I've been happily paying for my own WebStorm license for 7 years—using it at home and at work. In the middle of that, I tried VS Code for a whole year at a new job, to really see how it compared (my new team was using it).
It wasn't better in any way. In fact, most days I just missed WebStorm, but I soldiered on to see if I could find anything that was truly an improvement. At the end of my self-imposed, one-year trial, I concluded that VS Code had just one "advantage": it was free. Its barrier to entry was zero, from a pricing perspective. But since I had really given VS Code a fair shake, I gladly went back to WebStorm at work.
Fast forward to this year, when I ran head on into a serious WebStorm performance problem: type checking a very large TypeScript code base. The WebStorm logs show that the TypeScript language server is crashing, and I filed a bug with JetBrains many months ago, but zero progress. VS Code, on the other hand, has no problem type checking this huge code base—it happens near instantly. For months I have now had WebStorm open for editing, and VS Code open for type checking, which is ridiculous, and I'd be embarrassed if my team knew I was doing this.
It pains me greatly to say it, but perhaps the time has come to cancel my WebStorm license and just switch to VS Code.
I mean, why not, if JetBrains is just set on copying VS Code anyway? I'll take better performance with a worse UI, and it seems like that's precisely what VS Code can give me at this point. How sad.
It wasn't better in any way. In fact, most days I just missed WebStorm, but I soldiered on to see if I could find anything that was truly an improvement. At the end of my self-imposed, one-year trial, I concluded that VS Code had just one "advantage": it was free. Its barrier to entry was zero, from a pricing perspective. But since I had really given VS Code a fair shake, I gladly went back to WebStorm at work.
Fast forward to this year, when I ran head on into a serious WebStorm performance problem: type checking a very large TypeScript code base. The WebStorm logs show that the TypeScript language server is crashing, and I filed a bug with JetBrains many months ago, but zero progress. VS Code, on the other hand, has no problem type checking this huge code base—it happens near instantly. For months I have now had WebStorm open for editing, and VS Code open for type checking, which is ridiculous, and I'd be embarrassed if my team knew I was doing this.
It pains me greatly to say it, but perhaps the time has come to cancel my WebStorm license and just switch to VS Code.
I mean, why not, if JetBrains is just set on copying VS Code anyway? I'll take better performance with a worse UI, and it seems like that's precisely what VS Code can give me at this point. How sad.