Mapbox vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Mapbox
Score 9.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Mapbox is the location data platform for developers building custom geospatial features into mobile, web, and on-premise applications.
$0
per month
Visual Studio
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Visual 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
MapboxMicrosoft Visual Studio
Editions & Modules
Starting Price
$0.00
Per 1000 users
Professional
$45.00
per month
Enterprise
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MapboxVisual Studio
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDesigned for businesses of all sizes, Mapbox is free to start building with and offers free tiers for most products. As usage grows, volume pricing is applied automatically, no negotiation necessary. Pricing is based either on pay-as-you-go usage or negotiated sales contracts that unlock additional discounts for annual commitments. Paid support plans are also available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
MapboxMicrosoft Visual Studio
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
MapboxMicrosoft Visual Studio
Small Businesses
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.2 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.2 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.2 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
MapboxMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
9.8
(7 ratings)
9.2
(104 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(15 ratings)
User Testimonials
MapboxMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
Mapbox
For services that require maps and basic geo-functionality in production, Mapbox is one of the greatest choices out there. They're free, provide much more refined/modern productions compared to Google maps, and have very good support on different platforms. For services that require higher-computation products, like matrix routing, optimization, etc..., the prices can get quite high very quickly, and you should consider moving those services to an on-premise server at that point.
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Microsoft
It's useful for app development, debugging, and testing. I've been using it for two years and have seen it grow into a fantastic tool. All of the features, NuGet packages, and settings that enable different types of projects are fantastic. It also has a connection to Azure DevOps and Git. It's a fantastic product that's simple to use.
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Pros
Mapbox
  • Documentation is clean, easy to read, and very well organized which makes it easy to get going or learn something new
  • The online user interface makes it quick and easy to edit maps, upload new datasets, view analytics, or get API keys
  • Great integrations with Tableau and easy to develop for Android, iOS, or Web
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Microsoft
  • Since Microsoft offers a free Community Edition of the IDE many of our new developers have used it at home or school and are very familiar with the user interface, requiring little training to move up to the paid, enterprise-friendly editions we use.
  • The online community support for Visual Studio is outstanding, as solid or better than any other commercial or open-source project software.
  • Microsoft continuously keeps the product up to date and has maintained a history of doing so. They use it internally for their own development so there is little chance it will ever fall out of favor and become unsupported.
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Cons
Mapbox
  • The product is not always that easy to use, aimed at professionals understanding colors and palettes etc.
  • Being a full cloud product it can be complicated working with the interface when your connectivity is not great.
  • Tutorials and samples could be more visual and could cover more ideas on how to use Mapbox.
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Microsoft
  • Certain settings and features can sometimes be challenging to locate. The interface isn't always intuitive.
  • Sometimes there are too many ways to do the same thing. For example, users can quickly add a new workspace in Source Control Explorer when a local path shows as "Not Mapped," but it doesn't indicate that the user might want to check the dropdown list of workspaces. The shortcut of creating a new workspace by clicking on the "Not Mapped" link can lead to developers creating too many workspaces and causing workspace management to become unwieldy. If the shortcut link were removed, the user would be forced to use the Workspace dropdown. While it can add an extra step to the process, workspaces would be managed more easily, and this would enforce consistency. At the very least, there should be a high-level administrative setting to hide the shortcut link.
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Likelihood to Renew
Mapbox
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.
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Usability
Mapbox
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
The thing I like the most is Visual Studio doesn't suffer from Microsoft's over eager marketing department who feel they need to redesign the UI (think Office and windows) which forces users to loose large amounts of productivity having to learn software that they had previously known.
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Support Rating
Mapbox
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Between online forums like StackOverflow, online documentation, MSDN forums, and the customer support options, I find it very easy to get support for Visual Studio IDE when I need it. If desired, one can also download the MSDN documentation about the IDE and have it readily available for any support needs.
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Alternatives Considered
Mapbox
One feature that made me go in favor of Mapbox was its stellar documentation. Google Maps and Bing Maps are the other alternatives I considered, but the learning curve with both of them is steeper than it is with Mapbox. Also, Mapbox Studio gives newbies a very simple, clean and easy to use environment to make and store maps online
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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.
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Return on Investment
Mapbox
  • Mapbox is the only service that has all the products we need to release our product to the market. Without Mapbox, we would've spent far more time integrating multiple different map/geo services like Mapbox and HERE maps together.
  • Mapbox was sometimes expensive in the testing period, and we would've definitely moved some of the services on-premise to save money if we had the time.
  • Mapbox has functionality for traffic-aware routing in many countries, as well as matrix-structured routing data, which is what enables our service to function. Having all of this integrated within an API allows us to easily scale our service to multiple different cities/countries in a matter of days.
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Microsoft
  • We've had hundreds of hours saved by the rapid development that Visual Studio provides.
  • We've lost some time in the Xamarin updates. However, being cross platform, we ultimately saved tons of time not having to create separate apps for iOS and Android.
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ScreenShots

Mapbox Screenshots

Screenshot of Customized maps and location experiences can be developed for any application, across platforms.Screenshot of Unique maps can be designed to match a brand and engage its audiences.Screenshot of Mapbox for EV and other Mapbox Automotive products are used to build tailored navigation experiences both in-vehicle and in companion apps for drivers.Screenshot of Mapbox Search products support address search and address forms for website and applications.Screenshot of Mapbox Navigation products serve every stage of business logistics, fleet managers, and delivery companies.Screenshot of With Mapbox Globe view, interactive maps can be presented.