Microsoft Visual Studio Code vs. Vim

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, an open source text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.N/A
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Vim (Vi IMproved) is a highly configurable, free to download and use, Modal Text Editor derived from the classic Unix vi editor. It is designed for terminal-based and graphical text manipulation, prioritizing keyboard-centric efficiency and high-fidelity control over source code and configuration files.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeVim
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeVim
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsVim is available as a free download.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeVim
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
I also used sublime and notepad++.
compared to them, Microsoft Visual Studio Code provide better balance between performance, features, and flexibility. Its lightweight like sublime text but offer more features and many extension support.
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is free, …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
The licensing of the IntelliJ IDEs is prohibitive, I cannot be sure that I can continue to leverage them as I move between clients.

Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
I use Microsoft Visual Studio Code instead of Visual Studio because Microsoft Visual Studio Code supports PowerShell natively.
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Those are agentic IDEs, a fork of VSCode, but Visual Studio Code is used for inferior hardware and has fewer features, whereas others have more features but can't be used on those devices. So, it's the POV of the machine's config: which IDE should be used? If it has a good …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
As described earlier, for low overhead projects, Microsoft Visual Studio Code does a great job of getting you in and out, all the way down as far as launch time for the app and compile time. Xcode is really feature heavy, but that makes learning how to use it a task of its …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a great competitor to all the IDEs listed above. The vast range of extensions is a strength of the Microsoft Visual Studio Code ecosystem. Integration of Copilot is another add-on, which makes development and debugging very easy and …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
It is easy to use, has strong community support and add-ons, and lets you organize files in different languages in an easy-to-use, collaborative environment. The main reason I use it is its easy integration with Git and Jupyter notebooks.
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
NetBeans and Anaconda
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
As mentioned before, IDE's can be excellent with one thing, and the company we do a lot of things, so it's kind of annoying to have multiple programs, heavy ones to open your work, so just use one, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, personalize thanks to extensions, and you are …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code offers a wide variety of addons for supporting most scripting and programming languages. In contrast, Power Automate differs from the tools we need for our business task automation. We were told to use Power Automate, but it couldn't meet our …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code happened to be the easiest, fastest and more extendible between the tested IDEs, making it our to-go choice
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Notepad++ is a great tool, but has most of the power tips and tools of notepad++ are available into Microsoft Visual Studio Code I use less and less notepad++. It's more easier to "stay" into Microsoft Visual Studio Code, open a new window do my stuff and go for the next task.
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
The other IDE that I use is Eclipse. Comparing both, Microsoft Visual Studio Code it clearly wins in resource consuming. I can have open many instances of Microsoft Visual Studio Code and the memory ram usage it doesn't go very high. Another point where I prefer Microsoft …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code provides more flexibility and supports easy integration to different platforms (including cloud). It is more modular and lighter application as compared to other integrated development environments. Microsoft Visual Studio Code is easy to learn and …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
prior to Visual Studio Code, I was using sublime text, which was not the most effective in terms of third-party libraries and complex debugging, so I switched to Visual Studio Code where I got a positive as a developer. it is having all the features and third-party libraries to …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Far better than eclipse IDE. Eclipse takes so much space, and it is slow. Whereas Vs Code IDE is so fast and having good UI as compared to Eclipse. I help to work efficiently and is also highlight the syntax in good way by recommending in editor. Microsoft Visual Studio Code …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio code UI is very handy.
Extension feasibility is good
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
1. More features compared to Notepad++ 2. fast performance compare to Android Studio 3.More and usefull extensions then other two 4. Easy to use and everyone can start using it instantly 5. Version Control system is top notch 6.If you start using it , you will forget other ides …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a combined form of the above-mentioned products i.e. one product, many applications. Eclipse is suitable for java development, PyCharm is mainly for Python development whereas Android Studio is for Android applications development but in …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
It has some much more functionality than Notepad++, all the addons make editing scripts a breeze
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft VS Code is extremely customizable with needs. So, features like syntax highlighting, bracket-matching, auto-indentation, well-integrated terminal, and side-by-side editing are powerful. Even these features are given free with Microsoft VS code. Pycharm and Webstorm …
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
It has [the] right balance of solutions for [a] wide range of problems. Atom or Notepad++ are lighter but [have fewer] features, [Microsoft] Visual Studio [Code] is full of features but [a] tad heavier.
Chose Microsoft Visual Studio Code
I think VS Code is much better as compared to all the tools mentioned above. Just waiting for its support for iOS and Android development.
currently, it misses support for them. That's where you will require Xcode and Android Studio.
Vim
Chose Vim
Notepad++, while being a great editor, is very easy to get familiar with. However, being a serious developer, having the most efficient tool is much more important than having an easy tool. Vim’s speed is very much faster than that of notepad++. Moreover, the amount of plugins …
Chose Vim
I prefer Vim simply because it's as simple as apps like Notepad, Notepad++, or gedit, but as feature rich as Microsoft Visual Studio. The startup time is quick, the response time is quick, it never freezes. Vim always "just works." Vim can be downloaded in a few seconds (if …
Chose Vim
I spent some time learning emacs at one point and found it to have a much larger surface area of required knowledge before being productive. They are similar in that the interface is somewhat "hidden" behind keybindings and commands, but Vim's modal model makes more sense to me …
Chose Vim
I think it comes down to usability (and frankly, just preference). There's an old adage that Emacs is a good Operating System with a poor Text Editor!

Jokes aside, when looking at different text editors, such as Emacs or Nano, Vim is the one that is usually always preferred …
Chose Vim
It is hard to compare Vim to many other packages in the developer's stack of tools. It mainly does one thing, edit text, and does it better than anything else. For instance, you can't really compare it to Visual Studio Code because VS actually has a Vim plug-in so you can …
Chose Vim
Vim is a text editor that strives for simplicity. It does that well, but when you need something at the next level, take a look at the above two. Visual Studio Code is a fantastic, free code editor that makes most of my workflow easy.
Chose Vim
Vim's keybindings are a lot more complex than Notepad++. With that, comes a whole bunch of capability that Notepad++ just can't match. Emacs is comparable, in terms of capabilities--because Vim is built into so many unix systems, I chose to learn it instead of Emacs. Knowing …
Chose Vim
I use Vim for specific use cases and others for their own purposes but all of them are being used at my work every day. Vim has its pros like it's free/open source, has a mouse free interface, is lightweight and fast, and once learned is hard to forget.
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeVim
Small Businesses
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 10.0 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeVim
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Visual Studio CodeVim
Likelihood to Recommend
For low-end devices, it is a very good tool, but for devices that have decent RAM and decent CPU, I would recommend Android Studio for Android dev as it has more features, and for others, I will recommend agile IDEs like Cursor and Anti-Gravity, as they offer higher limits on AI models, and autocomplete is unlimited as well.
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If you're doing any sort of text editing, you should consider Vim--once you climb the learning curve, you'll be faster and more efficient at everything you do. Also, Vim is my default search/replace tool--whenever I need to make changes throughout a document, most often, I'll copy and paste into a Vim window so that I can take advantage of regexp-based replacements. Vim isn't for the faint of heart, though--it's hard to learn and super complex. If you use a text editor once or twice a month, or just need a simple way to strip out formatting, Notepad will get you where you want to go without all the confusion.
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Pros
  • 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.
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  • The efficient modal editing makes it very fast to write/edit code as I think of it.
  • The customization and wide range of plugins let me do very specific things and automate parts of my workflow.
  • The fact that it runs inside a terminal simplifies my window management and just becomes another Tmux window in my workflow.
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Cons
  • 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
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  • Without a doubt the hardest program to learn. It is a completely different paradigm of thinking compared to other editors
  • By default it doesn't have lots of fancy features you would find in larger IDE programs like code completion and linking
  • It lives in the command line so a user has to be comfortable with this interface
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Likelihood to Renew
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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No answers on this topic
Usability
I rate Microsoft Visual Studio Code 9 out of 10 because it is best editor tool for development work. It has clean and simple interface. We can easily access the file navigation, search, git integration and extensions. It support multiple languages. overall it is very user friendly and works well for both new and experienced developers.
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I don't consider the steep learning curve to be a hinderance on the overall usability. I would rate this a ten, but to be honest a lot of people do get hung up at the beginning and just abandon it. However, for people who have made the moderate effort to get over the hump, nothing can be more usable.
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Reliability and Availability
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.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
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).
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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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The support is somewhat lacking; Vim doesn't really have support outside of its forums. The forums, while notably good, aren't equal to real support though, and the steep learning curve makes you wish there was a help desk that would assist with all of the basic questions. There are several handy books and guides that can be found, and most implementations of the product come with "vitutor" which walks you through its usage.
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Alternatives Considered
The licensing of the IntelliJ IDEs is prohibitive, I cannot be sure that I can continue to leverage them as I move between clients.
Zed while interesting doesn't have the market or mindshare to be a daily driver working as part of a team. I wouldn't be able to benefit from many of the day to day automations and findings that the team invents during the course of delivery.
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I think it comes down to usability (and frankly, just preference). There's an old adage that Emacs is a good Operating System with a poor Text Editor! Jokes aside, when looking at different text editors, such as Emacs or Nano, Vim is the one that is usually always preferred because of how simple it is to learn. The learning curve of Vim compared to other text editors just makes it such a natural choice.
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Scalability
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.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • It's one more development environment to learn - Negative
  • It facilitates using Windows programmer resources on macOS projects - Positive
  • It is fairly quick to learn, less time spent in training and skill development - Positive
  • Integration with Copilot promotes "vibe coding" - Both Positive and Negative
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  • Steep learning curve means lower than average efficiency at the beginning.
  • After getting familiar, it is so efficient that you will never want to use other editors.
  • Good return on investment for serious editor/developers, may not be good for casual ones.
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ScreenShots