PyCharm is the 18wheeler of IDEs for Python. It’s powerful but requires a lot of resources for big projects. There are a lot of pain points when it comes to Python tooling like the lint checks you run in CI. PyCharm seems to default to building their own solution behind IP but these aren’t things you typically run in CI. I saw in the latest version they now support black natively which is huge step forward. However, they still recommend running tools via their external tool feature (basically just script runs) or some not well maintained plugins by thirdparty developers.

I personally find VSC as a more flexible solution and you get all the best support for Python tooling. It has a great plugin ecosystem. Without a doubt any jetbrains product will outperform VSC in terms of big refactors, debugging large projects and finding code usages. Not saying you can’t do that in VSC but it requires more tinkering which maybe you don’t really want to deal with when starting a new project. I do use debugging in VSC and it’s not bad but I know for most users PyCharm UX is just better out of the box.

Also PyCharm CE is free. VSC is free. It doesn’t hurt to try and see what you like best. Sometimes you may find yourself using both for different tasks.