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There are two major refactoring tools which can be installed for Visual Studio that provide C++ support. The full versions of both tools are $250, and they seem to offer similar functionality. They are:

Which tool is better?

EDIT: My initial evaluation of the tools seems to be that Refactor Pro/CodeRush has several more features, but is also quite buggy on occasion. It doesn't seem to like macros:
(source: billy-oneal.com)

Here's Visual Assist's interpretation of the same:
(source: billy-oneal.com)

EDIT2: I think I like CodeRush over Visual Assist, but I'm not sure I can trust CR. CodeRush does seem to have problems parsing some C++ constructs, like the macros above. But it's UI is much more polished. For example:
(source: billy-oneal.com)

On the other hand Visual Assist X seems to have a much larger following among C++ developers, and it's code analysis is MUCH better. It doesn't seem to make mistakes like R! Pro was making from time to time.

I think at this point I just have to play with both tools and see which one proves more useful. But I'm still curious if anyone has had horror / success stories with either tool.

Community
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Billy ONeal
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    If you are a student, you can get Visual Assist X for $49. I wouldn't develop software in VS without Visual Assist; it's really terrific. I can't compare them, though, since I've never used Refactor Pro + CodeRush. – James McNellis Apr 10 '10 at 02:27
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    Both have 30-day free trials... I think your best bet would be to try one, then try the other, and see which you like best. – James McNellis Apr 10 '10 at 02:32
  • @James McNellis: Thank you for the student edition tip. :) I'm looking at both but I'm interested to hear if there have been problems/success stories with one or the other. – Billy ONeal Apr 10 '10 at 04:30
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    Interesting... no one posting about experience with Refactor Pro (I'm in the same boat: happy user of VAX, but can't really say it's better than Refactor - haven't used it). Also, depending on how up-to-date you think you might need to stay, VAX has a $100 option, but you get only 6 months of updates and no discount when you need to update after that. If you feel like you can go more than a year without updating after the 6 months of support expires, the $100 option might be worth considering. If you ever need to work in VC6, VAX still supports it (amazing and sad at the same time). – Michael Burr Apr 10 '10 at 05:20
  • @Michael Burr: Luckily I've not had the "joy" of ever working with VC6. VS2008 had just come out when I started really getting into C++ development. – Billy ONeal Apr 10 '10 at 05:26
  • CodeRush and friends seems to be like "one of those tools which does something so awesome -- but yet is buggy enough to almost overshadow the awesomeness". I'm nervous using Refactor Pro! on production code, but if the parsing gets only a little better.... – Billy ONeal Apr 10 '10 at 05:45
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    Made this CW because it is sort of a "poll" question. – Billy ONeal Apr 10 '10 at 05:58
  • Thanks for raising a very relevant question. I Was just wondering if you had any updates on your experience with both products? Thanks! – Faisal Vali Aug 18 '10 at 16:46
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    @Faisal: VAX seems to be better for native development, while CodeRush seems to be better for .NET development. CR simply isn't as good at inferring things like type information for C++ projects. I ended up purchasing both products -- I leave VAX running all the time, but only load CodeRush when working on C# projects. – Billy ONeal Aug 18 '10 at 17:11

3 Answers3

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I have used Visual Assist for years and I think it makes VS heaps more convenient for C++ development. The searchable file list, Go to Declaration and Rename functions in particular have been indispensable. VS2010 probably makes some of Visual Assist features obsolete but I imagine it will continue to be useful.

There are some situations where Visual Assist will stumble and not parse the code correctly, but they are few and far between, and it improves with every version.

I haven't used Refactor Pro so I can't say anything about it unfortunately.

Alex Korban
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  • Go to Declaration is not a Visual Assist feature. It's a native part of the IDE. Can't say much about the rest. – Billy ONeal Apr 10 '10 at 05:10
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    Visual Assist has a *much* better implementation of it than VS though. – Alex Korban Apr 10 '10 at 05:21
  • Ah -- didn't know that. VS's has never given me problems, particularly since I started using the VS 2010 RC. – Billy ONeal Apr 10 '10 at 05:23
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    There are many things to like about VAX, but probably the #1 thing for me is the "Find References" - which is much smarter than VS's "Find all references". VAX is much better about not including symbols with the same name that are different items. – Michael Burr Apr 10 '10 at 05:28
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C++ language support in CodeRush is deprecated as of 31 May 2013.

Severe Issue Support ends 1-Feb-2014
Last Date of Support is 1-Jun-2014

https://www.devexpress.com/Products/CodeRush/cpp11.xml

Edward LeBlanc
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According to the speed Visual Assist X is good and not the Refactor Pro+Code Rush

Karthik
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