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Python IDEs - Replit vs VSCode

Medea on June 02, 2022

So for the last two years, I've been using Replit for all my Python projects. This is because you can code on it and host your website at the same...

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Dillon Barnes • Jun 5 '22

You can use both VSC and Replit. That's what I do. I put all of my code on GH. If I don't want people to see it, I use a private repo.

Also, you could use this extension to connect to your repls - marketplace.visualstudio.com/items...

And if you join the GH Codespaces you can create a VSC instance on the web to code in. If you've enabled Settings Sync, it will automatically install your extensions, settings and themes to be what you use in the app.

Join the Codespaces beta here - github.com/features/codespaces/signup

To be honest, I prefer VSC over Replit. Both are really good, but Replit isn't quite good enough for my needs as it's not very customisable and it's slow. And as you mentioned, the GH integration is awful.

Dillon Barnes • Oct 3 '22

Returning to this a few months later, I completely disagree with my statement. I now prefer Replit over VSC. Sure, VSC still does some things better, but Replit is really improving and it is so much more convenient and it doesn't eat up RAM like VSC does.

Medea • Jan 23 '23

Think differently now after the new changes?

Dillon Barnes • Feb 3 '23

A little. Replit's IDE is improving and is more convenient though. Although I don't agree or like all of the recent changes, I'm in quite a few betas and I'm trying to be optimistic for the future! I'll have a post coming out soon about my thoughts on the state of Replit.

Medea • Feb 3 '23

Ah okay, looking forward to the post!

Xiaoyi Chen • Jun 10 '22 • Edited

👋 @vulcanwm @dillonb07 This is Xiaoyi, Engineer from Replit.

@vulcanwm Excellent review! I'm a user of both Replit and VS Code, so I can tell this is a great comparison. Thanks for mentioning the issue you have with GH. The team is aware of it and will improve on it. Keep having fun building!

@dillonb07 Thanks for the feedback! This is really valuable for us to understand how to make Replit better for you. We are actively working on extensibility and making Replit faster. I'm curious what customizations you wanted, and which part of Replit felt slow to you - was it loading the website, navigating between the files, editing or console/shell?

Dillon Barnes • Jun 10 '22

There are multiple reasons why I would prefer VSC over Replit.

The shell. I use the console/shell a lot, and I really like having multiple shells. I like that I don't have to have one dedicated to running a webserver, but sometimes you need extra things running like a test script.
Git integration. Git integration in Replit is awful. Yes, you can commit files, push and pull to/from GitHub but that's it. I'd like the ability to be able to stage files, amend commits etc. I think VSC does this really well.
Files. I can't have multiple files open at the same time without using the shell in Replit. In VSC I can have four windows open at the same time. I don't think four is necessary for Replit, but two would definitely be helpful. Currently if I want two windows open next to each other, I have to open the shell and use vim.
Speed. I'm not blaming Replit for this because I don't think there's much the team can do about this, but I like using Replit when I'm at school. It's also what my school used to use in my Computer Science lessons. However, since recent updates Replit doesn't actually work on the school computers. The IDE just doesn't load. I don't know the cause of this since the Inspect menu is blocked.
Extensions. VSC has a vast library of extensions. I am aware that this feature is going to come to Replit, but currently I really like being able to customise themes, add snippets, add support for other services, etc via extensions in VSC. I think when/if this comes to Replit, it'd be much more likely for me to use it. Same for my next reason.
Autocompletion. VSC intellisense is much better than what Replit currently uses. Again, I've heard that this is going to be improved on Replit. Emmet is also a vital part of my workflow. I'm also aware that a Codemirror extension for this is under development.

However, there are some things that Replit does better than VSC.

Browser preview. Although VSC has a "Simple Browser" built into it, it really isn't very good. Replit's preview is much better.
Collaboration. I think that Replit's collaboration features are much better than VSC Live Share. Of course, Replit doesn't have audio support but that's never been important for me.
Packages? Replit manages packages quite well and does allow for manual control via the CLI. For that, it is better.
Customisation. Although customisation was one of the benefits of VSC, I really like being able to customise the tools/languages and packages with Nix.

For environmental variables, I'd like to be able to edit it as a plaintext file. Why couldn't we have this as a hidden file so that other projects can't see it, and it could be inside of a default .gitignore file. Then the secrets added in the GUI would be put inside of the file?

Thanks for the response though! I hope that the feedback helps @xyc

Xiaoyi Chen • Jun 12 '22

Thank you @dillonb07 ! Appreciate so much you taking the time to write this thoughtful review. It's pretty insightful, because quite a few of these are what we have been working on. For example, multiple file panes and making auto completion better. Replit team is actively working on improving the speed of website, and there are multiple aspects where we can tackle this problem. For Git integration, you can use git command in the shell for stage/amend, but I understand this is different from the UI which VSC provides and this is a pain point we'll need to address. Default .gitignore file is a good idea, and we might potentially add that soon! And preview, multiplayer, packages, customizing with Nix are what Replit is strong at.

Regarding using Replit at your school: Does your school block Replit? If that's the case, ask your admin if they can use firewalledreplit.com/. Also check if there are admin-override browser extensions that has conflict with the code editor. Don't hesitate to reach out if this does not resolve the issue.

Dillon Barnes • Jun 12 '22

Replit isn't blocked at my school. I am going to try the firewalled version tomorrow because it has less features so it might be more likely to load (lower bundle size etc). I think that the main issue is just that the computers are incredibly old and slow. As for extensions, I've looked at that before and there aren't any admin-overriden extensions.

Glad the feedback was useful! Also happy to hear that you're working on the features I mentioned. For git, I'm aware that you can use the shell, and I have on multiple occasions, but it's quite annoying having to go to GitHub and setup an access token just for using git on a repl. I am glad that it's an option though.

Medea • Jun 10 '22

Damn I never thought a developer from Replit would see this lmao!
Thanks!

Xiaoyi Chen • Jun 12 '22

yes Replit is for the people :)

Medea • Jun 5 '22

Thanks!
Do you know how to host websites in VSC like we can do in Replit?

Dillon Barnes • Jun 5 '22

What do you mean? VSC is just an IDE. You can't use it as a website host.

Dillon Barnes • Jun 5 '22

Use a service like Replit, Vercel, Netlify or Heroku for hosting.

Medea • Jun 5 '22

So is there a way I can integrate VSC with a website host?

Dillon Barnes • Jun 5 '22 • Edited

Probably. Never tried. I just put my project on GH and then manually do it when I'm done. It only takes a few minutes. For Flask projects, I'd recommend using GH to sync it to Replit. You'd have to go in your repl and pull the changes though. Or connect to the terminal remotely.

Medea • Jun 5 '22

What if I want my code to remain secret?

Dillon Barnes • Jun 5 '22

If you don't have Hacker, you'd have to use a different host. I don't really use Flask anymore, so I'm not sure what the best option is.

I've heard that Heroku is decent for Flask. You can use the CLI for that meaning you don't need to share your code. From experience though, Heroku isn't the easiest to use.

Medea • Jun 5 '22

Thanks for the help!
I'm checking out Heroku right now.
It's actually pretty good as it can use private repos for the code, but it's hard to use as you said.
What are you working on now then?

Dillon Barnes • Jun 5 '22

Currently, I'm making a new portfolio using Next.js/React

What about you?

Medea • Jun 5 '22

I'm experimenting editing audio with Python (trying to make Google Translate sing lmao)

Dillon Barnes • Jun 6 '22

Sounds fun! Good luck.

Vic • Jun 6 '22

This is a weird comparation, VSCode is just an IDE and Replit is a hosting service with an integrated IDE.

Medea • Jun 6 '22

But both have flaws

Vic • Jun 6 '22

Ye, anyways if you want a hosting service you can use like mogenius, Railway, Heroku or Vercel, they're more focused in Hosting and do not provide an IDE but an easy CI.