TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Score9.3 out of 10

1,054 Reviews and Ratings

What is Microsoft Visual Studio Code?

Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, an open source text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.

Read more details.

Categories & Use Cases

Who Buys & Uses Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Microsoft Visual Studio Code Reviews

What users are saying about Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
View all Microsoft Visual Studio Code reviews

Pros

  • Extensive ecosystem of extensions and plugins for adaptability
  • Advanced AI and code completion capabilities (e.g., Copilot)
  • Seamless integration with version control systems, especially Git

Cons

  • Performance slowdowns with extensive customizations or large files
  • Startup delays and slow global search operations
  • User interface could be more beginner-friendly

A modern robust and extendible IDE

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Microsoft Visual Studio Code to develop all the applications used in my organization.
We develop backend and frontend applications and we've chosen Microsoft Visual Studio Code as the to-go IDE for all the applications.
The simple interface and the extensions allow us to approach any kind of development, from the simplest one-page apps to the most complex corporate CRMs and ERPs.

Pros

  • Simple
  • Fast
  • Extendible
  • Customizable
  • Versatile

Cons

  • Lacks support for some languages

Return on Investment

  • Fast development reduces development times

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Sublime Text and Atom

Other Software Used

DBeaver, Microsoft Edge

Best Code Editor for Daily Development Works

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for daily development work. Our team mainly use it to write, edit, manage, and commit the code for web applications and backend services. we are working with languages like php, javascript, html, reactjs, and nodejs, and Microsoft Visual Studio Code is helps us to manage all these files easily in the one place.
Built in extensions and terminal make it easy to run commands and work with git.

Pros

  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code is fast and open the large projects quickly and also we can easily switch between files, which imrpove our productivity.
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code has large number of extensions. we can easily add extensions like gitlens, php intelephense, json tool and etc which makes development easier and more flexible.
  • Built in git support is very powerful. developer can make changes, commit the code, pull push the code without switching to another tool.

Cons

  • If we have huge extensions installed, then Microsoft Visual Studio Code become slow.
  • if we have large number of code in the file then sometime extension is taking a load to format the code.
  • when working with large projects then global search feature is taking a time to show result.

Return on Investment

  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code has help our team to work faster. It has fast performance, code suggestions, and easy to switch between files.
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code is free and support many languages and extensions, so our team dont need to purchase multiple paid IDEs.
  • Built in debugging tools and extensions help developers quickly identify and fix problem in the code.
  • we can also download the AI copilot extension which gives code suggestion and also help in debugging.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Sublime Text and Notepad++

Other Software Used

Postman, GitLab, Atlassian Jira

The defacto IDE standard

Incentivized
Josh Armitage
Modern Engineering Practice Lead in Professional Services at Cognizant (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft Visual Studio Code is our predominant IDE (integrated development environment) that we use both internally and with clients.

We use it to develop applications and platforms with clients across all verticals.

It being free to use, and with an open source core, means we can easily bring it with us to clients without having to engage in procurement and licensing.

Additionally our engineers are provided internally with GitHub Copilot, and it is often available on clients, integrating directly into our IDE.

Pros

  • Large ecosystem of extensions, you can nearly always find an extension for the project you're working on
  • First party integration for language servers allows for rapid feedback during development
  • First class support for dev containers allows us to reduce setup related issues during development

Cons

  • GitHub Copilot integration lags behind what is available in Cursor and equivalents
  • Support for certain languages lags behind more specialised IDEs, e.g. java with IntelliJ
  • Better support for debugging slow extensions

Return on Investment

  • It provides a cost free IDE option that allows for more rapid onboarding with clients
  • It's native integration with GitHub copilot, and other LLM-centric extensions has enabled us to rapidly prototype new ideas
  • It provides a standard basis for work that allows us to collaborate better as a team, and continuously improve

Usability

Alternatives Considered

IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm and Zed

Other Software Used

Notion, Microsoft 365, GitHub, GitHub Copilot, GitLab

Quick and easy almost IDE

Incentivized
Bruce CarterView profile
Senior Systems Engineer in Information Technology at University of Notre Dame (5001-10,000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I mostly use Microsoft Visual Studio Code in development projects that are less appropriate for development in Xcode due to the amount of overhead in getting Xcode projects set up properly. Microsoft Visual Studio Code works very well for our shell and Python scripting tasks related to our Jamf Pro instance. It is just easier to get a project put together with Microsoft Visual Studio Code for these small, low overhead items.

Pros

  • Quick editing of low overhead projects
  • Minimal configuration and setup
  • Following along with online programming courses using Microsoft Visual Studio Code
  • Cross platform (not just macOS/iOS) development
  • Expandable with plugins
  • General AI integration

Cons

  • Better documentation integration
  • Odd crashes sometimes
  • Interface can be a little dense sometimes
  • Build train support (automation)

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

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Xcode and Anaconda

Other Software Used

Ellucian Banner, Atlassian Confluence, Google Authenticator, Okta, 1Password, Adobe Acrobat, CoPilot, Google Chrome, Google Drive, Grammarly

Easy to use versatile and great community.

Incentivized
Juan Camilo
Data Analyst in Information Technology at Oliver Gal (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We mainly use it as a tool to write code in different languages such as Python, C++, c++ and HTML/CSS. One of the main problems it assesses is the integration of not only version control with git, but also the number of add-ons that help us work really efficiently and collaborate easily.

Pros

  • Version control simple integration (git).
  • Open source add on.
  • Debugging tools.
  • Personalization of coding styles.

Cons

  • Friendlier interface for beginners.
  • Additional hotkeys.
  • Easier way to identify different development environments.

Return on Investment

  • Version control that enables collaboration.
  • Prevention of bugs in production environments.
  • Free to use for the most part.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Spyder, Atom, Terminal and Jupyter Notebook

Other Software Used

Atom, Jupyter Notebook, Terminal