What's the difference between working in the Claude app, Claude Code, and an IDE
By Andrew Bailiff ยท November 11, 2026 ยท Curated by George's Blog
What's the difference between working in the Claude app, Claude Code, and an IDE?
If you're like, "What's an IDE?" keep reading.
I'm not an AI expert. I know Amazon ads, and I've been doing it for 7 years. Every day, I meet with brands and agencies from all over the world; we've got over 6,500 advertisers on our platform, so I inevitably see a lot of different day-to-day AI workflows people use.
Most people I talk to still work in the desktop app, and they use it at different levels.
Some use it like Google: maybe copy in some data or ask a simple question. Others connect a couple of tools via MCP. And then there are people way smarter than me with super technical setups that I learn from.
It all works. But one setup blew my mind the first time I tried it.
๐จ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐๐ธ๐๐ผ๐ฝ ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฝ, ๐ ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ผ ๐น๐ถ๐บ๐ถ๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐:
๐น A new ChatGPT model drops, and I want to try it, but it has none of my context or settings
๐น I have multiple email accounts, and the desktop app only connects to one
๐น I run out of credits and switch to one of my other 3 subscriptions, but all my context is stuck in the main one
๐น Tasks are spread across a bunch of separate sessions and projects, so finding files takes too long
๐น Different models are good at different things - I want to use the best model for the task
That's where Claude Code comes in. Same Claude, but it lives in a folder on your computer. It remembers how you do things, saves every session, and runs your processes the way you want, the same way each time.
And because all of that lives in a folder, not in one app or a single account, I can switch models or subscriptions and pick up right where I left off.
And the IDE (Integrated Development Environment)? It's just the environment you run it in. It's mostly just preference. But it opened up a whole new layer of flexibility. Your folders on one side, your AI chat on the other, and you can work on your files and manage your agents all in one place.
That switch is how I now do most of my day-to-day Amazon ads management via chat.
If you're trying to figure out where to start with AI and want to hear a few things I've learned this year, we're going live on ๐ง๐ต๐๐ฟ๐๐ฑ๐ฎ๐, ๐ก๐ผ๐ ๐ญ๐ต ๐ฎ๐ ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐บ ๐๐ง to walk you through setting up your ๐๐ ๐๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฑ๐ ๐ข๐ฆ.
Free. 60 minutes. And we're giving away our ๐๐น๐ฎ๐๐ฑ๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฒ ๐ฆ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐ถ๐ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐๐บ๐ฎ๐๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฑ๐ near the end - show up to get it!
Link in the comments ๐