of resources used).

The Editor like VSCode can be considered lighter than IDEs if we use extensions sensibly. But finally, I like your perspective, to some extent, I agree with you

Becaye Baldé3y ago

I love JetBrains products. I have used them for PHP, Python, Angular, and NodeJS and they are awesome, really! But for Javascript Frameworks, I switched back to VS Code since it is so minimalistic and fast, if you need a feature, you just download the extension. Eventually, when I'm stuck on some complex projects, I occasionally use Webstorm as it is better at finding problems.

Omar Khaled3y ago

Thanks for this article! I was using VSC for a long time but when I discovered PhpStorm I don't want to go back to VSC cause VSC was not great for PHP especially when it comes to enterprise projects VSC was just lagging and was a pain to use after I switched to PhpStorm I was impressed by the performance, no lag and too many features the only thing that is a problem is the license cost, 10$ per month is a lot in Egypt

Min Min Latt3y ago

Okay, cool, and I think this is an eye-catching title. You stopped using it, good for you. But I'll keep using it. It's hard for me to switch from one IDE to another easily. 🫢

Priyanshu Shrivastava3y ago

brilliant

Priyanshu Shrivastava3y ago

Have to agree with JetBrains always amazes me with their awesome code editors i always prefer pycham and intellige idea for writing python and java code and after reading it i might switch to web-storm

Dev By RayRay3y ago

Wow, man! I went the opposite way years ago 😅

Chris Bongers3y ago

Oh you didn't like the JetBrains line?

Dev By RayRay3y ago

Chris Bongers it was mainly because of the license costs that I was searching for an alternative. But that was back in 2016, I guess. Back then I choose Sublime Text. And when I discovered VS code, I never looked back 😅

abdoul razak mahamadou ali3y ago

Hello, I registered just to answer you.

First of all what you pay on webstorm, vscode does it too, then it's free and offers more functionality than webstorm if you know how to use it and especially configure it and finally I don't agree with you

Chris Bongers3y ago

Thanks for registering just for my article, and taking the time to reply.

If VSCode does everything for you that's perfectly fine, I'm not against it at all. It's merely me sharing why WS works better for me personally 🙏

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Not because it's bad, not at all, and to be fully honest, I use it for my blog still 🤫.

But because I started using Webstorm, a JetBrains product and love it.

Let me explain why I love this one so much. There are a couple of game-changing elements to it.

Full-power but fully customizable

I think the first time, I was overwhelmed by all the panels, menus, and actions.

However, you quickly realize they do have a use, but until you learn about that, you can remove panels to make it a super clean editor.

Example of the basic editor opening up.

WebStorm overview

All in - Out of the box

One of the great features of Visual Studio Code is that it has so many amazing plugins available to make your experience better.

When I downloaded WebStorm, I looked for amazing plugins but quickly realized you don't even need them.

It has so many great things already installed out of the box that you rarely need a plugin.

And if you do, their plugin ecosystem is also huge.

Some examples of things that work out of the box:

All JavaScript autocomplete and can even fix issues for you
Smart refactoring
Testing!
Fast file search and global search
Live share build-in
Tailwind classes autocomplete
Amazing themes
Source control included
and much more

If you need a plugin, check out the plugin repo on the Jetbrains website.

Search works

The cool part about WebStorm is that it has perfect search functionality.

We can search for either file and actions using the double shift search. This is a powerful way to find files by name, actions, plugins, etc.

WebStorm search

Alternatively, we get find-in files, which can be used to find any code in your files! Again super powerful search functionality.

Find in files

Tests

If you are writing a lot of tests, WebStorm has your back! It provides a super robust testing flow, where you can quickly test singular test cases and even quick-view snapshots.

It's super easy to test single tests or files. You can even quickly debug your tests in WebStorm.

Singular test in WebStorm

Code inspection

Another great option it comes with is code inspection, and this has many incredible benefits to it.

It can quickly detect any issues you might have with your ESLint rules and unused methods.

Unused functions in WebStorm

It will also tell you when you are doing things that don't make sense, like not including alt tags on images.

WebStorm auto-missing

And the list goes on of code inspection it can do to help you write robust code.

Speed

Another great thing about WebStorm is that it's simply super quick. It runs projects without hesitation and has no issue refactoring a widely used import.

Since I started using WebStorm, it hasn't had a single issue (about three months now).

VSC was also pretty fast to me, but WebStorm feels a bit more stable. I had VSC crash on me before, especially while opening large files or refactoring widely used imported files.

Conclusion

I'm not here to tell you that you have to switch. Just sharing why I switched and what benefits I see in WebStorm.

The obvious con is that it's a paid product compared to VSC, which is free.

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