Choosing an IDE for UE5 Development

Personally I use Rider as my IDE. Visual Studio 2022 also works.

If you prefer to use Visual Studio, you should seriously consider purchasing some paid plugins to save yourself insane amounts of time.

Technically you can use VS for free, but doing so is like trying to dig a hole with a wet noodle. It can be done, but it will waste a significant amount of your time. VS really needs paid plugins to be a competitive IDE, which makes it priced similarly to Rider for professional users.

If you’re developing on a Mac, Rider is really your only option. Xcode is just plain bad for UE coding.

Rider also works great on Linux.

Option 1. Visual Studio

Microsoft’s build environment is distributed with VS. You don’t have to use VS to edit code, but you need to have it installed for access to its build tools.

• Install Visual Studio 2022 (Community version works)
  • Install Unreal Engine plugin for Visual Studio
    • Personally I install this into my custom engine, but you can also install it into your game
  • Install UnrealVS Extension
    • Free Visual Studio extension, part of Unreal Engine Binaries, you just have to install it
  • Epic Options for a New Visual Studio Installation
  • Install VsChromium extension (Optional)

VS Plugins (required for pro devs)

You don’t need both of these, but you do need one if you value your time at all.

Choose which you prefer:

Either: ReSharper for VS by JetBrains (gives UE support) (works like Rider)

OR: Visual Assist for VS by Whole Tomato (gives UE support)

Option 2. Rider

Rider is optional, though highly recommended. You have to pay for a license unless you can get a trial or student license. It’s well worth the cost IMO.

Especially if you develop on multiple platforms, Rider works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

If you use this, it replaces VS as the IDE. Under the hood it uses VS build tools. You will also need to have VS installed in order to use Rider. (On Mac, it uses Xcode under the hood, on Linux it uses gcc).

• Install JetBrains Toolbox
• Install Rider 2024.3.6 or later (via Toolbox)

If you find that you sometimes work in VS in addition to Rider (I sometimes do), then with your JetBrains subscription you also get access to ReSharper, so you can also:

• Install ReSharper Tools

ReSharper comes with the Rider subscription so you basically get to use Rider and still upgrade your VS to be good at the same time.