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Visual Studio Code Alternatives for Windows

There are many alternatives to Visual Studio Code for Windows if you are looking for a replacement. The best Windows alternative is Atom. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Notepad++ or Vim. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Visual Studio Code and loads of them are available for Windows so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Windows alternatives to Visual Studio Code are Sublime Text, VSCodium, Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA.

Visual Studio Code alternatives are mainly Text Editors but may also be Code Editors or IDEs. Filter by these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Visual Studio Code.
This page was last updated Jun 26, 2022
Visual Studio Code iconVisual Studio Code
  1035
  • Free • Proprietary
  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Chrome OS

Visual Studio Code is more than just a code editor, it provides the tools and extensions to compile, debug, compare,...

Learn more about Visual Studio Code

  1. Atom is an open-source, Electron based text editor with a massive ecosystem of plugins and themes that are easily accessible through a built-in package manager. Being built with Electron, it uses web technology (HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Node.

    Discontinued

    Atom will be discontinued at the end of 2022: https://github.blog/2022-06-08-sunsetting-atom/

    Intro screen
    Atom vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Most users think Atom is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.

    Its UI is wonderful. Simple, works. Have never had performance problems myself.

    Top positive comment  almost 2 years ago
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    3
    teamindiawebdesignuk

    its user friendly text editor.

    Top positive comment  10 months ago
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    0
    preplime

    Clean interface and "hackable"

    Positive comment • over 1 year ago
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    0
    22Ezra22

    It opens fairly fast and has a lot of features and looks really good.

    Positive comment • about 2 years ago
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    1
    M_O_Z_G

    Better performance than Atom has.

    Positive comment • almost 4 years ago
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    -18
    Zorkzero1

    It's an extensible and user friendly text editor.

    Positive comment • almost 5 years ago
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    -2

  2. Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

    Screenshot
    Notepad++ vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Some users think Notepad++ is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code, some don't.
     all • positive • negative      relevance • date
    DevGrx

    Lightweight and resource-less code editor.

    Top positive comment  over 2 years ago
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    2
    22Ezra22

    Opens fast and is simple.

    Top positive comment  about 2 years ago
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    0
    madamek

    It is not an extensible IDE, it lacks many features of VSC. Great software nevertheless.

    Top negative comment  almost 2 years ago
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    7

    It is not nearly as advanced. Notepad++ is a text editor. Not extensible.

    Negative comment • 11 months ago
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    1
    preplime

    not really a code editor, more like a text editor—plus Notepad++ is not extensible

    Negative comment • over 1 year ago
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    0

    Not primarily focused at being an IDE -- and also not extensible with plugins or themes.

    Negative comment • almost 2 years ago
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    -1

    Lightweight, simple, clean, and fast. Easy text editing for all uses and needs.

    Positive comment • over 3 years ago
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    -6
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    7 of 8 comments

  4. Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features.

    Edit side by side in widescreen
    Sublime Text vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Most users think Sublime Text is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.
    bobbobly

    Faster and less resource-intensive.

    Positive comment • about 1 year ago
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    0

    Outstanding performance with regard to loading and navigation

    Positive comment • almost 2 years ago
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    1
    Dark_Samus

    light-weight and fast loading time.....

    Positive comment • almost 2 years ago
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    0

  5. Vim ("Vi IMproved") is an advanced text editor that allows syntax highlighting, word completion and has a huge amount of contributed content. It also has a GUI version called GVim.

    Screenshot
    Vim vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Almost everyone thinks Vim is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.
    kiminariyamamoto

    A classical editor for any text file. It is very usable but it is not really an IDE. You can add many plugins to make it behave close to IDE but I don't think it is very feasible.

    Positive comment • over 4 years ago
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    3

    Simple and extendable with a massive amount of plugins

    Positive comment • about 3 years ago
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    1

    Vim is always ready to work as soon as you open it. There are already a lot of open-source plugins that ease any sort of functions.

    Positive comment • about 3 years ago
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    1

  6. This repository contains a build file to generate FLOSS release binaries of Microsoft's Visual Studio Code - Open Source ("Code - OSS") project, the open source core of the proprietary Visual Studio Code.

    Screenshot
    VSCodium vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Almost everyone thinks VSCodium is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.
     all • positive • negative      relevance • date
    pandalovfree

    VSCodium has same source but without Microsoft telemetry

    Top positive comment  about 2 years ago
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    10
    mrmbl

    I mainly use VSCodium because Visual Studio Code crashes a lot on my machine, but the lack of telemetry is also great.

    Top positive comment  over 1 year ago
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    2
    JohnDangerbrooks

    VSCodium is a broken version of Visual Studio Code. The extension marketplace doesn't work on VSCodium. Other than that, they are entirely similar and are free and open-source (how else do you think VSCodium could have been made?) VSCodium touts the absence of telemetry collection as its main feature. This feature can be disabled in VSCode too. I checked its source code. The toggle switch works flawlessly.

    Negative comment • about 1 year ago
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    -6

    it's free and opensource, and does not track you and still provides you with every single feature of vs code

    Positive comment • over 1 year ago
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    0
    MayisHdev

    Keep in mind that certain microsoft products, for example the C# debugger, do not work on non-microsoft builds of vscode (like vscodium)

    Positive comment • over 1 year ago
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    1

    It's packaged as an AppImage for Linux, which makes it very easy to install on any distro

    Positive comment • almost 2 years ago
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    1

    It is VSCode but without Microsoft Tracking/Telemetry — VSCodium is completely free and Open Source!

    Positive comment • almost 2 years ago
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    1
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    7 of 12 comments

  8. Eclipse is an extensible development platform with runtimes and application frameworks for building, deploying and managing software across the entire software lifecycle.

    eclipse on windows 10
    Eclipse vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Some users think Eclipse is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code, some don't.

    not a text editor, it is a java ide

    Negative comment • about 2 years ago
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    5
    Ola

    It's a thin line between IDE and editor nowdays, especially with all the extensions to VS Code.

    Comment • about 1 year ago
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    2

    Eclipse is an IDE, VS Code is an editor.

    Negative comment • over 2 years ago
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    8

  9. IntelliJ IDEA is an integrated development environment (IDE) written in Java for developing computer software. It is developed by JetBrains, and is available as an Apache 2 Licensed community edition, and in a proprietary commercial edition.

    Syntax highlight, code completion
    IntelliJ IDEA vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Some users think IntelliJ IDEA is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code, some don't.
    Ranogard

    VS Code is much more than a text editor. Comparing it with IntelliJ IDEA is totally fine. There are plugins for various programming languages available, like python. Both can work interchangeably.

    Positive comment • almost 2 years ago
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    -2
    jcross

    IntelliJ IDEA, by it's own definition, is a Java IDE. Visual Studio Code is a text editor.

    Negative comment • over 3 years ago
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    11

  10. Geany is a small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages.

    Geany 1.34
    Most users think Geany is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.

  11. The Kate project develops two main products: KatePart, the advanced editor component which is used in numerous KDE applications requiring a text editing component, and Kate, a MDI text editor application.

    Screenshot
    Kate vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Almost everyone thinks Kate is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.
    RogueScholar

    Compiled C++ applications are so much more performant than Electron apps like VS Code.

    Positive comment • about 2 years ago
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    6

  12. Python and Django IDE with refactorings, code completion, on-the-fly code analysis and other features, including version control integration, deployment, integration with issue trackers, and remote debugging.

    Screenshot
    PyCharm vs Visual Studio Code opinions
    Most users think PyCharm is a great alternative to Visual Studio Code.

    A good IDE but it's not a text editor

    Negative comment • about 3 years ago
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    4
Showing 10 of 128 alternatives