I think the difference is that when you start out with VSCode, you tend to do things by editing text and using the CLI, and with time you add plugins and tools that makes it more into an IDE. When starting out with IntelliJ or Pycharm or whatever, you first start by trying to understand the IDE itself to generate your project, and then you start writing code inside the project. A bit like libraries and frameworks. At least that has been my experience.