C/C++ is a very popular term in C language, and all pretty much know this basic fact. Back to school days, this was one of the most important chapters in computer subject. It is a very important, powerful and excellent common purpose programming language used by developers to for developing applications on a large scale, such as search engines, game videos, and computer software.
This is the reason why programmers always look for best IDE programming source code editors so that they can edit the code of origin easily. In this article, we have tried to gather some of the most popular and best C/C++ source code editors for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Have a look!
Best 15 IDEs for C/C++ Programming
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XCode(Mac)
Free IDE Tool
This IDE is not only meant for C/C++ developer but also is best for the MAC platform. It supports many popular languages, including some cool features that you get to build using this program. XCode is entirely free to use on your Mac OS system.
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CLion (Mac, Windows, Linux)
Free Trial Available For 30 Days.
CLion works on Windows, Linux, and MAC OS X platform and is created by JetBrains which is a well-known company for developing IDE programming for C/C++ developers. It is a smart editor having embedded terminal. It has various language standards such as libc++, C++ 11, Java script, boost, XML, CSS and HTML. For project creating it helps you to create projects with shortcut keys. It supports code analysis and CMake. It is considered to be the number one program.
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Visual Studio(Mac, Windows, Linux)
Free For Individual.
It is an IDE program from Microsoft, and only minus point is it works only with Windows. It is not only developed for C/C++ but also various other popular languages. Those who will be working as a team ten you need a pro-version of this and not available for free. If you are working individually, then you need the IDE Express Edition which is free.
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NetBeans IDE(Mac, Windows, Linux)
Free IDE tool
NetBeans works on MAC OS X, Windows and Linux platform. It supports C++11 language. It is a free IDE offering on multi platforms and is great for developing as it offers many cool features. File, Remote Development, QT Toolkit Support, compiler configurations, file navigation are a few of such features.
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Eclipse(Windows)
Free IDE tool
IDE that has a multi-platform support system and is considered to be one of the best IDEs that is free. Eclipse is a Git Team Provider with C/C++ development tools, has Mylyn Task list and explorer that is remote system.
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Code::Blocks(Windows)
Free IDE tool
The features of Code blocks are segmented into compiler debugger and interface features such as; Interfaces GNU GDB, syntax highlighting and custom memory dump, supports full breakpoints including data breakpoints, breakpoint conditions, code break points and many others. It supports multi targets projects and is very fast that there is no need to make-files. It supports multi-compiler, including Borland C++5.5, Clang, GCC and much more.
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Qt Creator(Windows, Mac, Linux)
Free Trial Available
Qt Creator is an open source version which you can download the trial for free and works on Windows, MAC OS X, Linux platforms. It is one of the most familiar libraries. If you are looking forward to building GUI-based application, then this is the one. Features include; Qt Quick 2D renderer, Boot to Qt, Qt data visualization, Qt web view and lots more.
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Geany(Mac, Windows)
It is a perfect IDE program for C/C++ and is light weight which you can avail for free. It has features like code folding, Syntax highlighting, the auto closing of XML and HTML tag, symbol name auto completion, etc. It helps you to build system to execute and compile codes. It helps in simple project management. These are some of the features to work with Geany and you can literally build anything.
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CodeLite(Mac, Windows, Linux)
Free and Open Source
It is an open source and free IDE for C/C++ that you can get for free and works on various platforms; Windows, MAC OS X and Linux. It has generic support for compilers with a built-in support for clang/GCC/VC++. In the editor window, it displays code annotations for any errors as a tooltip. Through Build-tab the errors are clickable with a build in GDB support. It also supports templates, inheritance, C++11 auto keyboard, etc.
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Bluefish Editor(Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD)
Bluefish editor is not any standard editor it is more than that. It is a lightweight and fast editor offering programmers features like writing scripts & software codes, developing websites and works on multi-platform such as Linux, Windows, MAC OS X, FreeBSD, etc. It offers a very robust refresh functionality and powerful search engine. It also multiple document interface, snippet sidebar, supports full-screen editing, also supports file openings in recursive ways based on file pattern, name or content pattern It supports downloader and uploader of sites and many more amazing features.
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Brackets Code Editor(Mac, Windows, Linux)
The bracket is an open source editor that is advanced and is specifically meant for web development and designing. This is framed for latest C/C++ programs; therefore, programmers can use it by installing objectives of C/C++ programs and –C pack extensions of C program. Through plug-ins it is highly extensible and offers many other IDE based features.
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SubLime Text Editor(Mac, Windows, Linux)
Free Trial Available
Sublime Text is a multi-platform, well-refined text editor designed and developed for codes, prose and marks up. It offers a great user interface and can be used for writing C/C++. Some of its features comprise of high customization facility, command palette, anything Goto functionality, multiple selections, API Plug-in Support, project switching support which is instant and many other features.
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Atom Code Editor(Mac, Windows, Linux)
Atom is also a modern, multi-platform, an open source text editor that can run on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X. It is also hackable therefore users can customize it to meet their demands of code writing. It is wholly featured, and some of the main features include Built-in package manager, the file browser that is inbuilt, smart auto completion and much more.
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KDevelop(Windows, Linux, Unix)
Free IDE Software
KDevelop is a cross-platform and open source IDE that is free and works on Linux, Windows and other operating Systems like UNIX. It is mainly based on the KDE, QT libraries, and KDev platforms. It is highly extensible and supports plug-ins like Clang-based C/C++. It supports the revival of Oketa Plug-in, KDE4 configuration migration and has many other Grep view support, uses widgets and supports various line editing.
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Emacs Editor(Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD)
Emacs is a highly extensible, customizable and a powerful free text editor of cross platform that you can use on Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, Free BSD, Windows, open BSD. The fundamental of Emacs is also an interpreter for language under the Lips Programming of Emacs Lisp. Emacs has a full support of Unicode. It uses Emacs Lisp GUI code. It has functionality that is above general text editing that includes project planner, news and calendars reads, emails and much more. It has a built-in tutorial and complete documentation with many other facilities.
So, these are some of the best C/C++ IDE programming source code editors available that are most popular because of the features they provide. These above IDE programming source code editors are the best to be used for developing with C++ programs. Not only that, they are available for almost any OS so you can find the one appropriate according to your work machine. If you know any other source code editor which you believe should be on the list, feel free to tell us in the comments section, and we will include in our future article. Till then, happy coding!