Syncfusion Essential Studio vs. Microsoft Visual Studio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Syncfusion Essential Studio
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Since 2002, Essential Studio® has supported the development of software applications across industries and economic sectors, in both public and private enterprises.
$0
*The Syncfusion Essential Studio Community License includes free access to all 1,600+ controls and is available to companies and individuals with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue, 5 or fewer developers, and 10 or fewer total employees. Note: An entity or organization may not have ever received more than $3,000,000 USD in capital from an outside source, such as private equity or venture capital, in order to be eligible for the Community License.
Visual Studio
Score 8.7 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
Syncfusion Essential StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio
Editions & Modules
1. Syncfusion Essential Studio Community License
$0
*The Syncfusion Essential Studio Community License includes free access to all 1,600+ controls and is available to companies and individuals with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue, 5 or fewer developers, and 10 or fewer total employees. Note: An entity or organization may not have ever received more than $3,000,000 USD in capital from an outside source, such as private equity or venture capital, in order to be eligible for the Community License.
2. Essential Studio UI Edition
Custom Quote
per year Packages to suit teams of all sizes
3. Essential Studio Document SDK
Custom Quote
per year Packages to suit teams of all sizes
5. Essential Studio Standalone Document SDKs
Custom Quote
per year PDF Viewer SDK; DOCX Editor SDK; Spreadsheet Editor SDK
4. Essential Studio Standalone UI SDKs
Custom Quote
per year Grid SDK*; Chart SDK*; Schedular SDK; Gantt SDK; Rich Text Editor SDK; Diagram SDK; File Manager SDK*
Professional
$45.00
per month
Enterprise
$250.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Syncfusion Essential StudioVisual Studio
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details*Grid SDK, Chart SDK, and File Manager SDK are also included as part of the Essential Studio UI Edition. **The Syncfusion Essential Studio Community License includes free access to all 1,600+ controls and is available to companies and individuals with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue, 5 or fewer developers, and 10 or fewer total employees. Note: An entity or organization may not have ever received more than $3,000,000 USD in capital from an outside source, such as private equity or venture capital, in order to be eligible for the Community License.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Syncfusion Essential StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio
Considered Both Products
Syncfusion Essential Studio
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
The products mentioned are not really in the same category as Syncfusion. As far similar type of products are concerned, we haven't used others. We have evaluated for sometime but did not use. The main reason was the support service.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
While both are great, Syncfusion® Essential Studio® offers Community License rather than a limited period Evaluation/Trial license.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
It displays Word documents in most accurate way.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Syncfusion beats the other because they have a great licence option for small companies.

For big companies with decent budgets, I find Kendo easier to use but it's only a matter of taste
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Radzen seemed like a quality product but we needed more control over the interface than they could allow. I don't recall the details about Telerik and Kendo. I think Telerik also rated high but was more expensive?
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Devexpress was late in developing Blazor controls so we refocused on Syncfusion. As I mentioned, Syncfusion has much better financial support for small businesses.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
I only used open source tools, as every other solution offered by companies are paid and they don`t offer any free license. Like I said before, the free license for developers and small businesses is a amazing feature that Syncfusion provides and they are the only one that do …
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Yes, I use another framework at the same time. I am going to be very honest: the other framework is very good. There are two aspects, one positive and other negative: - The positive aspect of the other framework is the execution time. Is more faster than Syncfusion Essential …
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Infragistics Ultimate UI - less versions, lack of Office document processing, few UI frameworks missing, worse ROI
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Firstly, there is a free version for small businesses and it allows you to jump start without risk. I found one of the other products a bit short in the number of out-of-the-box supported events handlers for each control and, although you can manually add them, I feel more …
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Telerik is similar in content and functionality. I used it for 1 yr and switched to Syncfusion based on price. I have never considered going back to Telerik
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
I think variability and rich features and variable to connect to the business need.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
For the past eight years, we have not evaluated any other products, as we have found our current solution to be highly effective and have had no reason to consider alternatives.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
The free community license is a major element, but it also allowed a fast start with minimal learning curve compared to adopting alternative solutions.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Quite same but that documentation... Keep it as good as it is now.
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Syncfusion is a clear winner over what Telerik has to offer in functionality, rapid development and hands down on support. I disliked how Telerik decides if they will fix reported bugs or suggested product enhancements. Syncfusion in my opinion is far more cost effective as …
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
We evaluated DevExpress and two other libraries, whose names I've currently forgotten. But in the end, it was a race between DevExpress and Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition, as they both offer a great amount of components with rich documentation. In the end we …
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
We are using this to developed windows form and I am fully satisfied with their performance and speed up development.it also provides easy to integrate with visual studio.it can also support vb.net, asp.net, MVC, and .net core web applications with a responsive user interface …
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
We have tried Infragistics and DevExpress and didn't have the variety of components that we needed
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
Currently using it but we will do more research on D3
Chose Syncfusion Essential Studio
They are basically on par, but the docs and in general, including support, Telerik is a bit superior. I find it to be better in terms of user-friendliness and also better polished UI wise, I mean, overall they just look better and offer somewhat better themes/skins to all the …
Visual Studio
Chose Visual Studio
It has free community version which make it to use vastly and no budget needed. Good UI to work on and Add-on we can use add and use what ever we need. The extensions that helps to use it.
Chose Visual Studio
For performance and community reach, Microsoft Visual Studio is by far the best. It's the most used and allows us to be efficient and productive without being guinea pigs and having to test new, potentially breaking features.
Chose Visual Studio
A few years ago, Microsoft Visual Studio felt behind Rider in many features, these days, I'd say they go hand in hand.
Chose Visual Studio
I like that you don't have to install a heap of plugins before you can start coding as I am never sure which plugins are ok/safe/standard. We have had issues with painful licensing in some other products.
Chose Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio works well with the Windows operating system an there is less need to install other third party packages to work with the above IDE's. You don't need to install a separate C compiler.
Chose Visual Studio
VS is intuitive and easy to understand. The compiling, notes, debugging, and testing make it easy to build your app. With the integrated repository, it makes it a breeze to stage and commit/update your files. You don't have to go to the OS folders to do it.
Chose Visual Studio
Eclipse is primarily used for Java development, and Android Studio is used for Android app development. Since our work is mainly focused on .NET applications, we use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop our software solutions. Microsoft Visual Studio IDE is way above the rest of …
Chose Visual Studio
Compared with Delphi it is night and day, but that is perhaps because my experience was coming from a Microsoft coding environment to having to setup a development machine for Delphi coding.

What made the alternative such a difficult process was having to download and install …
Chose Visual Studio
I have not developed with other products since a lot of years because this is the official development application in our company. I think other applications could be similar as I was developing in other but this was a lot of years ago, so it is not a good question to answer.
Chose Visual Studio
Much superior integrations, better UI, and overall development experience. Debugging and testing in other tools was a frustrating experience, but proved much more satisfying in Visual Studio.
Chose Visual Studio
Eclipse is also very good but it's more suitable for Java development. Our requirement is more towards .Net, C# and hence Microsoft Visual Studio works well for us. If your primary requirement is Java and cross platform, Eclipse works well. But our specific requirement makes …
Chose Visual Studio
For beginners, the other tools are easier to set up and run. It is also entirely customizable, but Visual Studio Code has more plugins that allow you to streamline your work.
Chose Visual Studio
MATLAB and QT are way more different than Visual Studio. Despite of being famous as per their IDE environment, they would not stand much comparison with VS Visual Studio IDEs. because, MATLAB and QT are limited edition and feature related Visual Studio IDEs, and they stick to …
Chose Visual Studio
We choose Visual Studio IDE because it is easier to set up with C# and more stable. Each time we use Eclipse to make a program, we had bad behavior. Maybe that was our computer setup but we finally go with something more stable and more useful for our company.
Chose Visual Studio
Visual Studio is somewhat different from LiveCode. LiveCode is a coding platform that is unique and implemented most often by colleges, universities, and other academic institutions. It is more of a coding language than a team-collaboration resource. However, the LiveCode …
Chose Visual Studio
It contains everything a developers wants--starting from a basic terminal to millions of extensions. It's the best solution for developers.
Chose Visual Studio
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, …
Chose Visual Studio
It's a well [maintained], mature IDE, which has the benefit of being a [software] which only the most skilled developers works on, instead of being open source. It has a lot of very useful features, which most free IDE-s don't. Also, it has many options from commercial …
Chose Visual Studio
Some of the editors are suitable for a particular programming language . For example pyCharm is suited for Python .
Visual Studio has support for many languages and Visual Studio is comparatively light weight from most of the IDE . The ability to get extensions and use them is …
Chose Visual Studio
Eclipse, PyCharm, Netbeans I have used during my internship for smaller applications but to have a full end-to-end application with ease to connect to database and deployment I believe Visual Studio is way better than other available IDE in this space.
Although your options get …
Chose Visual Studio
I can't compare the NetBeans or PhpStorm with Visual Studio IDE due to entirely different use. All software development IDEs holds their importance, but Visual Studio IDE is the best among its competitors--the IntelliSense and standardization of development, in particular,are …
Chose Visual Studio
Visual Studio IDE is on par with Rider. There are some code insights and package management that Rider does better, but it's the debugger and profiling I find more powerful in Visual Studio IDE. I also consider the UI in Visual Studio IDE to be more appealing and intuitive to …
Best Alternatives
Syncfusion Essential StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio
Small Businesses
React (React.js)
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Score 8.9 out of 10
PyCharm
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Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
React (React.js)
React (React.js)
Score 8.9 out of 10
PyCharm
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Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Syncfusion Essential StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Syncfusion Essential StudioMicrosoft Visual Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
The datagrid is probably their most popular control I would think. It is so flexible and configurable. Most of mine are plain views in ASP.NET Core, but I have a whole bunch that are dynamically created at runtime in my controller. That is so powerful.
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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.
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Pros
  • Integrates well into Microsoft tech stack. i.e. ASP.NET, Blazor etc. So it acts as a plug-n-play, which is great!
  • Shrinks the development cycle without adding too much of its own ecosystem overhead.
  • Provides different UI skins so the controls don't appear as "stitched".
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  • 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
  • Most complex activities (beyond the out of the box examples) require a very extensive knowledge of javascript. This is not really a short coming of the product but rather a reality for the user who is trying to fully utilize the capabilities of the software.
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  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
It takes effort to include a new component library into existing software, especially in our case where we have 5 large applications that are written and maintained by about 100 developers. So changing such a core thing comes with a lot of effort. The other reason we will very likely renew our use of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition is that it works really well and has helped us to speed up the development process.
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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
I would rate Syncfusion® Essential Studio® a 10 out of 10 for overall usability. The components are intuitive to implement, with clear APIs and consistent design patterns across the suite. This makes it easy for developers to get started quickly and reduces the learning curve even when working with new controls.
In addition, the documentation and sample projects provide practical guidance that helps accelerate development. The built-in customization options also allow us to adapt the components to fit our branding and business requirements without excessive effort. Overall, the usability is one of the key reasons why Syncfusion has become an essential part of our development toolset.
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Using the Microsoft Visual Studio environment is very easy. You have many options to find what you need in the moment, or you can ask a question in the community and find an answer there to solve your problem. It is very interesting to learn about the community, as many people are developing with MS Visual Studio around the world.
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Support Rating
Although I have decades of software development experience, I had never created a website from scratch before, and my html and css skills are not particularly strong. Between documentation and incredible dedication from the support team they helped me overcome all of my challenges. It's amazing that they typically create sample code for most of the issues that I submitted. On rare occasions where I uncovered a defect they kept me informed as to its status, and typically resolved it in a short-term release, and/or gave me a reasonable workaround. They hopped on zoom calls with me on multiple occasions when necessary.
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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.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
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.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
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.
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Implementation Rating
Feedback from the team has been very positive.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Firstly, there is a free version for small businesses and it allows you to jump start without risk. I found one of the other products a bit short in the number of out-of-the-box supported events handlers for each control and, although you can manually add them, I feel more comfortable to just have them ready. After using the free version I just felt in love with Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition controls and decided to stay with them; they have all I need and more. The usage of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition controls is straightforward and intuitive. Support is world-class even for the free version; you get answers in 24 hours at most. Also, the support team is ready to remotely connect to your project in case it is needed; we have had one situation like this, and the issue was solved.
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Eclipse is primarily used for Java development, and Android Studio is used for Android app development. Since our work is mainly focused on .NET applications, we use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop our software solutions. Microsoft Visual Studio IDE is way above the rest of the development tools by miles due to its ease of use and ease of software development.
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Return on Investment
  • First of all, I think the best positive impact is the reduce of time development. I do not know exactly how much time, but certainly, using the framework we save a lot of effort and time.
  • About negative impact, sometimes using the controls of the framewrok have a signifcant impact in the execution time and page load.
  • And of course, the use of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition has a significant impact of the learning of javascript and JQUERY.
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  • One of the most important components of Visual Studio IDE is team collaboration, which improves team productivity.
  • It supports a wide range of languages. It's simple to add a library and have the IDE display autocomplete, suggestions, and errors while you code.
  • Visual Studio has a lot of shortcuts, which helps me a lot by saving a lot of time. Its dark theme appeals to me. Intellisense has been quite beneficial.
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ScreenShots

Syncfusion Essential Studio Screenshots

Screenshot of An overview of Syncfusion® Essential Studio®, which is a software package that includes more than 1,600 components and frameworks for WinForms, WPF, ASP.NET (Web Forms, MVC, Core), UWP, WinUI, Flutter, Blazor, JavaScript, Angular, Vue, and React.Screenshot of The DataGrid control, which is a grid component that helps display and manipulate large amounts of data in a tabular format. Its feature set includes functionalities like data binding, sorting, grouping, editing, filtering, swiping, dragging, resizing, loading more items, pull-to-refresh, and exporting to Excel and PDF file formats.Screenshot of The PDF Viewer, which is .NET PDF class library developed with 100% managed C# code that can be used to create, read, and write PDFs.