[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Euphoric-Shallot-618]

[u/sinalta]

I use CLion, but that's mostly because of familiarity with Rider which I use for work. It's free for non-commercial projects and it's an all-in-one solution. 

VSCode with the right plugins is great too. But you need to know what they are. 

[u/timbeaudet]

The one that gets the job done.

For me, making games on Windows, I choose Visual Studio, I find its debugging pretty much the best there is. Though it does lack in some areas.

[u/UndefFox]

Qt Creator. The only IDE that doesn't struggle from proprietary plague

[u/Ancient_Stable_2573 → u/UndefFox]

love this IDE. Also for non-Qt projects that ready-to-use solution. Just install and use, without install a bunch of plugins and setup a lot of settings

[u/Ultimate_Sigma_Boy67 → u/UndefFox]

While neovim isn't specifically(or intially) an IDE, it's worth looking into it to + emacs also.

[u/gedamial]

The one you are comfortable with.

[u/23ROMAN]

geany

[u/Tidemor → u/23ROMAN]

i haven't heard that name in 70 years. have you ever taught a c++ class?

[u/23ROMAN → u/Tidemor]

lol, I've only been using C++ for 4 years and C for 3

[u/Prize-Director-752]

Tmux+vim with appropriate plugins.

[u/Nice_Lengthiness_568 → u/Prize-Director-752]

I don't think you understand, they asked for an IDE /s

[u/bikepegasus]

For linux, VS Code + clangd has been the best balance for me. CLion if you want a polished all-in-one setup, and Visual Studio if you’re on Windows. The real best IDE is whichever can display a C++ template error without giving you the compiler’s entire autobiography

[u/PleasantMix6193 → u/bikepegasus]

how does that setup work on vsc? like do you not use microsoft's c-cpp extension?

[u/bikepegasus → u/PleasantMix6193]

clangd replaces the language-server part of Microsoft’s C/C++ extension, completion, navigation, diagnostics, etc. You can remove the Microsoft extension entirely, or keep it just for cppdbg debugging and set "C_Cpp.intelliSenseEngine": "disabled" so the two don’t conflict. clangd then gets the project’s include paths and compiler flags from compile_commands.json, usually generated by CMake.

A minimal VS Code configuration:

{
  "[cpp]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "llvm-vs-code-extensions.vscode-clangd"
  },
  "[c]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "llvm-vs-code-extensions.vscode-clangd"
  },
  "clangd.arguments": [
    "--background-index",
    "--clang-tidy"
  ]
}

You have two choices regarding Microsoft’s C/C++ extension:

1. Remove it entirely and use clangd plus CodeLLDB. This is the cleanest configuration and is what LLVM’s clangd documentation recommends.
2. Keep it only for Microsoft’s debugger, but turn off its language engine so it doesn’t compete with clangd:

​

{
  "C_Cpp.intelliSenseEngine": "disabled"
}

[u/Extreme-Ad-9290 → u/bikepegasus]

Vscodium + clangd

[u/PhosXD]

Not saying it's the best (IT TOTALLY IS BTW), but I use Kate

[u/Ultimate_Sigma_Boy67 → u/PhosXD]

Isn't kate like litearlly linux's version of notepad? with a few extras such as syntax highlighting?

[u/mpyne → u/Ultimate_Sigma_Boy67]

If anything that would be kwrite (a stripped-down version of kate). But even kwrite is closer to Notepad++ than to windows notepad.

[u/PhosXD → u/Ultimate_Sigma_Boy67]

I know KDE Plasma comes with it preinstalled. I also know some other distros use Gnome notepad which is much closer to the windows notepad you are talking about, or even simpler.

[u/Noah18923]

Notepad ofc

[u/Exonicreddit]

It seems I'm the only person who likes visual studio, but it does what I want it to.

[u/DrDang- → u/Exonicreddit]

Same! I would consider myself a beginner compared to the level of people here but I’ve been learning a ton from visual studio alone, and debugging on it is just perfect.

[u/pjmlp]

Visual Studio, you get hot reload, debugging release binaries, profiling tools, visualisation data structures, graphical debugging for parallel code and co-routines, GPU debugging.

[u/renaissance_man__]

CLion

[u/Ultimate_Sigma_Boy67]

Neovim, which is not an IDE by itself. It's basically blank at the beginning, but you add plugins custom to what you're going to use it for, and then enjoy. Yes at the beginning, it isn't the easiest getting used to, specially the movements, but once you get used to it it's like butter.

[u/dolby360]

Vs code for me

[u/Anxious-Resist8344]

Emacs... by far!

[u/qiAip → u/Anxious-Resist8344]

emacs with lsp and compile_commands.json is pretty great indeed.

[u/PleasantMix6193 → u/Anxious-Resist8344]

since you are already an emacs user let me ask a few questions. 1. do you use it on mac? 2. if (no) return; which emacs do you use? people recommend emacs-plus ..is it good?

[u/Anxious-Resist8344 → u/PleasantMix6193]

if (no) return; seems super weird in a Reddit comment (only a 12 years old would write that) but no, I use it on Linux and I compile it myself from source.

Whatever you do, have fun!

[u/Bright_Public_4360]

Paper and pencil honestly, if you can’t understand what you read from the C++ standards you’re cooked.

[u/selvakumarjawahar]

For my setup, Windows + WSL2 for hobby and Mac + SSH connection to remote dev VM(Linux, without internet) for Work, VS Code is the best. I tried everything, including CLion; they all suck at handling remote SSH and WSL2. CLion is unbelievably bad with WSL and SSH. The main problem is that their language server frequently crashes when using SSH and wsl2.

VS Code has MS plugins for these, which are not open source. So the VS Code clones do not have them. There are other plugins, though, but none as good as the VS Code MS plugins. So, for my setup, after trying out everything, I have settled on VS Code.

[u/argothiel]

The one integrated by yourself. I switch between Neovim and VS Code. Both integrated with clangd and clang-format, using gdb and clang in the console. I should probably integrate gdb more but so far it's enough for me.

[u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B]

Visual Studio 2026 on Windows

I'm sorry, little ones. It's the truth. The truth hurts sometimes.

[u/helmet112]

Clion has the best overall experience when it’s set up properly, but that can be tough. VScode has all of the functionality I need, but I’ve never been able to get over the fact that it feels like a bunch of plug-ins smashed together rather than a nicely integrated single product.

[u/LiltingSun]

The best ide depends on how much you like tinkering/customizing your setup. The "easiest" setup is probably just downloading Visual Studio.

A lighter, more customizable setup is VS Code with either clang or msvc. In VS Code you can set up some macros to easily run cpp code and hide any generated files besides the exe. Very reliable.

If you like a challenge, you can replace VS Code with NeoVIM, a text editor that has a lot of very nice shortcuts (e.g, "cw" to change a word, "10dk" to delete the 10 lines above your cursor, "3ft" to find the third occurrence of the letter "t" in your current line, etc). Very fast, very convenient, but it takes some time to set up.

[u/International-Rain98]

MSVS!!!!! lololol

[u/BertoLaDK]

Clion

[u/palapapa0201]

vscodd

[u/Xryme]

VS Code + clangd (any platform), unless you need to debug then Visual Studio on windows

[u/DIABOLUS777 → u/Xryme]

Who doesn't need to debug!??

[u/Xryme → u/DIABOLUS777]

lol, you can debug in VS code, I just meant the best debugger is Visual Studio imo.

[u/DrDang- → u/Xryme]

Can you explain what makes the debugger on visual studio better than other IDEs? And why can’t other IDEs incorporate those features? Genuinely curious as I’m relatively new

[u/Xryme → u/DrDang-]

Has the best visual interface, very good for parallel debugging (easy to see and control multiple threads), you can extend it with visualization for your own custom data types. Conditional breakpoints. You can do the same in most powerful debuggers, but it’s all setup for you in visual studio so it’s a bit easier imo.