Everything you could ever hope for from a code editor
Updated May 19, 2021

Everything you could ever hope for from a code editor

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

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Visual Studio Code

IDE choice is entirely up to engineers' personal preference within my organisation, but an overwhelming majority of my colleagues choose to use Microsoft Visual Studio Code. The quality of the editor in itself is fantastic to start with, but when combined with plugins (of which there are many in the ecosystem) it becomes truly invaluable for us in maintaining code quality and speeding up development through its various in-built and extended features. This means that coding can remain pretty consistent amongst engineers (at least in terms of conventions) and that configuration in certain languages and projects can be shared and enforced with relative ease, for example when linting various filetypes.
  • Free, quick and easy to install
  • Extensive plugin ecosystem and support
  • Extensible in configuration and personalisation
  • Personal settings can easily be synced to a personal or group source code management platform
  • Intuitive to use
  • Some plugins can be inconsistent in quality
  • Performance can be affected with many plugins running (especially linting or hinting)
  • Can be a bit of a "one size fits all" rather than specialised
  • Quicker delivery (through less mistakes)
  • Consistency in quality
  • Easier onboarding for new starters
  • No need for management of a license
In all honesty, I've not even looked back at any of these alternatives since switching to Microsoft Visual Studio Code a few years ago, there simply isn't the need. For all I know they're all absolutely fantastic, but at the time of switching (and consistently since) Microsoft Visual Studio Code was that much better than the other options available that I've not had reason to look elsewhere for a code editor. This is due to, in large part, the fact that you can concentrate on your actual code rather than the configuration or shortcomings of your editor.

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

Microsoft Visual Studio Code is suitable for almost any coding needs, though it is specifically best for web-based projects. As far as I'm aware is very commonly geared towards the relatively recent explosion in javascript, TypeScript and similar languages, with some other competitors possibly being more suitable for lower-level languages (e.g. Java, C# etc). Certainly a lot of the plugin ecosystem appears to centre around frontend language features for the various languages and frameworks, this is generally what I personally use it for, and so I don't know with any great confidence that it's particularly unsuitable for other languages, rather that I've not used it for other purposes.
I generally would, and have, recommend Microsoft Visual Studio Code to any web engineer who is not already using it.