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IBM watsonx Code Assistant Portfolio vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM watsonx Code Assistant Portfolio

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AIBM watsonx Code Assistant is a family of domain-specific AI Code Assistants & Agentic IDEs built on IBM Granite foundation models. The product portfolio provides targeted generative code recommendation, refactoring, and application modernization capabilities across enterprise domain environments, including IT automation infrastructure and mainframe enterprise systems. Note: IBM is progressively transitioning its domain-specific watsonx Code Assistant tooling into IBM Bob, a unified agentic…N/A

    Visual Studio

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AVisual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.

    $45

    per month

    Pricing
    IBM watsonx Code Assistant PortfolioVisual Studio
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Professional
    $45.00
    per month
    Enterprise
    $250.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM watsonx Code Assistant PortfolioVisual Studio
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM watsonx Code Assistant PortfolioVisual Studio
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    85%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    40 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    32 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    36 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    IBM watsonx Code Assistant PortfolioVisual Studio
    Small Businesses
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    IntelliJ IDEA
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    PyCharm
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    WebStorm
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM watsonx Code Assistant PortfolioVisual Studio
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.5
    (10 ratings)
    9.1
    (118 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (15 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (15 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM watsonx Code Assistant PortfolioVisual Studio
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    I would recommend for understanding your Mainframe components not for the GenAI piece involved from just my experience. The explanations were not up to the quality we wanted but its deterministic side provided a lot of value for different members of my team. The visuals would be great. I am not sure where it currently stands
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    When working with base C# code for desktop and web projects, then Microsoft Visual Studio is ideal as it provides the libraries and interfaces needed to quickly create, test and deploy solutions. It is when slightly more complex scenarios are required that issues can arise. The built-in integration for things like PowerBI Paginated Reports and dashboards is far from ideal.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    IBM
    • It can automatically revamp specific parts of the COBOL code and very useful when we want to maintain the existing codebase but improve its structure. I can highlight a block of COBOL code and use Watsonx Assistant to suggest ways to simplify and optimize it.
    • Legacy codes, mostly written in COBOL, are cryptic and difficult to understand. Watsonx Assistant analyzes the code and provides insights into its functionalities and dependencies. A great help when working on older applications where understanding the codebase is crucial.
    • A step-by-step approach to modernize our applications slowly and steadily, so that we can control the process better. I don't have to change everything at once. Instead, I can focus on specific COBOL modules and automatically convert them to Java.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • I like how the tabs and panels are organized; everything is gathered together so you can find what you're looking for quickly.
    • If you can't find something, there's a thorough search engine that searches all of Visual Studio's features.
    • The Team Foundation Server feature is fantastic since it allows us to easily deploy and roll back changes on the server.
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • IDE integration is not always optimal
    • I wish it could it could generate the code of an entire WEB site based on user specifications
    • I with there was a functionality to generate code based on design documents such as Sequence Diagrams, Database Architecture etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Would be great if there was a better way to save and restore open tabs.
    • The built-in test runner can be improved, for example, by adding the ability to save a set of commonly run tests, etc.
    • Better integration for Microsoft SQL server would be great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    I love the overall usability of Microsoft Visual Studio. I’ve been using this IDE for more than 20 years, and I’ve seen it evolve by leaps and bounds. Today, with AI and code-suggestion/completion features, developers no longer need to remember countless libraries, methods, or language syntax, or invest a huge amount of programming effort to complete a project. It truly offers everything a developer needs to program, debug, test, and deploy in a single IDE.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    There are many resources available supporting Visual Studio IDE. Microsoft whitepapers, forum posts, and online Visual Studio documentation. There are countless demonstration videos available, as well. If users are having issues, they can call Microsoft Support, but depending on the company's agreement with Microsoft, the number of included support calls will vary from organization to organization. I've found that Microsoft support calls can be hit or miss depending on who you get, but they can usually get you with the right support person for your issue.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    IT is very complicated to understand all the functions that the environment has if you are not familiar with this type of development environments. It is important to select a good in-person training to achieve to understand all the possibilities and the capacity of the application. In this case, you will be able to develop a lot type of different applications.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    If you are not accustomed to develop in this type of development environments it would be complicated to follow all the parts of the course because if the course does not include a great tour with all the concepts to develop you will not have the option to understand all the functions.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    Security is very important in the mainframe world. At Watsonx, we work in the trusted Z environment, which has strong security rules, stricter than those of other cloud-based solutions. My domain is primarily mainframe modernization and Watsonx Code Assistant for Z is specifically used to understand and work with COBOL, the language used majorly in mainframe environments, not any general-purpose language that used in various platforms. It understands the nuances of COBOL and Assembler specific to the Z environment, something crucial for my work.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, quality testing and gives features to extract TRX file as result of testing which includes all the summary of each test case.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • While manual review and adjustments are still needed, it's a 50-70% reduction in manual coding. Think about it - a project estimated to take a year is done in 4-6 months.
    • We've been able to introduce new features and improvements more quickly by updating our technology faster. One relevant example is we recently released an important update to our main product 45 days earlier than planned.
    • It has been a smart move and it's really paid off for our company. We've cut down a lot of time we used to spend doing things manually. We now spend our resources more wisely, work faster and finish projects sooner and as a result, we've reduced our development costs by 25%.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Using the integration between Visual Studio and our source control service, the cost of re-work and losing code is drastically reduced.
    • Paid versions of Visual Studio enable developers to be so much more productive than hacked-together open source solutions that it's hard to imagine developing in Windows without it.
    • When combined with support subscriptions and the vast array of free online help options available, Visual Studio saves our developers time by keeping them coding and testing, not wasting their time trying to guess their way out of problems or spend endless hours online hoping to find answers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM watsonx Code Assistant Portfolio Screenshots

    Screenshot of Flexibility to deploy large language model either on-premises or as-a-service