So, I just checked the list of IDEs supported by PlatformIO and noticed a ton I didn’t realise were available…
According to https://platformio.org/ :
IDE Integration with Cloud9, Codeanywhere, Eclipse Che, Atom, CLion, CodeBlocks, Eclipse, Emacs, NetBeans, Qt Creator, Sublime Text, Vim, Visual Studio
So in the new year I might have a look to see if I can get any of these working if I get the chance.
(Probably Visual Studio first because it’s by far my favourite IDE.)
I know by experience that Atom works great.
I’ll give NetBeans and Eclipse a try later after the holidays! Maybe even Qt creator. Hopefully not too much later from now.
Reading the documentation on the website, it looks like the integration with eclipse and NetBeans is pretty much the same through the command line version of PlatformIO. So it should be pretty quick to setup and this excites me 
So, it may just be my experience in CLI based stuff on Linux operating systems, but I found the setup and integration with Eclipse + PlatformIO to be extremely simple, and I’m delighted to say that it “just works”.
I followed the steps to install the cli PlatormIO from this page
Then I installed the C/C++ IDE version of Eclipse. Also adding the c/c++ gcc cross compiler support Which I found directions on adding from this forum Though, I don’t think this was entirely required with PlatformIO. But I was playing around and did this anyway. 
Then I followed the rest of this tutorial and it worked as advertised!
Not sure how helpful it will be for others, but I’m not the biggest fan of Electron applications (and, really, neither are my laptops when I’m also running other stuff 
)
I was going to try adding it to my NetBeans but then realized I’m running Apache NetBeans 10 and C++ support wont be re-integrated (still not finished being donated from Oracle) until later this Fall. And I didn’t want to manage having 8.2 and 10 installed at the same time again because… meh
So, my quest seems to be continued in the direction of Eclipse! Which is great. I’m kind of a wiener and managing the Makefile was something I wasn’t really enjoying (coming from Java where the build system is a bit more hand-off like Gradle and Maven)
Nor am I really, JavaScript is one of my most hated languages,
I don’t understand why anyone would want to use more of it.
Honestly though, VSCode hasn’t given me any problems in terms of memory usage,
so I’m wondering if it’s not so much a problem with Electron and possibly more a problem with some of the people using Electron writing bad code.
When using a dynamically typed scripting language,
it’s very easy to not realise how much memory you’re eating.
That sucks.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually met anyone who enjoys makefiles.
I’ve known plenty who actively hate them.
I think makefiles only cling on to their reign because they’re so commonly used,
and none of the attempted replacements have found enough support to take off.
I was looking to use Meson for a while, since it almost feels like Gradle (which is what I’m most used to with java) but then I also looked at using Gradle native plugin to do more cpp so… just a lot to look into.
But I think I’ll be content with eclipse and platformIo since it is pretty slick! The tools are much more convenient than atom too for me. And it is definitely faster lol…
When netbeans finally reintegrates the cpp support then I’ll try it in there since that’s my favorite ide.
In all honesty I’ve never used Gradle or Maven or Ant or anything like that.
I’ve never had more than a handful of libraries to juggle.
In C++ getting the linking settings right can be difficult,
but once you know how to link static libs it’s usually not too bad.
In C# it’s as easy as ‘right click, add reference’ (unless there’s a C/C++ .dll that needs to be incorporated, in which case getting the x86/x64 settings right can be tricky).
Personally I’m happy with syntax highlighting, a decent find & replace tool and ‘compile’ button.
“Go to definition” comes in handy too, but I don’t feel like I really need much else.
Automatic completion doesn’t really help me all that much,
I’ve gotten so used to writing code in situations where I don’t have autocomplete (e.g. on paper, in discourse comments) that I just write the whole word automatically.
I’ve heard that Atom is notably slow, even for an Electron program.
(E.g. this reddit and this reddit.)
Also, a comment on an issue on the Electron repo seems to confirm my suspicions about Atom possibly not being as well written:
Sublime text for example can, and probably does, do its own lay out and rendering of text into the window. Electron based apps could also do this by using the Canvas API or even WebGL, but generally they don’t.