{"slug": "visual-studio-code", "name": "Visual Studio Code", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "Free, extensible source-code editor from Microsoft, built on Electron.", "recommenders": 68, "commenters": 236, "warners": 41, "score": 56.692, "rising": 10.6, "first": "2025-11-04", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "Commenters like it for remote development over SSH and WSL, for running lighter than JetBrains IDEs, and for its built-in AI agent and change-review features.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 69, "neutral": 124, "compare": 15, "warn": 42}, "spark": [7, 5, 10, 2, 1, 0, 2, 9, 7, 9, 9, 8], "listed": true, "loved": ["Remote development", "AI integration"], "caveat": "Resource use", "short_quote": "I switched to VS Code when I discovered that, as VS Code\u2019s syntax highlighting and text editing features are much better than p4merge\u2019s.", "icon": true, "domain": "visualstudio.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://code.visualstudio.com/", "pricing": "free", "aliases": ["VS Code", "VSCode", "Visual Studio Code"], "verdict": [{"text": "Commenters like it for remote development over SSH and WSL,", "cites": [{"id": 802459633, "item_id": 50153727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50153727", "by": "nater5000", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSCode's remote features became good enough that I didn't really need vim anymore", "excerpt": "I agree. I remember \"getting into\" vim back in ~2018 because I was doing enough work on headless machines that having a \"proper\" text editing experience became a must. It was only through this process did I learn about tmux and what it offered. At some point, VSCode's remote features became good enough that I didn't really need vim anymore (granted, it's still my go-to when needed), but I still use tmux constantly. A", "context": "", "use_case": "remote editing", "switched_from": "vim", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 797223360, "item_id": 49826460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826460", "by": "eddythompson80", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Vscode remoting lets you use the local machine for the editor UX, and the remote machine resources for LSPs, debuggers, build, etc.", "excerpt": "Nothing is stopping you from doing that still. Personally, I hate the latency in VNC/RDP not to mention the laggy UX, reduced colors, and the overall degradation in the experience. The nice thing about vscode remoting design is that it\u2019s not that. Even on a high-ish latency ssh connection, the editor buffers are local and the editor UX as a whole is local on your machine so things are still relatively smooth despite ", "context": "uses an under-powered laptop with a beefy desktop", "use_case": "remote development", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}, {"id": 790464432, "item_id": 49404027, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404027", "by": "okanat", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSCode SSH extension is one of the most widely developer-used proof against this.", "excerpt": "No. When the communication side is actually done thoughtfully, GUIs deliver superior experiences even in remote environments. VSCode SSH extension is one of the most widely developer-used proof against this. Windows' RDP is the other one where many engineers and POS personnel have experince using them. Many electrical and mechanical engineers still use Windows RDP at my work to run simulations. The connection is resp", "context": "", "use_case": "remote development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 777415568, "item_id": 48588473, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588473", "by": "musebox35", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The client/server split of vscode felt superior over the ssh connection", "excerpt": "I also have been using emacs for almost anything for the past 20 years. I had to switch to VSCode for coding over a remote ssh connection to cloud VMs. The client/server split of vscode felt superior over the ssh connection and the emacs alternatives was not up to the same level of performance two years ago. Do you know any progress on that front? I would love to go back to emacs as my daily driver but I am sensitive", "context": "emacs user for 20 years", "use_case": "remote coding over SSH", "switched_from": "Emacs", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 800542433, "item_id": 50033902, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50033902", "by": "Mabusto", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I loved just having VS Code connect to it", "excerpt": "I moved to Linux 8 months ago because of how crappy windows 11 has become. One of the things I loved about windows was developing on it, WSL2 was great and I loved just having VS Code connect to it and it\u2019s my own little dev box. I\u2019ve really enjoyed the switch so far, having attempted it a few times in the past and ended up going back to windows (once in 2003, another in 2012). It\u2019s encouraging to see MS continue to ", "context": "", "use_case": "remote development in WSL", "switched_from": "", "story": "WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload"}]}, {"text": " for running lighter than JetBrains IDEs,", "cites": [{"id": 800472145, "item_id": 50029509, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50029509", "by": "yogthos", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I ended up switching to using VSCode because it just runs a lot better and uses less memory.", "excerpt": "I have yet to have a good experience with any JVM based app on the desktop with or without Clojure. Take a look at something like in IntelliJ as an example. It doesn't have a Clojure runtime, and it takes forever to start using gigs of memory. Like you said, it makes Electron apps look lean. I ended up switching to using VSCode because it just runs a lot better and uses less memory. And when it comes to Clojure speci", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "IntelliJ", "story": "Clojure in the age of language models"}, {"id": 799698944, "item_id": 49981184, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49981184", "by": "akkad33", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to vscode because the complexity and runtime overhead of intellij were no longer justified with Claude writing most of the code.", "excerpt": "I switched to vscode because the complexity and runtime overhead of intellij were no longer justified with Claude writing most of the code. I work on a big java code base and every two days I had to wrangle with intellij cache, clearing it or what not. With Claude I'm working in multiple work trees at the same time and this just amplifies every issue intellij had with slow indexing and broken caches. And TBH nowadays", "context": "works on a big Java code base", "use_case": "editing Java code with Claude", "switched_from": "IntelliJ IDEA", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799654976, "item_id": 49978436, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49978436", "by": "joshkel", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Meanwhile, VS Code just kept getting better, addressing the complaints I had with it while staying fast.", "excerpt": "I love JetBrains. For many years I was a happy subscriber to the All Products Pack, paid for out of my own pocket. I would have said that you'd have to pry my JetBrains from my cold, dead hands. A year or two ago, I finally gave up: 1. The IDE was simply too slow - notably slower and \"heavier\" than VS Code in particular - and it seemed to regularly get slower. 2. Bugs - from the complex (TypeScript constructs that ts", "context": "works almost exclusively in TypeScript, former JetBrains All Products Pack subscriber", "use_case": "TypeScript development", "switched_from": "WebStorm", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 784304978, "item_id": 49019061, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019061", "by": "affenape", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VS Code gives me pretty much everything I need for my daily work without demanding too much from my system", "excerpt": "I've tried using RustRover over WSL2 multiple times with every new release, but it's been a huge disappointment every time. My fans constantly spin like crazy, memory vanishes into thin air, and typing is super laggy - it even overwrites random sections of the file sometimes. On top of that, the built-in terminal is totally unusable because it craps out and freezes the app whenever there's a large output. PyCharm, on", "context": "", "use_case": "daily development", "switched_from": "PyCharm", "story": "Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot"}]}, {"text": " and for its built-in AI agent and change-review features.", "cites": [{"id": 798929088, "item_id": 49933068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933068", "by": "nchmy", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Vscode copilot chat because in the before-times I was perfectly happy with vscode.", "excerpt": "im with you. I have tried all the TUIs and immediately bounce off of them due to how utterly awful even just basic operations like text editing are. I use Vscode copilot chat because in the before-times I was perfectly happy with vscode. I cannot comprehend how people can now give all of that up for TUIs. It also has its Agents Window, Copilot CLI etc... and you can use any api keys, subscriptions etc... that you wan", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-assisted coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pi 1.0"}, {"id": 791854752, "item_id": 49490922, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49490922", "by": "ddxv", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love VSCode built in LLM harness.", "excerpt": "I love VSCode built in LLM harness. No extensions, use any model you want, amazing UX for reviews, control of agents. The sandboxing also seems great, I never see models touching anything they shouldn't.", "context": "", "use_case": "AI coding with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX"}, {"id": 775528033, "item_id": 48470502, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48470502", "by": "ddxv", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "nowhere near as good for reviewing changes as the VSCode AI features", "excerpt": "Yes! I am considering cancelling Copilot so was testing OpenCode. I first tried the OpenCode extension and was super disapointed it was just the CLI which I use, but it is nowhere near as good for reviewing changes as the VSCode AI features (ie jumping between files, reading the LLM thought process -> line of code changed etc). When I realized I could just stick my opencode models in and fully turn off copilot it was", "context": "", "use_case": "reviewing AI changes", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Don't Need a GitHub Copilot Subscription to Use VS Code AI Features"}, {"id": 794445042, "item_id": 49652815, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652815", "by": "princevegeta89", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm back to VsCode plus Copilot Pro.", "excerpt": "I used Windsurf for quite long and they're basically dead for now after they became Devin. Everything feels dull and they're always several features behind while Cursor is just killing it every other week. I'm back to VsCode plus Copilot Pro.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "Windsurf", "story": "Cognition launches new SWE-2 model, Rivaling Fable 5.1 and GPT-Astra"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is heavy RAM and battery use from its Electron base,", "cites": [{"id": 786175090, "item_id": 49135943, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135943", "by": "leonvoss", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM", "excerpt": "I don't think it offers any. I got tired of switching between Codex and Claude plus I wanted to start using glm and kimi so I switch to pi. Then I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM so I moved to Neovim which has barely any efficiency downside anymore since most code is not written by hand and if you know how to use it well it was only maybe 10% less efficient than VSCode to begin with. I am not sure why a", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor removed cost information from the usage page and CSV export"}, {"id": 797707105, "item_id": 49856694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856694", "by": "tyfighter", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful", "excerpt": "I use it daily as well. I know enough vim to get around, but not quickly. I never learned emacs. The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful, and Sublime did everything I needed otherwise. Except...I still love full Visual Studio for debugging, and perusing large code bases with Intellisense.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I am the only one who still uses sublime text daily?"}, {"id": 775936321, "item_id": 48496020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496020", "by": "bison_fan", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a bloated, sluggish text editor like VSCode and IntelliJ", "excerpt": "Like others, I really like Zed as a text editor. I was a Sublime user before but I switched to Zed because it was even faster and cleaner than Sublime. The multi-buffer editing is a nice step up of multi-cursor editing. I just want a fast text editor with a few conveniences for development. I don't care about any of the collaboration or AI tools that they are working on and I hope that these efforts don't detract fro", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software Is Made Between Commits"}, {"id": 779305809, "item_id": 48706613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706613", "by": "Ronsenshi", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "This is the reason why I switched from VSCode to nvim", "excerpt": "You're not alone. This is the reason why I switched from VSCode to nvim (AstroNvim to be specific). It has all the things I need with the ability to add any extra plugins necessary while using less resources. I can't tell how much less resources it uses - haven't really tested that. To be fair to VSCode often times biggest resource hog is various language servers.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I feel like VSCode is falling apart"}, {"id": 804115344, "item_id": 50257209, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257209", "by": "netsharc", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "you can now show webpages on your text editor which is built on top of a web browser rendering engine", "excerpt": "I love the future, you can now show webpages on your text editor which is built on top of a web browser rendering engine...", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turning VS Code into a control panel with custom extensions"}]}, {"text": " and some dislike its push of Copilot and other AI features.", "cites": [{"id": 790285168, "item_id": 49392823, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49392823", "by": "solid_fuel", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "annoyed by VS Code injecting copilot and other \"helpers\"", "excerpt": "> Even if they're producing code by hand, surely they have LLM helpers by now. Nah. Most of my coworkers got so annoyed by VS Code injecting copilot and other \"helpers\" that they have switched to Kate or Vim. There are still a lot of places that value engineering excellence, and plenty of people who value doing the actual work and knowing that it is correct, instead of delegating to an LLM and hoping.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bun 1.4"}, {"id": 779099648, "item_id": 48693728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48693728", "by": "al_borland", "date": "2026-06-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I\u2019m annoyed by the seemingly daily messages to update VS Code.", "excerpt": "If nothing else, I\u2019m annoyed by the seemingly daily messages to update VS Code. It seems all it ever has is more updates for AI, likely written by AI. I\u2019m effectively forced to use VS Code, because of work. If it wasn\u2019t for this situation I would I would have already moved away from it, or never started using it in the first place.", "context": "forced to use it at work", "use_case": "code editing at work", "switched_from": "", "story": "I feel like VSCode is falling apart"}, {"id": 778511024, "item_id": 48656939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48656939", "by": "bel8", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Controversial default to say the least.", "excerpt": "I think that's one of the reasons why VSCode adds AI as coauthor by default on commits when GitHub Copilot was used. To try to tag AI commits in an attempt to help filter that out in model training. Controversial default to say the least. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/310226", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Is Becoming a Giant AI Code Dump"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Remote development", "summary": "The SSH, WSL and remote features keep the editor UI local while using remote machine resources.", "quotes": [{"id": 797223360, "item_id": 49826460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826460", "by": "eddythompson80", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Vscode remoting lets you use the local machine for the editor UX, and the remote machine resources for LSPs, debuggers, build, etc.", "excerpt": "Nothing is stopping you from doing that still. Personally, I hate the latency in VNC/RDP not to mention the laggy UX, reduced colors, and the overall degradation in the experience. The nice thing about vscode remoting design is that it\u2019s not that. Even on a high-ish latency ssh connection, the editor buffers are local and the editor UX as a whole is local on your machine so things are still relatively smooth despite ", "context": "uses an under-powered laptop with a beefy desktop", "use_case": "remote development", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}, {"id": 777415568, "item_id": 48588473, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588473", "by": "musebox35", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The client/server split of vscode felt superior over the ssh connection", "excerpt": "I also have been using emacs for almost anything for the past 20 years. I had to switch to VSCode for coding over a remote ssh connection to cloud VMs. The client/server split of vscode felt superior over the ssh connection and the emacs alternatives was not up to the same level of performance two years ago. Do you know any progress on that front? I would love to go back to emacs as my daily driver but I am sensitive", "context": "emacs user for 20 years", "use_case": "remote coding over SSH", "switched_from": "Emacs", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 784541872, "item_id": 49033867, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49033867", "by": "fxwin", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Basically every issue they seem to have is solved by using VSCode + Remote development", "excerpt": "OP is not ready for corporate environments if \"VPN + ssh + 2FA\" already \"feels like too much\" lol I also wonder how they didn't come across X Forwarding at all? When i used a remote machine for my thesis that was one of the first things i set up, just so i could do small experiments on GPU and look at results more easily. Basically every issue they seem to have is solved by using VSCode + Remote development (Transfer", "context": "", "use_case": "remote development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Computational chemistry, Locally? My rant on SSH"}]}, {"label": "AI integration", "summary": "Copilot chat, agent mode and the built-in LLM harness are liked, including for reviewing model changes and using any model.", "quotes": [{"id": 791854752, "item_id": 49490922, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49490922", "by": "ddxv", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love VSCode built in LLM harness.", "excerpt": "I love VSCode built in LLM harness. No extensions, use any model you want, amazing UX for reviews, control of agents. The sandboxing also seems great, I never see models touching anything they shouldn't.", "context": "", "use_case": "AI coding with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX"}, {"id": 775528033, "item_id": 48470502, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48470502", "by": "ddxv", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "nowhere near as good for reviewing changes as the VSCode AI features", "excerpt": "Yes! I am considering cancelling Copilot so was testing OpenCode. I first tried the OpenCode extension and was super disapointed it was just the CLI which I use, but it is nowhere near as good for reviewing changes as the VSCode AI features (ie jumping between files, reading the LLM thought process -> line of code changed etc). When I realized I could just stick my opencode models in and fully turn off copilot it was", "context": "", "use_case": "reviewing AI changes", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Don't Need a GitHub Copilot Subscription to Use VS Code AI Features"}, {"id": 798929088, "item_id": 49933068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933068", "by": "nchmy", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Vscode copilot chat because in the before-times I was perfectly happy with vscode.", "excerpt": "im with you. I have tried all the TUIs and immediately bounce off of them due to how utterly awful even just basic operations like text editing are. I use Vscode copilot chat because in the before-times I was perfectly happy with vscode. I cannot comprehend how people can now give all of that up for TUIs. It also has its Agents Window, Copilot CLI etc... and you can use any api keys, subscriptions etc... that you wan", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-assisted coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pi 1.0"}]}, {"label": "Lighter than JetBrains", "summary": "Users moved from IntelliJ, WebStorm and other JetBrains IDEs because VS Code runs faster and uses less memory.", "quotes": [{"id": 800472145, "item_id": 50029509, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50029509", "by": "yogthos", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I ended up switching to using VSCode because it just runs a lot better and uses less memory.", "excerpt": "I have yet to have a good experience with any JVM based app on the desktop with or without Clojure. Take a look at something like in IntelliJ as an example. It doesn't have a Clojure runtime, and it takes forever to start using gigs of memory. Like you said, it makes Electron apps look lean. I ended up switching to using VSCode because it just runs a lot better and uses less memory. And when it comes to Clojure speci", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "IntelliJ", "story": "Clojure in the age of language models"}, {"id": 799654976, "item_id": 49978436, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49978436", "by": "joshkel", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Meanwhile, VS Code just kept getting better, addressing the complaints I had with it while staying fast.", "excerpt": "I love JetBrains. For many years I was a happy subscriber to the All Products Pack, paid for out of my own pocket. I would have said that you'd have to pry my JetBrains from my cold, dead hands. A year or two ago, I finally gave up: 1. The IDE was simply too slow - notably slower and \"heavier\" than VS Code in particular - and it seemed to regularly get slower. 2. Bugs - from the complex (TypeScript constructs that ts", "context": "works almost exclusively in TypeScript, former JetBrains All Products Pack subscriber", "use_case": "TypeScript development", "switched_from": "WebStorm", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 784304978, "item_id": 49019061, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019061", "by": "affenape", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VS Code gives me pretty much everything I need for my daily work without demanding too much from my system", "excerpt": "I've tried using RustRover over WSL2 multiple times with every new release, but it's been a huge disappointment every time. My fans constantly spin like crazy, memory vanishes into thin air, and typing is super laggy - it even overwrites random sections of the file sometimes. On top of that, the built-in terminal is totally unusable because it craps out and freezes the app whenever there's a large output. PyCharm, on", "context": "", "use_case": "daily development", "switched_from": "PyCharm", "story": "Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot"}]}, {"label": "Good defaults", "summary": "It works well out of the box with a built-in terminal and simpler Vim-style bindings, needing little customization.", "quotes": [{"id": 775451936, "item_id": 48465746, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48465746", "by": "GabeIsko", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSCode is pretty good out of the box, with terminal access and everything built in.", "excerpt": "What is a real text editor, by your estimation? NVim? Emacs? Genuinely curious. I use VSCode/Codium since I maintain a GUI stack for general usage. But I have all the terminal tools installed for my work there as well. I hate customizing things too, which I find is necessary if you want to get the most out of terminal text editors. VSCode is pretty good out of the box, with terminal access and everything built in. Je", "context": "maintains a GUI stack for general usage", "use_case": "general coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers"}, {"id": 792057712, "item_id": 49503607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49503607", "by": "dmix", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I prefer MacOS+VSCode these days, which comes with good defaults and simpler VIM-style bindings.", "excerpt": "> No need to use a whole distribution with 1000 other poor decisions made for you. I used Vim for a decade (and Linux for much of that time) and the constant tweaking and changing things drives you mad after a while. The more you invent it yourself the more it changes. This is why I prefer MacOS+VSCode these days, which comes with good defaults and simpler VIM-style bindings. Omarchy sounds like those popular vim con", "context": "used Vim for a decade", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root"}, {"id": 792517506, "item_id": 49532344, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532344", "by": "vintermann", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I defected to that. Yes yes, electron, Microsoft, I know... but it's just so damn convenient.", "excerpt": "I still miss NEdit. Around 2001 when I started getting into Linux seriously, I was also reading a lot about cults - Scientology had recently, infamously, forced Slashdot to take down a comment about their secret practices. One of the things I read was that a common cult trick was to demand that people re-learn basic skills so that they do them the \"right\" way, like reading (Scientology did that), eating (chew X times", "context": "", "use_case": "editor / IDE", "switched_from": "jEdit", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}]}, {"label": "Extensions", "summary": "Its rich plugin ecosystem covers users' needs, and extensions are missing from VSCodium's registry.", "quotes": [{"id": 792556321, "item_id": 49534770, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534770", "by": "jillesvangurp", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "These days I use VS Code which is more than fine for my needs", "excerpt": "Can't say I miss nedit. But it was alright for the mid nineties when I used it on university workstations (a mix of Sun, HP, and SGI hardware). I also got into Jedit for a while. Nice editor and the plugin system it had was pretty advanced for the time. This before we had the option of using something like javascript to do the same kinds of things (like vs code and other editors now do). Java had the ability to dynam", "context": "", "use_case": "programming", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}, {"id": 797251281, "item_id": 49828205, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828205", "by": "qweqwe14", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just disable telemetry in VSCode and you're good.", "excerpt": "I used VSCodium before and found it to be a massive waste of time for no benefit. A significant number of extensions either aren't in OpenVSIX (or whatever it's called), or don't work for some reason. Just disable telemetry in VSCode and you're good. Happy Ungoogled Chromium user though", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "VSCodium", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}]}, {"label": "Handy features", "summary": "Commenters single out the command palette, version control tree view, tab handling and Go auto-imports.", "quotes": [{"id": 791853712, "item_id": 49490857, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49490857", "by": "cbenz", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "command-driven (e.g. command palette of VSCode)", "excerpt": "Keyboard driven, and a lot more! I love the following patterns for GUIs: - command-driven (e.g. command palette of VSCode) - keyboard shortcuts call commands, are customisable - scriptable: ability to call those commands from the outside, controlling the running app, for example with CLI calling D-Bus (or socket), and not necessarily having macros from inside the GUI - reorganisable: the different GUI elements like p", "context": "", "use_case": "command palette pattern", "switched_from": "", "story": "GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven"}, {"id": 793133650, "item_id": 49570853, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49570853", "by": "y1n0", "date": "2026-09-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSCode's version control interface is reasonably close to a standard, and I love the tree view there.", "excerpt": "CLI is preferred from my point of view if only because it's the supported standard interface. VSCode's version control interface is reasonably close to a standard, and I love the tree view there. But generally I don't want to use random third party things because they either aren't consistent (i.e. now I have to learn what joe schmoe thinks a version control interface should be), or don't stick around long enough. Bu", "context": "", "use_case": "version control UI", "switched_from": "", "story": "The creator of Jujutsu has joined ERSC"}, {"id": 789857936, "item_id": 49366121, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49366121", "by": "Hasz", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the import system auto-adding stuff inside of vscode when I need it. just slick.", "excerpt": "I have recently been spending time learning go, really really liking the language, awesome standard lib, excellent tooling and great experience. It sounds like the dumbest thing in the world, but I love the import system auto-adding stuff inside of vscode when I need it. just slick.", "context": "learning Go", "use_case": "Go development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Go 1.27 Is Released"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Resource use", "summary": "Some find the Electron-based editor bloated and hungry for RAM and battery, and switched to Neovim, Zed or Emacs.", "quotes": [{"id": 786175090, "item_id": 49135943, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135943", "by": "leonvoss", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM", "excerpt": "I don't think it offers any. I got tired of switching between Codex and Claude plus I wanted to start using glm and kimi so I switch to pi. Then I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM so I moved to Neovim which has barely any efficiency downside anymore since most code is not written by hand and if you know how to use it well it was only maybe 10% less efficient than VSCode to begin with. I am not sure why a", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor removed cost information from the usage page and CSV export"}, {"id": 775936321, "item_id": 48496020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496020", "by": "bison_fan", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a bloated, sluggish text editor like VSCode and IntelliJ", "excerpt": "Like others, I really like Zed as a text editor. I was a Sublime user before but I switched to Zed because it was even faster and cleaner than Sublime. The multi-buffer editing is a nice step up of multi-cursor editing. I just want a fast text editor with a few conveniences for development. I don't care about any of the collaboration or AI tools that they are working on and I hope that these efforts don't detract fro", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software Is Made Between Commits"}, {"id": 779305809, "item_id": 48706613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706613", "by": "Ronsenshi", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "This is the reason why I switched from VSCode to nvim", "excerpt": "You're not alone. This is the reason why I switched from VSCode to nvim (AstroNvim to be specific). It has all the things I need with the ability to add any extra plugins necessary while using less resources. I can't tell how much less resources it uses - haven't really tested that. To be fair to VSCode often times biggest resource hog is various language servers.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I feel like VSCode is falling apart"}]}, {"label": "AI push", "summary": "Copilot injection, frequent AI-focused updates and AI co-author tagging on commits by default annoy some users.", "quotes": [{"id": 790285168, "item_id": 49392823, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49392823", "by": "solid_fuel", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "annoyed by VS Code injecting copilot and other \"helpers\"", "excerpt": "> Even if they're producing code by hand, surely they have LLM helpers by now. Nah. Most of my coworkers got so annoyed by VS Code injecting copilot and other \"helpers\" that they have switched to Kate or Vim. There are still a lot of places that value engineering excellence, and plenty of people who value doing the actual work and knowing that it is correct, instead of delegating to an LLM and hoping.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bun 1.4"}, {"id": 779099648, "item_id": 48693728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48693728", "by": "al_borland", "date": "2026-06-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I\u2019m annoyed by the seemingly daily messages to update VS Code.", "excerpt": "If nothing else, I\u2019m annoyed by the seemingly daily messages to update VS Code. It seems all it ever has is more updates for AI, likely written by AI. I\u2019m effectively forced to use VS Code, because of work. If it wasn\u2019t for this situation I would I would have already moved away from it, or never started using it in the first place.", "context": "forced to use it at work", "use_case": "code editing at work", "switched_from": "", "story": "I feel like VSCode is falling apart"}, {"id": 778511024, "item_id": 48656939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48656939", "by": "bel8", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Controversial default to say the least.", "excerpt": "I think that's one of the reasons why VSCode adds AI as coauthor by default on commits when GitHub Copilot was used. To try to tag AI commits in an attempt to help filter that out in model training. Controversial default to say the least. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/310226", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Is Becoming a Giant AI Code Dump"}]}, {"label": "Code navigation", "summary": "Some say navigation and refactoring trail IntelliJ, especially for Go, and that it is file-focused rather than project-focused.", "quotes": [{"id": 784315745, "item_id": 49019734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019734", "by": "laszlojamf", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "VSCode, especially for golang, is terrible.", "excerpt": "I agree that IntelliJ is a monster of a resource hog, but I have yet to find an editor where code navigation is as good. That's basically all I use it for these days, in the days of LLMs, and I still think it's worth it. VSCode, especially for golang, is terrible. I might be holding it wrong, but I've really tried, and it's just not good enough. Before LLMs, when I still refactored by hand, coworkers who were using v", "context": "", "use_case": "Go development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot"}, {"id": 794662176, "item_id": 49666386, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666386", "by": "hn_submit", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I hate VS Code (even though I use it regularly on Linux Mint) because it's basically \"File Focused\" not \"Project Focused\"", "excerpt": "I hate VS Code (even though I use it regularly on Linux Mint) because it's basically \"File Focused\" not \"Project Focused\" or \"Solution Focused.\" Yeah, I know that it can read Visual Studio Projects and Solutions but these are kludges. It's essentially a souped-up file editor.", "context": "Linux Mint user", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft"}]}, {"label": "Neglected issues", "summary": "Some report long-ignored usability issues and crashes during file search on large codebases.", "quotes": [{"id": 801875120, "item_id": 50117195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50117195", "by": "potamic", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a usability requirement so basic can be left neglected for years altogether", "excerpt": "It's perhaps a good time to bring attention to this open issue [1] on vscode from 2015 with thousands of upvotes, hundreds of comments pleading, the collective hive mind losing their minds over how a usability requirement so basic can be left neglected for years altogether even as so many other not so requested features seem to have no problem getting piled on. While this issue has been a personal pain point, I do re", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Modernizing the VS Code UI"}, {"id": 792513985, "item_id": 49532124, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532124", "by": "jotato", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Vscode on my m2 Mac routinely crashed when doing file search.", "excerpt": "I\u2019m trying to phrase this to not be \u201cthat guy\u201d but have you used Code on large code bases? Vscode on my m2 Mac routinely crashed when doing file search. That is why I switched to zed. I do miss the configurablity though", "context": "", "use_case": "large codebases", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor"}]}, {"label": "Code review", "summary": "Some find reviewing AI-generated code in VS Code increasingly annoying.", "quotes": [{"id": 781720481, "item_id": 48857530, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48857530", "by": "othmanosx", "date": "2026-07-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "reviewing code in VSCode is starting to get annoying", "excerpt": "Oh man I was looking for something like this for a while, reviewing code in VSCode is starting to get annoying and I began to think that VSCode is no longer suitable for development in the AI era, but I already built my own solution that addresses the two problems I had with reviewing code: - A better alternative to reviewng a PR on github. - A way for me to do a local review for my code is if was a PR, before actual", "context": "", "use_case": "code review", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: R3 \u2013 A Local Code Review Tool for You and Your AI Agent"}, {"id": 781499185, "item_id": 48843699, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48843699", "by": "othmanosx", "date": "2026-07-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "reviewing code in VSCode is starting to get annoying", "excerpt": "Oh man I was looking for something like this for a while, reviewing code in VSCode is starting to get annoying and I began to think that VSCode is no longer suitable for development in the AI era, but I already built my own solution that addresses the two problems I had with reviewing code: - A better alternative to reviewng a PR on github. - A way for me to do a local review for my code is if was a PR, before actual", "context": "", "use_case": "code review", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local codereview tool for handing structured review to agent"}]}, {"label": "Trust", "summary": "Some distrust Microsoft's editor; one commenter disables telemetry before using it.", "quotes": [{"id": 798837360, "item_id": 49927335, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49927335", "by": "matltc", "date": "2026-10-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I increasingly treat any closed-source software (and even some open-source--vscode for instance) as hostile and untrusted.", "excerpt": "I feel seen. I used to think rms was just a crank, but maybe he was right all along: I increasingly treat any closed-source software (and even some open-source--vscode for instance) as hostile and untrusted.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automatic Transmission \u2013 a data-privacy study of connected vehicles"}, {"id": 797251281, "item_id": 49828205, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828205", "by": "qweqwe14", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just disable telemetry in VSCode and you're good.", "excerpt": "I used VSCodium before and found it to be a massive waste of time for no benefit. A significant number of extensions either aren't in OpenVSIX (or whatever it's called), or don't work for some reason. Just disable telemetry in VSCode and you're good. Happy Ungoogled Chromium user though", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "VSCodium", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}]}], "who": [{"by": "hgoel", "context": "developer using frontier AI", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50211451", "date": "2026-10-23"}, {"by": "akkad33", "context": "works on a big Java code base", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49981184", "date": "2026-10-06"}, {"by": "joshkel", "context": "works almost exclusively in TypeScript, former JetBrains All Products Pack subscriber", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49978436", "date": "2026-10-06"}, {"by": "havblue", "context": "engineering team onboarding contractors", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49977691", "date": "2026-10-06"}, {"by": "eddythompson80", "context": "uses an under-powered laptop with a beefy desktop", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826460", "date": "2026-09-24"}, {"by": "BatteryMountain", "context": "Linux terminal-centric developer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49783797", "date": "2026-09-21"}, {"by": "littlecranky67", "context": ".NET developer on Mac", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49736971", "date": "2026-09-17"}, {"by": "dmix", "context": "used Vim for a decade", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49503607", "date": "2026-08-30"}, {"by": "renox", "context": "C++ developer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49461274", "date": "2026-08-27"}, {"by": "Hasz", "context": "learning Go", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49366121", "date": "2026-08-19"}, {"by": "lowbloodsugar", "context": "works with AI rather than vibe coding", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147569", "date": "2026-08-02"}, {"by": "BeetleB", "context": "senior team member", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48863334", "date": "2026-07-10"}], "tags": ["for remote SSH development", "for AI agent workflows", "for JetBrains switchers", "for C#/.NET on Mac", "for Markdown notes"], "use_cases": ["code editing", "code editor", "editor", "remote development", "ide", "coding"], "compared": [{"slug": "zed", "name": "Zed", "co": 63, "switched_from": 4, "switched_to": 18}, {"slug": "neovim", "name": "Neovim", "co": 27, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 6}, {"slug": "vim", "name": "Vim", "co": 26, "switched_from": 4, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "emacs", "name": "Emacs", "co": 30, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 34, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "cursor", "name": "Cursor", "co": 27, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "sublime-text", "name": "Sublime Text", "co": 21, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "codex", "name": "Codex", "co": 22, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 753618848, "item_id": 47101178, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47101178", "by": "Gehinnn", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use VS Code in a beefy Codespace, with GitHub Copilot (Opus 4.5).", "excerpt": "Here is a session that I just had with AI: https://gist.github.com/hediet/e3569a7c6b4b7c4f7d4a7db4101047de (summarized by AI). And here are some examples of the different philosophies of AI proofs and human proofs: https://gist.github.com/hediet/e3569a7c6b4b7c4f7d4a7db4101047de#file-2_human_vs_ai-lean I use VS Code in a beefy Codespace, with GitHub Copilot (Opus 4.5). I have a single instruction file telling the AI t", "context": "works on VS Code", "use_case": "Lean proof development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lean 4: How the theorem prover works and why it's the new competitive edge in AI"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48413629", "title": "Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026)", "mentions": 9}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46498735", "title": "I switched from VSCode to Zed", "mentions": 8}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47949027", "title": "Zed is 1.0", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49977072", "title": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49822555", "title": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49524863", "title": "Fine, I'll build my own text editor", "mentions": 4}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 7, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 8, "recommend": 5, "warn": 6}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 13, "warn": 4, "recommend": 10, "compare": 3}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 3, "warn": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 8, "warn": 3, "compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 13, "warn": 5, "compare": 2}, "2026-05": {"warn": 3, "neutral": 4, "recommend": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 23, "recommend": 9, "warn": 6}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 16, "recommend": 7, "warn": 3, "compare": 1}, "2026-08": {"warn": 3, "recommend": 9, "neutral": 4, "compare": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 12, "warn": 3, "recommend": 9}, "2026-10": {"warn": 3, "neutral": 13, "recommend": 8, "compare": 4}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804741010, "item_id": 50296313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296313", "by": "wilkystyle", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "While I'm not a big fan of VSCode", "excerpt": "I definitely agree with this. Literally the only time I use lisp is when working on my Emacs configuration, but after almost 20 years of using it to write all sorts of functionality from big to small things, just having the exposure to lisp has really helped expand my thinking about programming in ways that working with e.g. C, Python, Rust may not have. One last thing on the Vim emulation front: While I'm not a big ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804713137, "item_id": 50294571, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294571", "by": "Jonovono", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "pretty much the only reason I have VSCode open anymore is to view the diffs of what my agents are working on.", "excerpt": "Call me old fashioned, but I still like to review the code they are changing and sanity check things. And so lately, pretty much the only reason I have VSCode open anymore is to view the diffs of what my agents are working on. I wanted just a simple, lightweight, fast and KEYBOARD powered git diff viewer. Suprisingly there were not many options, so I just kept using VSCode. Eventually, I decided to just build it usin", "context": "", "use_case": "viewing diffs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cross platform Rust app that just shows Git diffs"}, {"id": 804115344, "item_id": 50257209, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257209", "by": "netsharc", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "you can now show webpages on your text editor which is built on top of a web browser rendering engine", "excerpt": "I love the future, you can now show webpages on your text editor which is built on top of a web browser rendering engine...", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Turning VS Code into a control panel with custom extensions"}, {"id": 804038417, "item_id": 50252401, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50252401", "by": "dpark", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I see Word and VS Code.", "excerpt": "In fairness I did not do a full inventory of all the apps I use. I see Word and VS Code. It may be less than I thought if I inventoried every app I regularly use. I see some have gone the \u201cbrowser\u201d direction with tabs folded into the title bar and the menu bar dropped. Windows Terminal, File Explorer, and Notepad are all that style now. Edit: Actually Notepad has the tabs in the titlebar thing but retained the menu b", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11"}, {"id": 804037528, "item_id": 50252345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50252345", "by": "xp84", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Open on my desktop right now: Slack, Outlook, Zoom, Windows Terminal, Edge, Claude, Obsidian, whatever the Windows image viewer is called, Cursor, and VS Code", "excerpt": "> I use lots Oh really? I, sadly, use nearly none. Open on my desktop right now: Slack, Outlook, Zoom, Windows Terminal, Edge, Claude, Obsidian, whatever the Windows image viewer is called, Cursor, and VS Code. Only the last 2 have menu bars. And I can\u2019t be certain that I didn\u2019t dig through the preferences of one or both of them when I first installed them to tell them to knock off the bullshit and give me back the m", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11"}, {"id": 803669394, "item_id": 50229337, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50229337", "by": "apatheticonion", "date": "2026-10-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like their UI, lends itself well to projects and so on.", "excerpt": "Agreed. I started writing a desktop GUI harness in Rust using native desktop GUI APIs. Claude, Codex, Opencode, everything is Electron. With agents and solid engineering fundamentals, I set out to prove that we don't need to take that shortcut any more and we can, in fact, ship high quality/performance applications. It's still early days - but I got something basic working. I've embedded the Goose harness as a back e", "context": "", "use_case": "UI design inspiration", "switched_from": "", "story": "We should be more ambitious with the software we build"}, {"id": 803525378, "item_id": 50220336, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50220336", "by": "Timon3", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I switched to VS Code", "excerpt": "> But, they still have a solid IDE Which one exactly? I used to love Webstorm and Rider, but there were so many workflow-breaking bugs in each new release of Webstorm that I switched to VS Code. I still use Rider, but I've stopped my All Products subscription, because new releases usually decreased the amount of well-working features (and new features often didn't work at all). Around 2022 I'd have agreed 100%, but t", "context": "", "use_case": "web development", "switched_from": "WebStorm", "story": "ThinkRail from JetBrains"}, {"id": 803518689, "item_id": 50219918, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50219918", "by": "faangguyindia", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "after that, VS Code for its extensions", "excerpt": "Never used JetBrains products, but always used vi; after that, VS Code for its extensions. But due to agentic stuff, I moved to zed.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "ThinkRail from JetBrains"}, {"id": 803383216, "item_id": 50211451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50211451", "by": "hgoel", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have to live in vscode to get things done", "excerpt": "I find this very hard to believe, even though I use plenty of frontier AI in my dev process. I have to live in vscode to get things done because I still frequently need to look at the generated code and point out issues to get the AI past some problem it's stuck at.", "context": "developer using frontier AI", "use_case": "reviewing AI-generated code", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?"}, {"id": 803325170, "item_id": 50207823, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50207823", "by": "jimmar", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have Visual Studio Code running next to my browser", "excerpt": "> Most software, once mature, is mostly done. The caveat being that most software never matures. Maybe it's a cynical take, but virtually all software I use regularly is updated at least once a month. Right now, I'm using Chrome, and I see the \"Relaunch to update\" button waiting for me to press it. I see the arrow on the Ollama icon telling me I have to relaunch it to apply updates. I have Visual Studio Code running ", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is this the new cyber normal?"}, {"id": 802470225, "item_id": 50154389, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50154389", "by": "hungryhobbit", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I also use VS Code where I have a few sessions in separate panes on one screen.", "excerpt": "Genuine question: when there's new tech, sometimes it's legitimately useful and hard to appreciate (e.g. Git: it seemed no better than SVN at first, it required new commands to learn, etc.) ... but when you started using it, you soon realized how powerful it was. To me, Tmux seems ... not a whole lot better than a terminal. I use a regular old terminal that lets me rename tabs (and lets Claude rename them automatical", "context": "", "use_case": "multiple Claude sessions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 802459633, "item_id": 50153727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50153727", "by": "nater5000", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSCode's remote features became good enough that I didn't really need vim anymore", "excerpt": "I agree. I remember \"getting into\" vim back in ~2018 because I was doing enough work on headless machines that having a \"proper\" text editing experience became a must. It was only through this process did I learn about tmux and what it offered. At some point, VSCode's remote features became good enough that I didn't really need vim anymore (granted, it's still my go-to when needed), but I still use tmux constantly. A", "context": "", "use_case": "remote editing", "switched_from": "vim", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 801875120, "item_id": 50117195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50117195", "by": "potamic", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a usability requirement so basic can be left neglected for years altogether", "excerpt": "It's perhaps a good time to bring attention to this open issue [1] on vscode from 2015 with thousands of upvotes, hundreds of comments pleading, the collective hive mind losing their minds over how a usability requirement so basic can be left neglected for years altogether even as so many other not so requested features seem to have no problem getting piled on. While this issue has been a personal pain point, I do re", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Modernizing the VS Code UI"}, {"id": 801554737, "item_id": 50097171, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50097171", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I was a Vim user that switched to VS Code (for reasons)", "excerpt": "I was a Vim user that switched to VS Code (for reasons) and now the TUIs are where my Vim personalization efforts have been redirected. Pi is a good harness for vim users to consider if they want to try a TUI experience. The Pi plugin ecosystem is a slopfest though. There are vim bindings for Pi and OC (and VS Code) because I'm never going to give those up.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "Vim", "story": "OpenCode 2.0"}, {"id": 801238561, "item_id": 50077410, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077410", "by": "revolvingthrow", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Why would I use it over vs, say, vs code?", "excerpt": "What\u2019s the benefit of tools like Obsidian vs using whatever code editor you have on hand? Why would I use it over vs, say, vs code?", "context": "", "use_case": "editing markdown notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Opensidian"}, {"id": 800889216, "item_id": 50055576, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50055576", "by": "mark_something", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Debugging worked quite good.", "excerpt": "I used it for a few hobby projects in VSCode. It's not 100% smooth, e.g. I couldn't compile and run my code with a single shortcut. It's supposed to be possible to show graphs in VSCode but I couldn't make that work. Debugging worked quite good. I didn't look for static analysis. But I find programming in any language in VSCode less polished, compared to e.g. programming C++ with Visual Studio, which works out of the", "context": "", "use_case": "Julia hobby projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "Calculus with Julia"}, {"id": 800671395, "item_id": 50041962, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50041962", "by": "RandomGerm4n", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Furthermore for Visual Studio Code it lists only IntelliJ IDEA as an alternative.", "excerpt": "I wish lists like this were curated more carefully. Just because a company is European doesn't automatically make it better. For example, Gigaset is listed as one of the alternatives to the iPhone. They distributed malware to end users via their official update servers and then failed to inform them about it. Something like this should be an absolute no go for a smartphone manufacturer unless it's properly addressed.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "European Alternatives"}, {"id": 800542433, "item_id": 50033902, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50033902", "by": "Mabusto", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I loved just having VS Code connect to it", "excerpt": "I moved to Linux 8 months ago because of how crappy windows 11 has become. One of the things I loved about windows was developing on it, WSL2 was great and I loved just having VS Code connect to it and it\u2019s my own little dev box. I\u2019ve really enjoyed the switch so far, having attempted it a few times in the past and ended up going back to windows (once in 2003, another in 2012). It\u2019s encouraging to see MS continue to ", "context": "", "use_case": "remote development in WSL", "switched_from": "", "story": "WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload"}, {"id": 800472145, "item_id": 50029509, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50029509", "by": "yogthos", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I ended up switching to using VSCode because it just runs a lot better and uses less memory.", "excerpt": "I have yet to have a good experience with any JVM based app on the desktop with or without Clojure. Take a look at something like in IntelliJ as an example. It doesn't have a Clojure runtime, and it takes forever to start using gigs of memory. Like you said, it makes Electron apps look lean. I ended up switching to using VSCode because it just runs a lot better and uses less memory. And when it comes to Clojure speci", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "IntelliJ", "story": "Clojure in the age of language models"}, {"id": 799698944, "item_id": 49981184, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49981184", "by": "akkad33", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to vscode because the complexity and runtime overhead of intellij were no longer justified with Claude writing most of the code.", "excerpt": "I switched to vscode because the complexity and runtime overhead of intellij were no longer justified with Claude writing most of the code. I work on a big java code base and every two days I had to wrangle with intellij cache, clearing it or what not. With Claude I'm working in multiple work trees at the same time and this just amplifies every issue intellij had with slow indexing and broken caches. And TBH nowadays", "context": "works on a big Java code base", "use_case": "editing Java code with Claude", "switched_from": "IntelliJ IDEA", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799663457, "item_id": 49978966, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49978966", "by": "duckiec", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSC is great", "excerpt": "Its pretty sad because JetBrains products are great ive been using them for a while and its even free for students. VSC is great but i feel like JB products are more refined since I code in Go and Python.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799654976, "item_id": 49978436, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49978436", "by": "joshkel", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Meanwhile, VS Code just kept getting better, addressing the complaints I had with it while staying fast.", "excerpt": "I love JetBrains. For many years I was a happy subscriber to the All Products Pack, paid for out of my own pocket. I would have said that you'd have to pry my JetBrains from my cold, dead hands. A year or two ago, I finally gave up: 1. The IDE was simply too slow - notably slower and \"heavier\" than VS Code in particular - and it seemed to regularly get slower. 2. Bugs - from the complex (TypeScript constructs that ts", "context": "works almost exclusively in TypeScript, former JetBrains All Products Pack subscriber", "use_case": "TypeScript development", "switched_from": "WebStorm", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799647137, "item_id": 49977946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49977946", "by": "sporedro", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "VSCode has been eating at their users for years now.", "excerpt": "I love their tools and am keeping my subscription for now, but would have to agree. VSCode has been eating at their users for years now. Jetbrains tools still were much better in my opinion but they are competing with \u201cfree\u201d and \u201cgood enough\u201d. With AI getting better, the main advantages of Jetbrains are gone. I don\u2019t need a massive IDE anymore. I still need an editor, but there\u2019s hundreds of better tools for quick ed", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799643056, "item_id": 49977691, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49977691", "by": "havblue", "date": "2026-10-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we use vs code with these extensions and wsl2", "excerpt": "It isn't as much the price of a license as much as the time it takes to get approval for newer engineers and contractors. You can just say, \"we use vs code with these extensions and wsl2\" and the discussion is over.", "context": "engineering team onboarding contractors", "use_case": "standard team editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025"}, {"id": 799466865, "item_id": 49966679, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49966679", "by": "98codes", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I do still have a Visual Studio / VSCode color settings file", "excerpt": "I graduated quickly from Borland Turbo Basic to Turbo Pascal, and really wish I'd bothered to hold onto all those old floppies. I do still have a Visual Studio / VSCode color settings file that matches the old look -- I used those colors for a good long time, longer than it took me to stop coding in all caps.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Borland Turbo Basic"}, {"id": 798929088, "item_id": 49933068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933068", "by": "nchmy", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Vscode copilot chat because in the before-times I was perfectly happy with vscode.", "excerpt": "im with you. I have tried all the TUIs and immediately bounce off of them due to how utterly awful even just basic operations like text editing are. I use Vscode copilot chat because in the before-times I was perfectly happy with vscode. I cannot comprehend how people can now give all of that up for TUIs. It also has its Agents Window, Copilot CLI etc... and you can use any api keys, subscriptions etc... that you wan", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-assisted coding", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pi 1.0"}, {"id": 798927138, "item_id": 49932946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49932946", "by": "jitl", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "i did start using vscode for $DAYJOB since our devex team supports it (has good vim keybinds at least)", "excerpt": "i love vim and i love vim-tmux-navigator keybinds letting me navigate quickly between panes in my terminal: ctrl-{h,j,k,l} to switch panes. i love that tui agents fit right in among my shells and vims. i love that my setup works just as well on my machine and on any remote machine over ssh or mosh. i\u2019ve been working like this since 2012. although i did start using vscode for $DAYJOB since our devex team supports it (", "context": "", "use_case": "day job editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Pi 1.0"}, {"id": 798837360, "item_id": 49927335, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49927335", "by": "matltc", "date": "2026-10-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I increasingly treat any closed-source software (and even some open-source--vscode for instance) as hostile and untrusted.", "excerpt": "I feel seen. I used to think rms was just a crank, but maybe he was right all along: I increasingly treat any closed-source software (and even some open-source--vscode for instance) as hostile and untrusted.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automatic Transmission \u2013 a data-privacy study of connected vehicles"}, {"id": 798475553, "item_id": 49904722, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904722", "by": "sreekanth850", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We use codex in vscode.", "excerpt": "We use codex in vscode. Use agentic development but, agents only do things that We agree upon. Like We create impact study, proposals, feasibility and then implementation plan with full regresison, test coverage and end to end smoke test. A new fetaure will be given to front end only if it satisfy all our requirement in real API smoke test. It is not fast. but still we think we get 10X productivity gains and clean co", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT 6.1 Sol: Near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price"}, {"id": 797759408, "item_id": 49859963, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859963", "by": "andsoitis", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What if you used something like VSCode if you don't like Xcode?", "excerpt": "What if you used something like VSCode if you don't like Xcode? Or one of the many many others that exist? A quick google yielded this one for example: https://stackedit.io Be resourceful :-)", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Why doesn't Apple provide Xcode 27's markdown editor as a separate app?"}, {"id": 797707105, "item_id": 49856694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856694", "by": "tyfighter", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful", "excerpt": "I use it daily as well. I know enough vim to get around, but not quickly. I never learned emacs. The Javascript/full browser engine editors (VSCode, Atom, et al.) seemed so wasteful, and Sublime did everything I needed otherwise. Except...I still love full Visual Studio for debugging, and perusing large code bases with Intellisense.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I am the only one who still uses sublime text daily?"}, {"id": 797625761, "item_id": 49851610, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49851610", "by": "aymandfire", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I generally find it overwhelming", "excerpt": "oh interesting! I haven\u2019t used vscode for anything meaningful since shortly after leaving GitHub (2023). I generally find it overwhelming but codex added the annotations too and I love it.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plan mode is dead"}, {"id": 797615680, "item_id": 49850980, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49850980", "by": "rstat1", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using this new UI for a while and didn't even notice it was different", "excerpt": "So it turns I've been using this new UI for a while and didn't even notice it was different nor did I even know they were doing this update until I saw this very thread full of people complaining about it.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bug: Border radius has infected VSCode editor"}, {"id": 797559425, "item_id": 49847464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49847464", "by": "dwrodri", "date": "2026-09-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "using Typst in VSCode to create bespoke invites", "excerpt": "As someone who used LaTeX heavily in grad school, using Typst in VSCode to create bespoke invites to an event was quite nice! Would highly recommend giving it a spin.", "context": "", "use_case": "editing Typst", "switched_from": "", "story": "Typst makes big strides"}, {"id": 797251281, "item_id": 49828205, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828205", "by": "qweqwe14", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just disable telemetry in VSCode and you're good.", "excerpt": "I used VSCodium before and found it to be a massive waste of time for no benefit. A significant number of extensions either aren't in OpenVSIX (or whatever it's called), or don't work for some reason. Just disable telemetry in VSCode and you're good. Happy Ungoogled Chromium user though", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "VSCodium", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}, {"id": 797223360, "item_id": 49826460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826460", "by": "eddythompson80", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Vscode remoting lets you use the local machine for the editor UX, and the remote machine resources for LSPs, debuggers, build, etc.", "excerpt": "Nothing is stopping you from doing that still. Personally, I hate the latency in VNC/RDP not to mention the laggy UX, reduced colors, and the overall degradation in the experience. The nice thing about vscode remoting design is that it\u2019s not that. Even on a high-ish latency ssh connection, the editor buffers are local and the editor UX as a whole is local on your machine so things are still relatively smooth despite ", "context": "uses an under-powered laptop with a beefy desktop", "use_case": "remote development", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}, {"id": 797195280, "item_id": 49824705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824705", "by": "dawnerd", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "now I use it as an easier ssh client w/ file editing", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been using it daily since it came out. At first it was because I was tired of docker slowing my Mac down with some really heavy client projects. But now I use it as an easier ssh client w/ file editing. I really don\u2019t like using vim/nano. Keeping everything in the same ide, huge for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "remote SSH development", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}, {"id": 797174417, "item_id": 49823401, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49823401", "by": "halfcat", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "VS Code over SSH is a good step in that direction", "excerpt": "I\u2019m currently experimenting with running: - neovim - in VS Code [1] - in the browser Cloud VM runs the built-in `code serve-web` command, over Tailscale using `tailscale serve`. No SSH. Extensions work. No extensions run locally (with SSH some extensions have to run locally on your machine). I\u2019m trying to see how little I can run on my local machine. VS Code over SSH is a good step in that direction, but there\u2019s more", "context": "", "use_case": "remote development via serve-web", "switched_from": "", "story": "VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)"}, {"id": 796792417, "item_id": 49799526, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799526", "by": "tedggh", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "So I ran out of patience and switched to VS Code", "excerpt": "Rider was my IDE for years until they started pushing their AI tools while not letting you bring your own models. Then it seems they listened to the complaints and for a while I could use Codex but then the next update took it away. So I ran out of patience and switched to VS Code, and that was the end of JB and my dear Rider for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "IDE", "switched_from": "Rider", "story": "JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development"}, {"id": 796664210, "item_id": 49791513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49791513", "by": "blacksmith_tb", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code", "excerpt": "Different horses for different courses? I wouldn't open a 100MB logfile in VS Code, but ST or Zed handle that fine. I use all three, though my ST license was for a version or two back, so I have mostly switched to Zed for those giant-file-don't-need-any-bells-and-whistles tasks.", "context": "", "use_case": "general editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sublime Text Build 4213"}, {"id": 794445042, "item_id": 49652815, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49652815", "by": "princevegeta89", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm back to VsCode plus Copilot Pro.", "excerpt": "I used Windsurf for quite long and they're basically dead for now after they became Devin. Everything feels dull and they're always several features behind while Cursor is just killing it every other week. I'm back to VsCode plus Copilot Pro.", "context": "", "use_case": "coding", "switched_from": "Windsurf", "story": "Cognition launches new SWE-2 model, Rivaling Fable 5.1 and GPT-Astra"}, {"id": 791854752, "item_id": 49490922, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49490922", "by": "ddxv", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love VSCode built in LLM harness.", "excerpt": "I love VSCode built in LLM harness. No extensions, use any model you want, amazing UX for reviews, control of agents. The sandboxing also seems great, I never see models touching anything they shouldn't.", "context": "", "use_case": "AI coding with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX"}, {"id": 790464432, "item_id": 49404027, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404027", "by": "okanat", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VSCode SSH extension is one of the most widely developer-used proof against this.", "excerpt": "No. When the communication side is actually done thoughtfully, GUIs deliver superior experiences even in remote environments. VSCode SSH extension is one of the most widely developer-used proof against this. Windows' RDP is the other one where many engineers and POS personnel have experince using them. Many electrical and mechanical engineers still use Windows RDP at my work to run simulations. The connection is resp", "context": "", "use_case": "remote development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Making TUIs"}, {"id": 790285168, "item_id": 49392823, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49392823", "by": "solid_fuel", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "annoyed by VS Code injecting copilot and other \"helpers\"", "excerpt": "> Even if they're producing code by hand, surely they have LLM helpers by now. Nah. Most of my coworkers got so annoyed by VS Code injecting copilot and other \"helpers\" that they have switched to Kate or Vim. There are still a lot of places that value engineering excellence, and plenty of people who value doing the actual work and knowing that it is correct, instead of delegating to an LLM and hoping.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bun 1.4"}, {"id": 786175090, "item_id": 49135943, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135943", "by": "leonvoss", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM", "excerpt": "I don't think it offers any. I got tired of switching between Codex and Claude plus I wanted to start using glm and kimi so I switch to pi. Then I got tired of VSCode eating up battery and RAM so I moved to Neovim which has barely any efficiency downside anymore since most code is not written by hand and if you know how to use it well it was only maybe 10% less efficient than VSCode to begin with. I am not sure why a", "context": "", "use_case": "code editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cursor removed cost information from the usage page and CSV export"}, {"id": 784304978, "item_id": 49019061, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019061", "by": "affenape", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "VS Code gives me pretty much everything I need for my daily work without demanding too much from my system", "excerpt": "I've tried using RustRover over WSL2 multiple times with every new release, but it's been a huge disappointment every time. My fans constantly spin like crazy, memory vanishes into thin air, and typing is super laggy - it even overwrites random sections of the file sometimes. On top of that, the built-in terminal is totally unusable because it craps out and freezes the app whenever there's a large output. PyCharm, on", "context": "", "use_case": "daily development", "switched_from": "PyCharm", "story": "Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot"}, {"id": 779305809, "item_id": 48706613, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706613", "by": "Ronsenshi", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "This is the reason why I switched from VSCode to nvim", "excerpt": "You're not alone. This is the reason why I switched from VSCode to nvim (AstroNvim to be specific). It has all the things I need with the ability to add any extra plugins necessary while using less resources. I can't tell how much less resources it uses - haven't really tested that. To be fair to VSCode often times biggest resource hog is various language servers.", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "I feel like VSCode is falling apart"}, {"id": 779099648, "item_id": 48693728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48693728", "by": "al_borland", "date": "2026-06-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I\u2019m annoyed by the seemingly daily messages to update VS Code.", "excerpt": "If nothing else, I\u2019m annoyed by the seemingly daily messages to update VS Code. It seems all it ever has is more updates for AI, likely written by AI. I\u2019m effectively forced to use VS Code, because of work. If it wasn\u2019t for this situation I would I would have already moved away from it, or never started using it in the first place.", "context": "forced to use it at work", "use_case": "code editing at work", "switched_from": "", "story": "I feel like VSCode is falling apart"}, {"id": 778511024, "item_id": 48656939, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48656939", "by": "bel8", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Controversial default to say the least.", "excerpt": "I think that's one of the reasons why VSCode adds AI as coauthor by default on commits when GitHub Copilot was used. To try to tag AI commits in an attempt to help filter that out in model training. Controversial default to say the least. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/310226", "context": "", "use_case": "code editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "GitHub Is Becoming a Giant AI Code Dump"}, {"id": 777415568, "item_id": 48588473, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588473", "by": "musebox35", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The client/server split of vscode felt superior over the ssh connection", "excerpt": "I also have been using emacs for almost anything for the past 20 years. I had to switch to VSCode for coding over a remote ssh connection to cloud VMs. The client/server split of vscode felt superior over the ssh connection and the emacs alternatives was not up to the same level of performance two years ago. Do you know any progress on that front? I would love to go back to emacs as my daily driver but I am sensitive", "context": "emacs user for 20 years", "use_case": "remote coding over SSH", "switched_from": "Emacs", "story": "Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving"}, {"id": 775936321, "item_id": 48496020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48496020", "by": "bison_fan", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "a bloated, sluggish text editor like VSCode and IntelliJ", "excerpt": "Like others, I really like Zed as a text editor. I was a Sublime user before but I switched to Zed because it was even faster and cleaner than Sublime. The multi-buffer editing is a nice step up of multi-cursor editing. I just want a fast text editor with a few conveniences for development. I don't care about any of the collaboration or AI tools that they are working on and I hope that these efforts don't detract fro", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software Is Made Between Commits"}, {"id": 775528033, "item_id": 48470502, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48470502", "by": "ddxv", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "nowhere near as good for reviewing changes as the VSCode AI features", "excerpt": "Yes! I am considering cancelling Copilot so was testing OpenCode. I first tried the OpenCode extension and was super disapointed it was just the CLI which I use, but it is nowhere near as good for reviewing changes as the VSCode AI features (ie jumping between files, reading the LLM thought process -> line of code changed etc). When I realized I could just stick my opencode models in and fully turn off copilot it was", "context": "", "use_case": "reviewing AI changes", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Don't Need a GitHub Copilot Subscription to Use VS Code AI Features"}]}