Though Inconsolata was inspired by Consolas, I wouldn't consider it all that similar. For example, the digits in Inconsolata are much closer to the Franklin Gothic model. Also, Consolas has excellent hinting for Windows, while Inconsolata was originally designed with no hinting at all. They're not drop-in replacements.
Seconded, Inconsolata at small sizes looks awful on Windows.
I'm surprised that so many of these 'programming' fonts do not have dotted or slashed zeros. For a programming font, that's a must-have requirement for me. I edited Droid Sans Mono, so that its zero had a slash, and now I use it as my go-to font for all my IDEs and terminals. However after browsing this lot, I'm tempted to give Go Font a try.
Although Consolas is beautiful on Windows (and is one of my favourite monospace fonts), Inconsolata for me looks very good on Windows 10 (as I remember it didn't quite look as good on Windows 7). In fact, because the font is slightly thicker at lower font sizes, I find it easier to see and use -- so it's currently my default font in PuTTY and VS Code, for instance.
