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However, as described in this article, you are not allowed to install VS Code extensions from the VS Code marketplace into anything other than VS Code. This means you can install VS Code extensions in Che Theia. It is called “extensions” for VS Code and “plugins” for Theia, but both are even compatible. VS Codeīoth IDEs, Eclipse Theia and VS Code support the same extension mechanism. The significant differences are discussed in the following sections, which are the extensibility of the IDE, the options to use alternative IDEs and the available deployment options. So when using Che, you don’t have to configure your own product based on Theia, and the out-of-the-box experience is very similar to VS Code. However, Eclipse Che delivers a preconfigured Eclipse Theia version, which we call “ Che Theia ”.
#Eclipse ide vs visual studio free#
One major difference is that Eclipse Theia is actually meant to be an open platform to build web-based tools, while VS Code is a free and extensible product based on open source. You can even use the same extensions in VS Code and Theia. In a nutshell, both are very similar in terms of usability and features, many parts are actually even built with the same code base. Please refer to this article for a detailed comparison. Now, we can go ahead and directly compare VS Code to Eclipse Theia. In case you´ve never heard about Eclipse Theia, please see the introduction article to Eclipse Theia and the Theia FAQ. We will discuss the available deployment options later.Įclipse Che uses Eclipse Theia as the default IDE. There are actually two versions, the classic VS Code for the desktop and VS Code Online. VS CodeĪny VS Code related offering obviously uses VS Code as an IDE. We then describe options to use other, potentially customized IDEs, and finally the available deployment options. We will have a look at the default IDEs and their extensibility.
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In this section, we compare the IDE options of VS Code Codespaces to Eclipse Che. So let us compare the IDE part of Che and VS Code first, including the available deployment options. These tools are triggered by the browser-based UI but run on a backend.
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The workspace server hosts the actual developer runtime including the source code, and all the tools for building, debugging, or analyzing the source code. The IDE is the UI that the developers use for their development tasks including code editing, interacting with version control, triggering builds or debugging. Both, like most cloud-based development tools, conceptually consist of two pieces: An IDE and a workspace server. So the better question is actually: how does VS Code Codespaces compare to Eclipse Che? Divide and compareįirst, we will have to look at both projects in more detail to find comparable parts. However, Microsoft previously announced VS Code Online, recently renamed to VS Code Codespaces, which includes a browser-based IDE based on VS Code. VS Code itself is a desktop IDE only, but it uses Electron and is hence based on web technologies. Three of the most prominent IDE projects of recent years are for sure VS Code, Eclipse Che and Eclipse Theia. The world of online IDEs and cloud-based tools is currently very vibrant and active. Have you heard about Eclipse Che and wonder how it compares to VS Code Online or “VS Code Codespaces”? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Are you confused what the role of Eclipse Theia is in this comparison? Then keep on reading!
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