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VS Code VS Ghostty

Compare VS Code VS Ghostty and see what are their differences

VS Code logo VS Code

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Ghostty logo Ghostty

A fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator
  • VS Code Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-10-09
Not present

VS Code features and specs

  • Cross-platform
    VS Code works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing a consistent development experience across different operating systems.
  • Extensibility
    A vast library of extensions allows users to add functionalities like debuggers, linters, and themes, making it highly customizable.
  • Integrated Git
    Built-in Git integration makes it easy to manage version control tasks directly within the editor.
  • Performance
    Lightweight compared to full-fledged IDEs, ensuring good performance even on systems with limited resources.
  • IntelliSense
    Advanced code completion and refactoring tools help improve coding efficiency and reduce errors.
  • Community Support
    A strong and active community provides extensive support, tutorials, and third-party extensions.
  • Debugging
    Robust debugging tools for various languages and frameworks are available out of the box.
  • Free and Open-Source
    VS Code is completely free to use and open-source, which is beneficial for both individual developers and organizations.

Possible disadvantages of VS Code

  • Limited IDE Features
    While extensible, it may lack some advanced features found in dedicated IDEs out of the box.
  • Extension Management
    Managing and configuring a large number of extensions can become cumbersome and sometimes lead to performance issues.
  • Learning Curve
    Although user-friendly, it has a steeper learning curve for beginners due to its numerous features and customization options.
  • Memory Usage
    Despite being lightweight, it can consume a significant amount of memory when multiple extensions are installed.
  • Update Frequency
    Frequent updates may sometimes introduce bugs or require users to adapt to new changes quickly.
  • Internet Dependency
    Some features and extensions may require an internet connection to function optimally.
  • Telemetry
    By default, VS Code collects usage data, which might be a concern for users sensitive about data privacy. However, this can be disabled.

Ghostty features and specs

  • Easy-to-Use Interface
    Ghostty offers a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate, making it accessible for users of all experience levels.
  • Enhanced Privacy
    The platform emphasizes user privacy, ensuring that personal data is kept secure and not shared without consent.
  • Multiple Platforms Supported
    Ghostty supports a wide range of platforms, allowing users to connect and share content across different networks seamlessly.
  • Customizable Features
    Users have the option to customize settings and features, enabling them to tailor their experience to their specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of Ghostty

  • Limited Free Version
    The free version of Ghostty offers limited features, which may restrict functionality for users not willing to upgrade to a paid plan.
  • Occasional Downtime
    Some users have reported occasional downtime or connectivity issues, which can disrupt the user experience.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic interface is easy to use, some advanced features require a learning curve and may be more complex for new users.
  • Subscription Cost
    Users may find the subscription cost for premium features to be relatively high compared to similar services.

Analysis of VS Code

Overall verdict

  • Yes, VS Code is generally considered a good choice for developers due to its flexibility, efficiency, and strong community support. It is lightweight, fast, and user-friendly, catering to both novice and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

  • VS Code, developed by Microsoft, is a widely popular and versatile code editor. It offers a robust extension ecosystem, which allows developers to customize their workflow and coding environment extensively. Additionally, VS Code supports numerous programming languages right out of the box and provides features like IntelliSense, debugging, Git integration, and a built-in terminal, making it a powerful tool for developers.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking for a comprehensive yet lightweight coding environment.
  • Software developers who need an editor with extensive language support and customization options.
  • Beginner programmers who would benefit from a feature-rich editor that can grow with their skills.
  • Developers interested in an open-source tool with continuous updates and community-driven enhancements.

VS Code videos

My New Favorite Text Editor - Visual Studio Code

More videos:

  • Review - 7 reasons why I switched to Visual Studio Code from Sublime Text

Ghostty videos

Ghostty is Probably The Best Terminal Emulator I've Ever Used

More videos:

  • Review - so i tried ghostty...
  • Review - Ghostty is a Fast and Feature-Rich Terminal

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VS Code and Ghostty)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Terminal Tools
0 0%
100% 100
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
94 94%
6% 6

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VS Code and Ghostty

VS Code Reviews

  1. dksinden
    ยท Working at SpeechKit ยท

Choosing the Best SQL Server Tool in 2026
If you're a Windows DBA who mainly manages servers, SSMS is still hard to beat. SQL Server Data Tools makes the most sense for teams building database projects in Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code with the MSSQL extension is a good option for cross-platform development, and DBeaver works well if SQL Server is just one of several databases you manage.
Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
Visual Studio Code, commonly known as VS Code, is a powerful and extensible code editor developed by Microsoft. With its rich ecosystem of extensions and features like IntelliSense, debugging, and Git integration, VS Code enhances your coding productivity.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
Finally, the Visual Studio Code website has numerous tabs for you to learn about the software. The documentation page walks you through steps like the setup and working with different languages. Youโ€™re also able to check out some tips and tricks and learn all of the Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts. Along with a blog, updates page, extensions library and API...
Source: kinsta.com
Jupyter Notebook & 10 Alternatives: Data Notebook Review [2023]
Previously, VS Code was more suited to developers or engineers due to its lack of data analysis capabilities, but since 2020, the VS Code team has collaborated with the Jupyter team to create an integrated notebook within VS Code. The end result is a fantastic IDE workbook for data analysis.
Source: lakefs.io
The Best IDEs for Java Development: A Comparative Analysis
Overview: Although not a traditional IDE, VS Code has gained popularity as a lightweight code editor.
Source: dev.to

Ghostty Reviews

We have no reviews of Ghostty yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VS Code seems to be a lot more popular than Ghostty. While we know about 1215 links to VS Code, we've tracked only 28 mentions of Ghostty. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

VS Code mentions (1215)

  • History of JavaScript: Browser wars, ECMAScript, Node.js, TypeScript, and React
    Visual Studio Code, a code editor created by Microsoft, was first introduced on April 29, 2015, at the Build conference. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • How to Get Your First Tool Online
    The step up from there is an editor with a built-in agent like Cursor, Google Antigravity, Windsurf, or VS Code with a coding extension. These are code editors with an AI agent living inside them, and the difference is the responsible party for getting things from place to place. Instead of the software creator shuttling code between windows, the AI agent edits the project files directly and runs the GitHub and... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Agentic Engineering: What Does AI Coding Really Cost?
    For IDE-heavy teams, BYOK (bring your own key) can be interesting, no matter whether you live in WebStorm or VS Code. On the JetBrains side, the JetBrains AI plans and Junie BYOK docs allow it, and most VS Code AI extensions offer the same idea: keep the IDE, connect provider keys, pay the provider. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Best Markdown Editors for Developers
    Option 1: Raw editing in IDE. You open the .md file in VS Code or whatever you use. Syntax highlighting shows you the structure. Maybe you toggle a preview pane. This works for quick edits but becomes painful for anything involving tables, diagrams, or complex formatting. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Document Generation for Developers: Security, Compliance, and Build-vs-Buy Decisions for the Template-Plus-Data Pipeline
    You'll need Python 3.8+ and pip for the quickstart, with venv recommended for isolation. Install the requests library for HTTP calls. VS Code with the Python extension works well as an editor, though PyCharm or Sublime Text work equally well. You'll also need a free Foxit developer account. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

Ghostty mentions (28)

  • I built a native macOS terminal so I'd stop losing track of my AI agents
    So I built a terminal. It's called viterm: a native macOS app in Swift + AppKit, with rendering handled by libghostty. MIT licensed. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Workbench: A TUI for parallel coding agents
    I made a nice way to use all your coding harnesses and persist them entirely in the TUI. I love Cursor and Claude Code, but I like using many of them and often use them in combination with tmux locally and via SSH, so I made this for myself really. Hoping other people find it useful or cool. It's mostly for use inside of Ghostty (https://ghostty.org/) so image rendering and everything works nicely. Would love some... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • How My Coworker Who Didn't Know 'cd' Shipped to Production
    The downside of teaching a designer to use the terminal is that she will want hers to look like yours. Tanya saw my Ghostty theme and my catppuccin Starship theme over a screen share and decided she wanted both. Her Claude Code statusline came next. That's an entire other post. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • The Terminal Renaissance: Designing Beautiful TUIs in the Age of AI
    I built ghostty-automator, a purpose-built IPC layer for Ghostty that exposes the terminal's actual state to external processes. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • I gave my AI coding assistant a body โ€” and now it lives in my terminal
    It works on any terminal that supports the Kitty graphics protocol โ€” Ghostty and Kitty are the two main ones. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VS Code and Ghostty, you can also consider the following products

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

iTerm2 - A terminal emulator for macOS that does amazing things.

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

Warp Terminal - The terminal for the 21st century. Warp is a blazingly fast, rust-based terminal reimagined from the ground up to work like a modern app.

Node.js - Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications

Tabby.sh - Tabby is a free and open source SSH, local and Telnet terminal with everything you'll ever need.