Visual Studio Code
The default code editor for most developers — extensible, fast, and free.
Self-hosted Open source MIT editoride
Pricing
Free.
VS Code is the editor most developers reach for by default now — not because it’s the most powerful IDE available, but because the extension ecosystem covers almost any language or workflow without the overhead of a full JetBrains-style IDE.
Key features
- Huge extension marketplace covering every major language
- Integrated terminal, debugger, and Git support
- Remote development over SSH, containers, or WSL
- Settings sync across machines via a Microsoft or GitHub account
Self-hosted vs. cloud
Runs entirely locally — ‘self-hosted’ here just means it’s your machine, not a cloud IDE. GitHub Codespaces offers a cloud-hosted version of the same editor if that’s what you need instead.
Quick start
# macOS
brew install --cask visual-studio-code
Alternatives
JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, WebStorm, GoLand) trade extension-driven flexibility for deeper language-specific tooling out of the box.