Microsoft Visual Studio icon
Microsoft Visual Studio icon

Microsoft Visual Studio

 938 likes

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for building diverse digital solutions. It supports over 36 programming languages, includes a code editor with IntelliSense, a debugger, and designers for GUI, web, and databases. The Community edition is free and integrates with GitHub Copilot.

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 1

License model

  • Free Personal • Proprietary

Application types

Country of Origin

  • US flagUnited States

Platforms

  • Windows
  • Online
  • .NET Framework
Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 1
Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 2
+5
Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 3
Alternatives  
3.4 / 5 Avg rating (19)
938likes
24comments
105alternatives
4news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features
  1.  Code Completion
  2.  Embedded debugger
  3.  NET Support
  4.  Nuget
  5.  VB.NET support
  6.  NET Framework
  7.  C-sharp
  8.  Exe Compiler
  9.  Support for MS SQL Server
  10.  F# Support
  11.  Syntax Highlighting
  12.  Color coding
  13.  NETCore Support
  14.  C support
  15.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  16.  Ad-free
  17.  Autocompletion
  18.  Works Offline
  19.  No registration required
  20. Microsoft Azure icon  Azure integration
  21.  C# Scripting
  22.  Form designer
  23.  Refactoring
  24.  Built-in AI Assistant
  25.  Automatic content formatting
  26.  Vim Key Mapping

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Comments and Reviews

   
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Comment summary: Users find Microsoft Visual Studio powerful and reliable, particularly praising its debugger and ease of use for Windows-based applications. However, many comments highlight concerns over its bloated nature, slow performance, and unnecessary installation components. Licensing policies and limited support for some languages like PHP and MySQL also draw criticism. Despite these issues, it remains a preferred choice due to its extensive features, especially for C# development.
Top Positive Comment
ioanafotea
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 19, 2015
3

I have been using Visual Studio for 4 years and it hasn't let me down not even once. Most reliable, easy to use and powerful IDE I've ever tried.

Top Negative Comment
sybaricat
★
★
★
★
★
Jul 13, 2022
2

Every time I have touched Visual Studio it has made me want to slam my head into the desk. It's a bloated mess (both in terms of resource usage, and in terms of trying to do too many things at once) and it's incredible how unstable it is. Files just... disappear, nowhere to be found. A resx file I haven't touched in weeks will suddenly become corrupt and then nothing works. Feels like I spend more time trying to undo VS's f*ckups than I do actually developing my project. It's gotten to the point that I have some catastrophic problem grind everything to a halt on an almost literally daily basis.

Kris Regina
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 9, 2025
0

Bloated, slow, and awful to use. When trying to load a dotNET Core MAUI XAML project, this piece of crap crashes. Furthermore, the built-in XAML preview for said project does not even work.

If you want a better alternative IDE for dotNET that is way more streamlined, faster, and reliable, use JetBrains Rider instead.

kmac42
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 31, 2024
1

Powerful, but extremely bloated and slow.

spame
★
★
★
★
★
Dec 9, 2023
0

Non-free software

lukalabudovic123
★
★
★
★
★
Jan 4, 2020
2

Bloated in a sense of being obese. It hogs my SSD and RAM memory because it's such a poor piece of software. Did I mention that it's almost impossible to have custom color themes or code macros. I don't want to be working like in the 80s.

On a side note, it's not actually free, when your team surpasses 5 members you gotta pay an unreasonable amount to Micro$oft. I'd rather not be a part of that "community", as in community edition.

crimsonbreakfast
Dec 2, 2019
-1

I like VS because it covers all my needs from SQL over ASP.NET to web apps.

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What is Microsoft Visual Studio?

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used for creating various digital solutions such as computer programs, mobile apps, websites, and web services. The IDE is based on several Microsoft software development frameworks. It can generate both native and managed code.

Visual Studio features a code editor with IntelliSense, code completion, and code refactoring. It also includes an integrated debugger, a GUI application forms designer, web designer, class designer, and database schema designer. The IDE supports plug-ins for additional functionality, including source-control system support and new toolsets.

Visual Studio is compatible with 36 programming languages, provided a language-specific service is available. The built-in languages include C, C++, C++/CLI, Visual Basic .NET, C#, F#, JavaScript, TypeScript, XML, XSLT, HTML, and CSS. Plug-ins offer support for other languages like Python, Ruby, Node.js, and M. The Community edition of Visual Studio is free. It also integrates with GitHub Copilot's code completion and chat.

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Development, Office & Productivity, OS & Utilities, AI Tools & Services

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Our users have written 24 comments and reviews about Microsoft Visual Studio, and it has gotten 938 likes

Microsoft Visual Studio was added to AlternativeTo by Ola Johansson on Apr 1, 2009 and this page was last updated Feb 24, 2025. Microsoft Visual Studio is sometimes referred to as Visual Studio, VS, Microsoft Visual Studio Express, Visual Studio Express, Visual Studio Online, VS Online, VS Express.