Microsoft Visual Studio icon
Microsoft Visual Studio icon

Microsoft Visual Studio

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

Cost / License

  • Free Personal
  • Proprietary

Application type

Platforms

  • Windows
  • Online
  • .NET Framework
Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 1
Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 2
+5
Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot 3
Alternatives  
941likes
112alternatives
7articles
Save

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.  Syntax Highlighting
  10.  Color coding
  11.  NETCore Support
  12.  C support
  13.  Support for MS SQL Server
  14.  F# Support
  15.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  16.  No registration required
  17.  Autocompletion
  18.  Works Offline
  19.  Ad-free
  20.  C# Scripting
  21.  Form designer
  22. Microsoft Azure icon  Azure integration
  23.  Refactoring
  24.  Automatic content formatting
  25.  Built-in AI Assistant
  26.  Vim Key Mapping

 Tags

Microsoft Visual Studio News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent News

Recent activities

Ad
Screenshot
Replit icon
Replit

In-browser IDE supporting 50+ languages with an AI assistant, real-time collaboration, Git support, hosting, deployment, and live code sharing.

 
Learn More

Comments and Reviews

   
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
benjamin willis
0

very useful platform

Top Negative Comment
lukalabudovic123
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.

Kris Regina
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
1

Powerful, but extremely bloated and slow.

spame
0

Non-free software

sybaricat
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.

crimsonbreakfast
-1

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

7 of 24 comments

Featured in Lists

My Windows Setup

These are all the software I use on my windows machine. I am privacy freak. So, I mostly use open source software. Checkout "My Firefox setup" list for firefox extensions.
By sam100 appsUpdated

The Complete Suite of Programs Needed After New Windows Installation [V2.0: Advanced]

After a fresh Windows installation, new users might get frustrated by the weakness of the default Microsoft apps. So, in this list I'm going to cover applications that will enhance the user experience for everyday tasks. And for that, I only picked programs that meet these criteria: • Should be free (not commercial), safe and preferably open-source. • Should be an offline native desktop app/client. • Does not require advanced technical knowledge. Thus, the list is tailored to non tech-savvy home users, however, a section for people who are into computer programming and IT will be also added, which includes basic and commonly-used development and coding tools.
By Malaz YI43 appsUpdated

My Setup - All Apps and Software

Master List of all Apps and Software I use for both work and personal life.
By Jimmy Briggs416 appsUpdated

Official Links

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.

Microsoft Visual Studio information

AlternativeTo Categories

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

Popular alternatives

View all

Top Microsoft Visual Studio apps (extensions / mods etc)

View all

Our users have written 24 comments and reviews about Microsoft Visual Studio, and it has gotten 941 likes

Microsoft Visual Studio was added to AlternativeTo by Ola Johansson on and this page was last updated . 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.