IDEs and Their Use in Smart Contract Security

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like Remix IDE and Visual Studio Code (VS Code) play a crucial role in smart contract security:

Remix IDE

A powerful, browser based tool specifically designed for Ethereum smart contract development. It offers features like static analysis, which helps in identifying potential security issues directly within the IDE environment.

VS Code

Popular for its versatility and wide range of extensions. Developers can leverage extensions for Solidity and other blockchain-related tools, enhancing security checks and overall development efficiency. The Solidity extension for VS Code provides features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and compilation, which are essential for smart contract development.

Juan Blanco’s Solidity plugin has been very popular for developers but tintinweb’s Solidity Visual Developer (formerly Auditor) extension for VS Code provides many additional security features that make it more suited to our focus on Web3 Security. The two are not compatible with each other, so you will have to choose one or the other, but trying them both is a good way to start.

The developers of the Hardhat framework at the Nomic Foundation have also created a Solidity extension specifically targeted at Hardhat so if that is your framework of choice it may be worth a try.

There are a number of other plugins that can be useful for smart contract development and alternatives IDEs (or text editors) that work with Solidity and other languages. NeoVim and IntelliJ IDEA are two examples of popular alternatives. If you are newer to development, we recommend starting with VS Code and then exploring other options as you become more familiar with the tools and your own preferences.