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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Visual Studio Code

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft offers Visual Studio Code, an open source text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.

    $0

    Slack

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ASlack is a group messaging or team collaboration app that aims to simplify communication for businesses. Features include open discussions, private groups, and direct messaging, as well as deep contextual search and message archiving, and file sharing. Slack integrates with a number of other tools, such as MailChimp, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in December 2020. The product is free to use, and also has paid plans with more features and greater controls. The…

    $8.75

    per month per user

    Pricing
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Free
    $0
    Pro
    $7.25*
    per month per user
    Business+
    $12.50*
    per month per user
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—*Per active user, per month, when paying once a year. Pro is $8.75 USD per active user when paying month to month. Business+ is $15.00 USD per active user when paying month to month.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    While Sublime Text, another free alternative, is faster and snappier than Code, the extensions that are available on it are sub-par (it doesn't even have an official extension store). This makes using it for any serious work unpleasant, at least to me.

    IntelliJ's dedicated IDEs …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    Microsoft Visual Studio Code does everything better than the previously mentioned software; it improves visual code and overall application visualization. It is easy to use as everything is at hand with shortcuts allowing to improve development time. It is so lightweight that …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    Purely on the fact that support and having the app frequently updated alone makes this worthwhile over the others. Some of them also do share the ease of installation, but Microsoft Visual Studio Code has all the common pro points and more, making it a natural selection.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    I used Sublime Text in my introductory years for its syntax highlighting and some customization support. Atom quickly grew to a more powerful IDE with their ability for extensions so that was an easy change. I found that Atom didn't run as reliably as I had hoped, and had …
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    In my opinion, VS Code is the best option for coding. It works on Windows, GNU/Linux, and macOS. Moreover, there's a great team/community behind the scene to maintain this program.
    Incentivized
    Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    As a long-time former Eclipse user, Visual Studio Code feels like a breath of fresh air. It's modern, fast, and lightweight. Eclipse feels big, bloated, and slow. I've occasionally had issues with my Eclipse installation becoming corrupted, or had plugin compatibility issues …
    Incentivized
    Salesforce
    Chose Slack
    Slack's interface is very friendly in comparison to something like Discord, which feels very 'tech'. There's a place for both, of course. But in terms of a friendly, open feel, Slack does not feel as daunting as some of the competitors. For task management, while something like …
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    our team's current non-Microsoft(Google) tech stack, hard-coded into our workflow. It's infinitely more customizable than Teams, easily meeting our requirements. Additionally, Slack has unlimited external users, whereas Teams has limitation, so Slack is the obvious choice for …
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    Slack is better in all aspects such as I can join channels related to my specific role, projects, or interests. I can communicate with colleagues, share updates, and ask questions. I can attach documents, images, or code snippets to conversations. I can contribute to ongoing …
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    Good User interface, feels easy to use
    Easy to open a thread and have a discussion with rich text editing
    Integrations are good, helps to check the status of many entities from single place
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    Slack is another level. It integrates well with a great variety of third-party services. The huddle feature is great for starting a discussion quickly. The way channels and messages are organized is better.
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    Slack has great UI, high usability, and great integrations. I have not felt anything else even remotely closer to the quality of Slack.
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    It depends on the company size, if the company is small its better to use other messengers which are more lean and simple, slack in my opinion is very useful once you can use all of it's benefits as an integration with the other services which are very strong, we have …
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    In Slack it is easy to backtrack to older conversation people had when you're no the part of the channel. Also the sync-to-device from PC and mobile app is very good.
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    Discord is highly functional and has very good support for voice and video chat. However, Discord feels aimed more at actively getting people together on the app itself. Discord wants you to be there with everyone, while Slack wants you to keep in touch. Discord feels like it's …
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    Microsoft Teams is mostly for working in development teams and really not suitable as normal day to day messaging/collaboration tool.
    Skype for Business is reliable but not suitable for code management and has very high costs for movement to cloud.
    Cisco Teams is mostly suited …
    Incentivized
    Chose Slack
    You can have multiple teams for a single user account. Most of times will use only one team, though, with multiple channels within it for further discussion levels. Slack permits a lot of third-party service integration.
    You can fine-tune notifications to only send you an alert …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    70 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    503 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    69 Answers
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    426 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    70 Answers
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    510 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    50 Answers
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    295 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    63 Answers
    99%
    Implementation went as expected
    330 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Slack
    Feature
    Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    -
    Ratings
    Slack
    7.9
    628 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Task Management00 Ratings7.6430 Ratings
    Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.961 Ratings
    Scheduling00 Ratings7.8363 Ratings
    Workflow Automation00 Ratings8.0396 Ratings
    Mobile Access00 Ratings9.4601 Ratings
    Search00 Ratings8.2608 Ratings
    Visual planning tools00 Ratings7.3275 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Slack
    Feature
    Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    -
    Ratings
    Slack
    8.7
    636 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Chat00 Ratings9.6635 Ratings
    Notifications00 Ratings8.7632 Ratings
    Discussions00 Ratings9.2620 Ratings
    Surveys00 Ratings8.1413 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings7.8412 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings8.9110 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings8.7182 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings8.9120 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Slack
    Feature
    Microsoft Visual Studio Code
    -
    Ratings
    Slack
    8.4
    603 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Versioning00 Ratings8.2326 Ratings
    Video files00 Ratings8.2541 Ratings
    Audio files00 Ratings8.4527 Ratings
    Document collaboration00 Ratings7.9429 Ratings
    Access control00 Ratings8.3411 Ratings
    Advanced security features00 Ratings8.3362 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings9.0211 Ratings
    Device sync00 Ratings9.0455 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Small Businesses
    BBEdit
    Score10 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Vim
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (104 ratings)
    9.1
    (639 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.4
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (25 ratings)
    Usability
    9.4
    (21 ratings)
    9.0
    (255 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.7
    (23 ratings)
    10.0
    (68 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (5 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft Visual Studio CodeSlack
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    As a general workhorse IDE, Microsoft Visual Studio Codee is unmatched. Building on the early success of applications such as Atom, it has long been the standard for electron based IDEs. It can be outshone using IDEs that are dedicated to particular platforms, such as Microsoft Visual Studio Code for .net and the Jetbrains IDEs for Java, Python and others. For remote collaborative development, something like Zed is ahead of VSCode live share, which can be quite flakey.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    Slack is ideal for Scrum and agile teams that need continuous communication during sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog refinement, testing, and retrospectives. Slack is well-suited for maintaining team knowledge through searchable conversations and dedicated channels, where experienced team members help onboard new QA analysts.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Integrate with the git repository very well.
    • Integrated copilot chat is very helpful to write code snippets and helps beginners to start with coding and development.
    • Great library of available extensions is one of the best features in Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
    • Dedicated Testing option to configure pytest and others are quite handy to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    • Customer issues: Threads feature allows us to group a particular issue in a single thread and discuss within that thread. I can use the thread link to embed in JIRA ticket for tracking progress in JIRA (which is our details engineering tracking system).
    • Ability to add folder to Slack channel helps keep important information, documents easily accessible. e.g., we use this to keep a "ramp up" folder that can be used by any new joiner.
    • Global search is effective when I forget which group a particular message was in.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • The customization of key combinations should be more accessible and easier to change
    • The auxiliary panels could be minimized or as floating tabs which are displayed when you click on them
    • A monitoring panel of resources used by Microsoft Visual Studio Code or plugins and extensions would help a lot to be able to detect any malfunction of these
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    • Would love a better integration with GitHub. For example, notifications when your PR is updated, when review is requested, @-mention in comments, etc.
    • Improved "Later" tab, for example the ability to create to-do lists or making the "Later" tab into a more powerful to-do list (annotate items with notes)
    • More powerful integrations, e.g. Google Calendar could render a calendar view within Slack, rather than sending the daily schedule
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    To be more transparent, I give 10 because Slack serves our collaboration needs. It provide us a good platform for team communication relaying important update within the company, it has even mobile app where you can install in your phone to monitor any updates within that team that needs your immediate attention and intervention.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Visual Studio Code earns a 10 for its exceptional balance of power and simplicity. Its intuitive interface, robust extension ecosystem, and integrated terminal streamline development. With seamless Git integration and highly customizable settings, it adapts perfectly to any workflow, making complex coding tasks feel effortless for beginners and experts alike.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    Slack has good usability. Devs that are not familiar with the platform are able to jump into conversations and start sharing code and links within just minutes. Non developers are also able to understand the layout such as the Project Managers that are keeping the projects on track. We have not seen any tickets where employees are having trouble understanding Slack.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    Overall, Microsoft Visual Studio Code is pretty reliable. Every so often, though, the app will experience an unexplained crash. Since it is a stand-alone app, connectivity or service issues don't occur in my experience. Restarting the app seems to always get around the problem, but I do make sure to save and backup current work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    Yes, the app works 24/7. I don't even recall having any period that we could not use since the implementation. Even the maintenance periods are barely noticeable and our work is not impacted by it when it happens.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Microsoft
    Microsoft Visual Studio Code is pretty snappy in performance terms. It launches quickly, and tasks are performed quickly. I don't have a lot of integrations other than CoPilot, but I suspect that if the integration partner is provisioned appropriately that any performance impact would be pretty minimal. It doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles (unless you start adding plugins left and right).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    Slack is a soft app, we don't have many issues with it. I recall one or two people complaining about something during our usage period, but I didn't have a bad experience. When the app is slow, usually the problem is with my computer or my internet. The app works just fine.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    Whenever I've had to troubleshoot an issue with Slack (which, to be honest, has not happened very often), their online documentation has been easy to locate, easy to understand, and effective in resolving my issue. Slack's ever-growing popularity also means that there's a large community of practice out there that can be depended upon.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    I was not part of the implementation team, but I recall being 100% happy and excited to learn and use a new tool. I'm still am to be honest.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Visual Studio Code stacks up nicely against Visual Studio because of the price and because it can be installed without admin rights. We don't exclusively use Visual Studio Code, but rather use Visual Studio and Visual Studio code depending on the project and which version of source control the given project is wired up to.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    I like Slack better than ClickUp, because I would spend 30-60 minutes a day updating my ClickUp tasks. The way ClickUp was used was very micromanaging. I billed by the hour, so I was willing to put in the time to alert the boss what tasks I was working on.
    One of my jobs used Hive - I mostly just ran it in the background in case anyone messaged me. I did not use it often.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Microsoft
    It is easily deployed with our Jamf Pro instance. There is actually very little setup involved in getting the app deployed, and it is fairly well self-contained and does not deploy a large amount of associated files. However, it is not particularly conducive to large project, multi-developer/department projects that involve some form of central integration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Saves money by replacing suites of tools such as Visual Studio, IntelliJ, etc.
    • Speeds development time and developer environment setup time
    • Strengthens code quality with integrated autoformatting and linting
    • Strengths Git practices by keeping version control tightly connected with the code
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    • Slack has been incredibly helpful in connecting various tech apps and ecosystems, creating a more streamlined and responsive process.
    • Slack has made it significantly easier to communicate with our team members across multiple time zones, creating a more engaging environment for our all-remote team.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots