Golang IDE
There is plenty of integrated development environments (IDEs) out there for development in the Golang (Go) ecosystem. In this shot, we will go over some popular IDEs and editor plugins for Go development. However, keep in mind that there is no right answer to which environment is most suitable.
Visual Studio Code with Go extension
The Go extension, available in the VS Code marketplace, provides rich language support. Features include IntelliSense, code navigation, symbol search, bracket matching, and snippets. IntelliSense is a cool feature that provides intelligent auto completions, hover information, and signature help. The extension also comes with formatting tools.
- Free
- Open-source
- Very promising community reviews
GoLand
GoLand is a cross-platform IDE aimed at providing an ergonomic environment for Go development. It is distributed either as a standalone IDE or as a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. Features include on-the-fly error detection and suggestions for fixes, quick and safe refactorings with one-step undo, intelligent code completion, dead code detection, and documentation hints.
- Paid but free for students and select open-source contributors
- Free if you install as plugin for IntelliJ IDEA
- Designed specifically for Go development
Vim with vim-go plugin
Although Vim itself is not a complete IDE it can behave like a true Go IDE with the vim-go plugin installed. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. Although it has a steep learning curve, with enough time, you will find yourself comfortable. Features include syntax highlighting and folding, a debugger, code completion, formatting on save, code navigation, and code linting.
- Free
- Open-source
- Similar functionality to VS Code Go extension
These are just a few popular IDEs and editors for Go development. For a more complete list, you can check out Go’s github page.
Free Resources