Microsoft Visual Studio vs. Xcode

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Xcode
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Xcode is an IDE used to develop, test, and distribute apps across all Apple platforms, featuring Swift and SwiftUI with a multiplatform app experience, enhanced editor features to help users code faster.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft Visual StudioXcode
Editions & Modules
Professional
$45.00
per month
Enterprise
$250.00
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Visual StudioXcode
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft Visual StudioXcode
Considered Both Products
Visual Studio

No answer on this topic

Xcode
Chose Xcode
Xcode is the clear choice in general circumstances in Apple echosphere application development (for instance, not for Java or web programming necessarily) primarily due to the fact that it is Apple's in-house tool. It received a lot of attention and is used by a huge audience …
Best Alternatives
Microsoft Visual StudioXcode
Small Businesses
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft Visual StudioXcode
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(105 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft Visual StudioXcode
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
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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Apple
This is almost not a case of Xcode being the 300-pound gorilla in the space, but of it being essentially the ONLY viable gorilla in the space. There are other text editors, of course, that can be used for coding; and in some cases other IDE's might make sense for a cross-platform development scenario, but since this is Apple's in-house tool, fighting against that flow is just going to be an exercise in frustration. And, if you need help from Developer Support, they are going to be most familiar with Xcode.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • I like how the tabs and panels are organized; everything is gathered together so you can find what you're looking for quickly.
  • If you can't find something, there's a thorough search engine that searches all of Visual Studio's features.
  • The Team Foundation Server feature is fantastic since it allows us to easily deploy and roll back changes on the server.
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Apple
  • Debugging
  • Profiling
  • Great IDE
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Cons
Microsoft
  • 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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Apple
  • Documentation
  • Number of settings can be overwhelming
  • Embedded help for settings and configuration
  • Templates
  • Collaboration
  • Managing of credentials (although this has recently gotten better)
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Apple
No answers on this topic
Usability
Microsoft
I love the overall usability of Microsoft Visual Studio. I’ve been using this IDE for more than 20 years, and I’ve seen it evolve by leaps and bounds. Today, with AI and code-suggestion/completion features, developers no longer need to remember countless libraries, methods, or language syntax, or invest a huge amount of programming effort to complete a project. It truly offers everything a developer needs to program, debug, test, and deploy in a single IDE.
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Apple
Xcode occasionally exhibits some behaviors that are hard to explain, but are generally cleared by restarting the program. In an application this large and complex, I suppose this is somewhat expected. The sheer vastness of the frameworks collection has to be a huge management issue all by itself. However, those breaks in the flow can have impact on developer productivity.
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Reliability and Availability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Apple
Since we don't use the cloud based features of Xcode, it is basically available 24/7 for us. We don't need the extended compilation features that are offered in the cloud as our projects to this point have not been that large or complex. We have never seen a wholesale breakdown of Xcode availability at any point in our use of the product.
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Performance
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Apple
Every developer wants faster compiles, but that can be achieved by either going to the cloud or by provisioning the local station to a higher powered configuration. My only minor complaint is the amount of local mass storage that Xcode as a system consumes. This makes it interesting to set up a development environment on a midrange laptop, however it is easily managed with external storage at a reasonable price.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
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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Apple
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
Microsoft
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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Apple
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Microsoft
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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Apple
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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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Apple
Xcode is a much easier to use and full featured IDE than many of the competitors. It also is a way better experience to use. Much better looking in general
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Scalability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Apple
Xcode only loses points due to the occasional situation where it manages to somehow tie itself into a knot and starts to exhibit odd symptoms. This is almost always solved by simply saving progress and restarting the environment. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too frequently and is easily repaired while taking a short break to walk around and stretch.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Using the integration between Visual Studio and our source control service, the cost of re-work and losing code is drastically reduced.
  • Paid versions of Visual Studio enable developers to be so much more productive than hacked-together open source solutions that it's hard to imagine developing in Windows without it.
  • When combined with support subscriptions and the vast array of free online help options available, Visual Studio saves our developers time by keeping them coding and testing, not wasting their time trying to guess their way out of problems or spend endless hours online hoping to find answers.
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Apple
  • It's helped us gain worldwide distribution of our native iOS app
  • It's allowed us to build a high performance experience
  • It has allowed us to build stable software by helping us write unit tests
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ScreenShots