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Visual Studio

Visual Studio

Overview

What is Visual Studio?

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…

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Recent Reviews

Visual Studio IDE

10 out of 10
October 04, 2022
Visual Studio Code is the preferred IDE for µServices development include Java Microservice. Best IDE for .Net core, NodeJS, Python and …
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Very good IDE to program in C#

10 out of 10
June 07, 2022
We use Visual Studio IDE to make software that will be used with our product. We use the .Net framework with C# language. Visual Studio …
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Best IDE I've Used

8 out of 10
September 30, 2021
Incentivized
It is being used by both software developers and consultants for customer projects that require customization by programming additional …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Professional

$45.00

Cloud
per month

Enterprise

$250.00

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/p…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $45 per month
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Product Demos

FreeRTOS Tutorial 2: Task States Demo using Visual Studio 2019

YouTube
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Product Details

What is Visual Studio?

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.

Visual Studio Videos

Which App Development Tool Should You Use? (Quickbase, Microsoft Visual Studio, Apache Cordova)
Getting Started with Visual Studio

Visual Studio Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Visual Studio starts at $45.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.8.

The most common users of Visual Studio are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(783)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
September 24, 2018

The Best IDE

Gordon Lo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Visual Studio IDE really started with a couple developers at Dynacare when a decision was made to start modernizing our enterprise applications. It's used by over a dozen developers today including back-end, front-end web, report designers, and our IT operations team to develop tools and applications for the business.
  • Integration into git and in particular VSTS (now named Azure DevOps) is amazing. The experience is seamless and works very well.
  • Backward compatibility is better than ever, so there's less risk of breaking applications as you upgrade from different versions of Visual Studio.
  • The development experience in Visual Studio is second-to-none. This really is the gold standard for IDEs with tight integration into the Microsoft stack, built-in unit testing tools, debugging and diagnostics capabilities, ... the list goes on. Everything is at the developer's finger-tips.
  • Anyone who has the displeasure of working with SSRS or SSIS knows... Visual Studio is pretty bad for building SSIS flows and building SSRS reports. Those two features feel half-baked, and there are usually compile-time errors between VS2013 and newer versions of VS depending on your SSIS package.
  • Updates occur regularly and often eat up disk space and/or cause instability. You may want to avoid being on the latest and greatest release of VS just because it can cause all sorts of head-aches. Over time, you'll probably notice decreased disk space - the VS updates usually eat disk and never give any of it back.
  • VS is very heavy - though load-times have gotten better since 2008, it does still require a lot of resources to do your development. If you're still using a traditional hard disk vs a SSD you may find build and launch times particularly slow.
If you live in the Microsoft stack, the Visual Studio IDE is the only IDE you need. The integration into Azure DevOps is amazing - again, keeping in the Microsoft ecosystem of products - which makes life as a developer that much better. I don't really see VS used outside the Microsoft stack - for Java development you may still want to use Eclipse, and mobile dev for Android you'll have better tools provided by google based on Eclipse.
  • Living in the Microsoft eco-system, the VS IDE really isn't a choice, so much as a requirement for developing applications. The speed at which developers become acclimatized to the tool is a sentiment to the ease of use for the IDE and adherence to good practice. This enables us to onboard new developers and get them up and running in a short period of time vs having to install and configure other IDEs.
  • The VS IDE does include the core set of tools required for development - that alone makes life easier and reduces the need to hunt for 3rd party development add-ons. Though some are nice to have, it isn't required to get going with development. Meaning the IDE is really all you need. Fewer tools to purchase, lower running costs for development.
I've used evaluated IBM Rational Developer for i, IBM Rational Application Developer, Android Studio, Eclipse for Java, and a few others. Visual Studio is the best. Other tools require longer setup times, don't always have all the tools integrated into the IDE or require additional 3rd party tools to complete the experience. VS shines at being basically install and go type of software. That's rare in the industry and is remarkable how well it works. A second place would be the Android Studio which has improved dramatically in the past few years. Visual Studio, coupled with supporting services like Azure DevOps (or whatever source control you use), nuget.org, integration of unit testing, various project types, etc makes the other IDEs feel cumbersome and dated.
15
All users are part of the software development team - though they do support different business functions including laboratory, insurance, home care, and mobile care lines of business.
2
There really isn't much to the support of VS. I manage the license allocation while our sys admins manage actual provisioning via the microsoft license management portals - the developers are able to install and customize the IDE to their hearts content.
  • We have home-grown enterprise applications that require enhancements/updates. They are built in the microsoft stack and so require developers to use Visual Studio. These include both web apps, windows services, web services, etc.
  • Visual Studio is used to build SSRS reports for our operations teams.
  • The Visual Studio IDE continues to evolve with Microsoft's service offerings. We've been developing cloud native applications using VS IDE. Serverless functions leveraging Azure SQL can all be developed and tested with the VS IDE.
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.
John P. Maher | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Visual Studio is used to streamline or automate business processes. For example, most recently the secretary needed to send out some "Welcome Packets." To do this she needed to make mailing labels. Instead of have her enter each address, using Visual Studio I created a program to allow her to retrieve the addresses then print directly to an envelope greatly increasing the efficiency of the task. Nearly every department can benefit in some way.
  • The object browser and intellisense simplify finding the method or property needed.
  • The capability of creating a vertical selection can really increase the efficiency of the find and replace.
  • To be able to use the alt key to enter characters not available on the keyboard allows the selection of a delimiter guaranteed not to be in the user input.
  • Even though the current version is much more robust than earlier versions, occasionally it can crash. The auto recover feature proves invaluable in these situations.
  • Customizing the IDE works really well with the ability to not only dock to any edge but also to dock to a tabbed container. This allows frequently used windows to remain visible while allowing other windows that are sometimes needed to be combined into a tabbed window.
  • The most recent projects not only speeds opening of frequently used projects but also can help determine which version was the last one edited when working with multiple versions.
  • When dealing with a complex form the Document Outline can not only help to find hidden or lost controls but also view the hierarchy at a glance.
  • The ability to encapsulate groups of functions into collapsible regions can really help when working on large code bases.
  • With the editable toolbar, any frequently used menu item can be directly placed for immediate access.
  • The tabbed text editing window can make debugging easier especially when stepping through code in different assemblies and languages.
  • The C# IDE can use a little more automation. The VB IDE does a lot quite well to speed development. While C# can not benefit in all these areas there are some places where it can definitely be more helpful. For example, there is no reason to leave an event handler assignment in the designer if it is deleted from the code. All this does is force the developer to stop their train of thought to go to the designer and delete the single line of code in order to continue their test.
  • In the most recent programs include a path with the name.
  • Add an option to make external assemblies read-only. There have been times when I forget what project I am in when working on multiple assemblies. I can make a change to code that is not in the current assembly, so of course, compiling it does nothing. Unfortunately this error may not be noticed until the program is run and the old code still executes. This is easily fixed by (saving the changes if not using the auto save feature) going to the correct instance of the IDE, reloading then compiling but I would prefer avoiding this in the first place.
Visual Studio works really well when code is encapsulated in separate dlls. Not only can you step through every line, no matter how many dlls deep but it makes it easy to work with dlls in different languages. You can build your forms in VB and your data manager in C# while stepping through any of them in the same IDE.
  • Works well for me.
I have used NetBeans but it is hard to compare since Visual Studio is more powerful due to its Windows specific nature and more evolved.
1
Visual Studio is strictly used by IT.
1
Due to Visual Studio's nature, only developers are involved (and developers are the only people who would want to be involved) with its use.
  • Improve business processes.
  • Save employees time.
  • Reduce errors in tasks
  • Due to its nature, there isn't really any other use for Visual Studio than developing software.
  • As the business evolves new software can be written to help this process stay as efficient as possible.
It is the best tool for the job.
No
The support consists of a forum. The problem with the forum is the categories are poorly designed and only reflect a subset of reality. So often you need to put a specific question in a general section. What makes this bad is your question gets reviewed by only the people who feel like it (it seems). If someone with knowledge of your issue sees your question you are in luck. If not, time to look elsewhere.
Yes
I did report a bug and it was investigated and it turned out I was mistaken in how I believed the feature should work.
  • Designing forms is well done.
  • The text editing area supports all the common Shift- and Ctrl- arrow keys, page down, page up, end and home functions.
  • Trying to debug a designer file can be difficult since the error messages are usually poor.
The thing I like the most is Visual Studio doesn't suffer from Microsoft's over eager marketing department who feel they need to redesign the UI (think Office and windows) which forces users to loose large amounts of productivity having to learn software that they had previously known.
Jody Gitchel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Visual Studio is the default all-inclusive development IDE for the Microsoft stack including .Net application development and business intelligence development. The application development team uses it exclusively for in-house development and extension of our .Net applications, while the business intelligence team uses it for report development and deployment to SharePoint.
  • Cohesive development solution for the Microsoft stack
  • Deployment and code management
  • Enhanced functionality through the many community plug-ins and additional add-ons
  • Business Intelligence functions are a bit behind (still no bulk-update solution out-of-the-box without getting creative)
Well suited for Microsoft development environments (.Net application development, SSRS, SSIS, SSAS for Business Intelligence). Other web development outside of .Net is better suited in other IDEs.
  • Rapid development and deployment of applications.
  • Cohesive development across application and business intelligence development
  • SAP Business Objects
If you plan on staying with the Microsoft stack (SQL Server, Windows Server with IIS, SharePoint) then there is no reason not to use Visual Studio. For mixed-mode environments or nearly anything else, there are better individual solutions (application development tools, report writers, BI platforms, data integration tools) if finances are more flexible.
Pentaho, SAP Business Objects
12
Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, and Application Development
12
Integration Services (SSIS) for data integration, SSAS for OLAP cubes, and SSRS for standalone reporting.
  • Application Development
  • Business Intelligence
  • Data Integration
  • Reporting
  • Extend Epic Clarity
  • Create Web Services
  • Web Development
  • Extend SharePoint
  • Develop new ODS
Visual Studio is a strong development tool that is essential to any Microsoft development environment.
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