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Open source, free, and has a fantastic Marketplace for add-ons and extensions!
December 04, 2019

Open source, free, and has a fantastic Marketplace for add-ons and extensions!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Our whole Web Development team uses Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It is the best open-source code editor out there. It allows us to cheaply replace an IDE with open source software, and an AppStore like suite of add-ons for enabling some pretty impressive features, all for free. You can even share code snippets across your team as a JSON file. We find this super useful. It helps our small team collaborate easier and get our Web Development work done. We use it for PHP, JS, JSON primarily, and love the extensions that help you read code easier or work faster with autocompletion of just about any coding language.
  • It's free. There are tons of IDEs out there, and many of them very useful. For a small team at a small company, you may not need to pay a dime.
  • Add-ons/extensions. There is a Microsoft Visual Studio Code Marketplace (free), where people create free extensions and add-ons with the Microsoft Visual Studio Code community. This is by far the best part about Microsoft Visual Studio Code. Our team uses extensions for autocompletion, highlighting colors in CSS/SCSS. I can't imagine coding without it now.
  • Flexibility. It is highly customizable. Our whole team uses Microsoft Visual Studio Code, but each person has put their own personal touch on the look/feel extensions they use.
  • Built-in dev tools. Native Git tools, terminal access built-in for MAC users, code linting and "prettifying" etc. Your senior dev can set the formatting for specific file types, and when saving the files, it will correct from someone who uses 2 spaces v 4 spaces v tabs based on rules that you set.
  • Needs some work to set up like a true IDE, but for free, it's worth a few mins of grabbing extensions and customizing.
  • For new coders/developers, they can go overboard with un-needed extensions, slowing down the code editor. Simple coaching can help with this.
  • There is a small-time investment for setup, or for users switching from other code editors/IDEs, but zero monetary investment. You're going to pay with time or money, but for a small team, the time investment has produced tremendous returns.
  • I'd say outside of the time cost of the initial setup, it has absolutely been net-positive ROI for our company. Our team loves this product, and after initial setup, you get to reap the rewards!
  • We think of getting this set up as another "Onboarding" task for our new developers, which we already plan for a ramp-up anyway. The benefits far outweigh the small time investment.
For our software dev teams, they still use the products from JetBrains (PhpStorm, RubyMine, etc) when they are laser-focused on one technology. For our less experienced, less code specific web dev team, Microsoft Visual Studio Code knocks it out of the park. I'd recommend starting with Microsoft Visual Studio Code if you're on a limited budget or a new team. I'd venture to guess you can do most of what your team needs with that. If not, you can always switch to a true IDE later.

We found that our web dev team could make Microsoft Visual Studio Code do everything we needed it to, without the need to pay for PHP Storm.

Compared to Atom, we had fewer complaints (if any) about speed and sluggishness, and really like how the built-in features of Microsoft Visual Studio Code stack up against Atom.

We've never actually had to use Microsoft Visual Studio Code's support, which in and of itself, is saying something. If we've ever had questions, the open-source community usually has had an answer for whatever question/problem we've had. 90% of the time, it is which extension is best for XXX use case, or XXX coding language. The Marketplace has a rating system, which makes these evaluations simple and easy.

Do you think Microsoft Visual Studio Code delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Visual Studio Code's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Visual Studio Code live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Visual Studio Code go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Visual Studio Code again?

Yes

For more advanced developers, you may find an actual IDE to be useful still, but I'll bet you can do 95% of what your IDE does with Microsoft Visual Studio Code for free. For small, scrappy (translation: cost-conscious) teams, you really can't beat Microsoft Visual Studio Code. Most of the features of a real IDE with minimal setup, and all for free. Your team may have specific needs that make an IDE necessary. However, I think for most development teams, Mircosoft Visual Studio Code will get the job done, and for free. Microsoft Visual Studio Code beats Atom in our book too because features like emmet, terminal integration, and git tools are built right into Microsoft Visual Studio Code. You need extensions for these in Atom. Microsoft Visual Studio Code tends to run more smoothly for our PC users than Atom as well.

Evaluating Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Competitors

Yes - Our small team of web developers were split between using Brackets and Atom (other free code editors). We were all able to agree on Microsoft Visual Studio Code after trying it for just a short amount of time.

The Marketplace alone is worth its weight in gold. Brackets was almost solely front-end focused, which will take it out of consideration for some teams. Microsoft Visual Studio Code can just as easily be set up for backend, PHP, Python etc. It is more flexible than Brackets for our team.

Atom is much more of an "apples to apples" comparison, but the winner was hands down Microsoft Visual Studio Code. We wanted to have one code editor that our whole team could use, and even our mac users have grown to love it. We have been blown away by the flexibility and customization options.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Third-party Reviews
We wanted a free, open-source editor for our small team in a small org. This fit the bill to a "t." We also wanted one code-editor for our whole team, but before Microsoft Visual Studio Code, there wasn't an editor that our entire team would get behind and support.

The open-source nature means that anyone can think of, and develop the next great extension or add-on for Microsoft Visual Studio Code. We're excited to see where this goes!
I don't think we could have. When we first started, Microsoft Visual Studio Code simply didn't exist. We had several team members try JetBrains free trials and compared that to Atom and Brackets. Purely based on cost, we were originally split on Atom and Brackets until Microsoft Visual Code came out. As someone who helps to make the purchasing decisions, we always try free tools first to see if they can fit the bill. If not, we start our evaluation of paid products and try to use demos and free trials before making a major purchasing decision.