While there are numerous differences between the two development tools, the big difference new developers should be made aware of is that BrainEngine provides 2 ways to perform Salesforce Development (Object Explorer and Metadata Explorer) whereas the Force.com IDE has one (Metadata).
In BrainEngine, the Object Explorer allows developers to directly save their changes to the server. Meaning no files are ever downloaded to your local machine and any changes made to any item (Class, Page, Component, or Trigger) is directly applied to the server. This functionality is very beneficial when:
- Working within your own personal developer instance
- The only developer working within a Sandbox or development environment
- The only person working on certain items within a development team.
- Not connected to Source Control. You can still use this functionality if connected to a Source Control system, but changes will have to be downloaded and then committed.
The Metadata Explorer functions very similar to the Force.com IDE. You have to download the Metadata into your workspace and the work on the files locally before applying the changes back to the server.
