JetBrains Rider vs. Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Rider
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
JetBrains supports .NET development with Rider, a .NET IDE based on the IntelliJ platform and ReSharper.
$14.90
per month per user
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, a text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.
$0
Pricing
JetBrains RiderMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Editions & Modules
For Individuals
$149
per year per user
dotUltimate for Individual
$169
per year per user
All Products Pack for Individuals
$289
per year per user
For Organizations
$419
per year per user
dotUltimate for Organizations
$469
per year per user
All Products Pack for Organizations
$779
per year per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
RiderMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsdotUltimate: All .NET tools, ReSharper C++ and JetBrains Rider, together in one pack
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
JetBrains RiderMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Considered Both Products
Rider
Chose JetBrains Rider
It’s a great free tool but not as enhanced as IntelliJ platform that JetBrains Rider has. Debugging and access to database is not as comfortable to use. Sure, you can save money on IDE, but may need to spend it on sleeping and stress relief pills.
Chose JetBrains Rider
It helps you develop and not have to think too much about some things because of the IntelliSense support for Unreal (that others don't have) and it has a quick search with multiple types as well. Visual code has an ok search, but no IntelliSense, Visual Studio has a slow …
Chose JetBrains Rider
JetBrains Rider provides better refactoring suggestions and support than Visual Studio, and uniquely, it provides specific recommendations for the Unity engine.
Chose JetBrains Rider
Rider (and the entire IntelliJ suite) has been my preferred IDE for years. Visual Studio is wonderful as well, but Rider just keeps ahead in the important features. More importantly, both IDEs provide healthy competition and I only see this getting better.

Compared to other …
Chose JetBrains Rider
Rider is hands down smoother and way less glitchy than Visual Studio Enterprise. There are way more refactoring capabilities and spell check so that your code is readable, maintainable, and easy to follow. Since Rider is cross-platform, our developers are no longer constrained …
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code stacks up well against these other products, and I selected it to use for various projects as it met our needs and did not require purchasing anything.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
JetBrains RiderMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Small Businesses
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.0 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.0 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Visual Studio
Visual Studio
Score 9.0 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
JetBrains RiderMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(6 ratings)
8.8
(89 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.4
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.7
(24 ratings)
User Testimonials
JetBrains RiderMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
JetBrains
Initially you may think it’s not worth paying and that there are better free options, which is definitely a lie we once tried to live with. It has everything you may ever need in .NET world, code analysis and debugging works super well and all the SQL/noSQL related integrations are just next level compared to the competition. It’s worth every penny.
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Microsoft
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is highly recommended for the development of systems and / or complex applications entrusted to work teams under a specific methodology, and its use is also recommended for the maintenance of previously developed applications.
It is not recommended as a learning environment for developers with little experience as the learning curve would be too high
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Pros
JetBrains
  • Provides a smooth, efficient IDE for developing .NET applications. Performance has been much better than Visual Studio in my experience.
  • Integrated refactoring tools are really comprehensive and useful.
  • Integrates with other JetBrains products such as TeamCity, Upsource, dotTrace, etc.
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Microsoft
  • Very accessible -- it's compatible with all platforms and environments, free to install, and fast to open
  • Strong native support for many languages, and very strong extensibility to provide advanced language features
  • Git integration is top-notch, often displaying a better history, diff, and merge interface that is otherwise available in version control systems
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Cons
JetBrains
  • Startup time. It takes a while to index big projects.
  • Rarely it loses the intellisense and the only way to get it back is by restarting.
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Microsoft
  • Lack of button bar like ones found in Visual Studio.
  • Lack of integrated help that could link to YouTube, Channel 9, or other Microsoft videos on how to learn about features.
  • Integration with Team Foundation Server.
  • Would like to see it having some sort of integration into a Web API testing harness.
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Likelihood to Renew
JetBrains
Due to the performance and productivity benefits we get with Rider, we will continue to use it for the foreseeable future.
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Microsoft
Solid tool that provides everything you need to develop most types of applications. The only reason not a 10 is that if you are doing large distributed teams on Enterprise level, Professional does provide more tools to support that and would be worth the cost.
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Usability
JetBrains
Rider is a great IDE with extensive C# refactoring support and .NET-specific knowledge. This is great for building .NET applications but for our purposes, the Unity specific suggestions are really helpful.
JetBrains Rider is great as an editing and debugging environment. It reliably connects to the Unity editor and allows debugging, which some IDEs are not as reliable at doing.
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Microsoft
This is a tool for programmers and it works like many others. If you are in the development world already then you will be sailing in no time with Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It is also great for new developers and it is very easy to use and you can get all the tools you need in one place as you begin to learn.
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Support Rating
JetBrains
The support forums and knowledge base are extensive and the JetBrains support staff respond quickly to new posts and help resolve issues. There is also a publicly accessible issue tracking system, which allows you to stay on top of any bug fixes or enhancement requests.
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Microsoft
Active development means filing a bug on the GitHub repo typically gets you a response within 4 days. There are plugins for almost everything you need, whether it be linting, Vim emulation, even language servers (which I use to code in Scala). There is well-maintained official documentation. The only thing missing is forums. The closest thing is GitHub issues, which typically has the answers but is hard to sift through -- there are currently 78k issues.
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Alternatives Considered
JetBrains
Rider is hands down smoother and way less glitchy than Visual Studio Enterprise. There are way more refactoring capabilities and spell check so that your code is readable, maintainable, and easy to follow. Since Rider is cross-platform, our developers are no longer constrained to only using Windows. We can now get a familiar development environment across Mac, Windows, or Linux!
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Microsoft
[Microsoft] Visual Studio Code beats the competition due to its extensibility. Their robust extensions architecture combined with the plethora of mostly free extensions written by the community can't be beaten. The fact that this tool itself is provided by a world-recognized company, Microsoft, free of charge is phenomenal. The goodwill garnered by them is immeasurable. Other tools I've used were missing features or were just too rigid, too complicated, or too unsophisticated for my liking. The fact that VS Code is easy to mold to my will with the right extensions seals the deal.
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Return on Investment
JetBrains
  • All people using the same IDE makes it much easier to ramp-up and collaborate
  • Development and maintainment can be done in a more efficient way
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Microsoft
  • Positive impact on minimizing time wasted by employees with software installation and setup
  • Positive impact on reducing spend on software licensing
  • Positive impact on minimizing time used to manage different applications for different purposes - this performs all of the functions we need in basic coding
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