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JetBrains CLion

Hacker Approved

Recommended for C++ work, where people find its debugging, analysis and out-of-the-box setup better than VS Code with plugins. Critics say it performs slowly and is only tolerable for many.

Summarized from 30 comments.

Recommended for C++ work, where people find its debugging, analysis and out-of-the-box setup better than VS Code with plugins. Critics say it performs slowly and is only tolerable for many.

recommend
18
criticize
7
months recommended
9 of 13

Why people love it

  • Better C++ support than VS Code · 3

    For C++ development for example CLion vs VS Code (needed plugins installed) is night and day and not to the benefit of VS Code.

    Apr 2026 · comment

    Other people actually made CLion work reasonably well with C++ too.

    May 2026 · comment

    I would try Clion for C++ if you can't use VS.

    Feb 2026 · comment
  • Excellent developer experience · 2

    All in all dev experience is excellent

    Apr 2026 · comment

    dev experience is excellent

    Apr 2026 · comment
  • Strong debugging for projects · 2

    I am satisfied with their debugging for all the projects I worked on in that IDE.

    Feb 2026 · comment

    Has tools to let the models access proper debugging too(my experience is Clion)

    Oct 2026 · comment
  • Full-featured IDE out of the box · 2

    In terms of full batteries included IDEs they're still probably the best

    Dec 2025 · comment

    CLion, Visual Studio Proper, and RustRover are better for me

    Jan 2026 · comment

What people warn about

What hackers pick instead

Every quote

The 29 most detailed of 30 comments. Each links to the original.

  1. For C++ development for example CLion vs VS Code (needed plugins installed) is night and day and not to the benefit of VS Code.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “SpaceX and Cursor partnership. Right to acquire Cursor later this year”

  2. I could not get the bindings quite how I wanted in either VS Code or CLion, but I made it tolerable eventually.

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “The Productivity Mirage”

  3. I am satisfied with their debugging for all the projects I worked on in that IDE.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding”

  4. Has tools to let the models access proper debugging too(my experience is Clion)

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025”

  5. In terms of full batteries included IDEs they're still probably the best

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “JetBrains cancels Fleet”

  6. the best experience appears to be with Clion, but I can live with it

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “The PImpl idiom and the C++26 std:indirect type”

  7. Other people actually made CLion work reasonably well with C++ too.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “A History of IDEs at Google”

  8. CLion, Visual Studio Proper, and RustRover are better for me

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

  9. I would try Clion for C++ if you can't use VS.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding”

  10. not hating it as much as I did last time

    Mixed · Nov 2025

  11. All in all dev experience is excellent

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “SpaceX and Cursor partnership. Right to acquire Cursor later this year”

  12. dev experience is excellent

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “SpaceX and Cursor partnership. Right to acquire Cursor later this year”

  13. they've completely neglected the core product

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025”

  14. now they all feel outdated and unnecessary

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “JetBrains Thinkrail”

  15. CLion in particular is abysmal, yeah.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

  16. the core product is eroding fast

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

  17. I've heard CLion is a meh.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

  18. It helped me deliver a bank-exchange-grade connector in a tight schedule with very little knowledge of C

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Writing a blatant Telegram clone using Qt, QML and Rust. And C++”

  19. No major complains. It takes some time to get going but after that it is mostly smooth sailing.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

  20. I've had no issues running CLion on a 2020 M1 Macbook Air

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

  21. it loses really badly in terms of performance

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

  22. I am not using Clion, Visual Studio or XCode

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Giving C a superpower: custom header file (safe_c.h)”

  23. Clion (comparable with VS in many options)

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Rust Is Just a Tool”

  24. CLion does not suffer from this problem.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Beginner-friendly, unofficial documentation for Helix text editor”

  25. Clion has better support on that regard.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Precompiled headers and why Squid won't be using them (2023)”

  26. the analysis is quite competitive tbh

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “An Incoherent Rust”

  27. until increasing the garbage collector maximum heap size all I had was a blank screen, after it was just unusably slow

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “A curmudgeon tries a language server”

  28. found the UX to be completely foreign (not at all Mac-like) and overall frustrating to use

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “I Ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii”

  29. Makefiles aren't supported well by clion or visual studio.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “Giving C a superpower: custom header file (safe_c.h)”

Counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, Nov 2025 to Nov 2026. How we count · Report a mistake