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  3. Visual Studio IDE
Logo of Visual Studio IDE

Visual Studio IDE

byMicrosoft
in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Software
4.5

Overview

Product Information on Visual Studio IDE

Updated 13th October 2025

What is Visual Studio IDE?

Visual Studio IDE is a software that provides tools for developing, debugging, and deploying applications across multiple platforms including Windows, web, cloud, and mobile devices. The software supports multiple programming languages such as C#, C++, Python, and JavaScript. It offers features including code editing, intelligent code suggestions, version control integration, and application lifecycle management. Visual Studio IDE addresses business needs by enabling developers to efficiently create, test, and maintain code, facilitating collaboration within development teams and streamlining workflows for software projects of varying complexity.

Visual Studio IDE Pricing

Visual Studio IDE software utilizes a tiered pricing model with options for a free Community edition and paid Professional and Enterprise editions. Paid editions are provided via subscription-based licensing and offer additional features and support. Subscription fees are charged monthly or annually depending on the selected edition of the software.

Overall experience with Visual Studio IDE

SOFTWARE ENGINEER
250M - 500M USD, Software
FAVORABLE

“Reliable, feature-rich IDE with seamless GIT integration and top-notch debugging”

5.0
Nov 10, 2025
Overall, I'd say my experience so far with Visual Studio has been super good. I use it almost daily for both main dev and some maintenance stuff, and honestly, it’s been reliable every time. I really like how easy it makes things like debugging and switching between projects and it just feels kinda familiar. Sometimes it's a little heavy and takes a bit longer to load up big solutions but, once it's running, I rarely have any problems. The whole git integration just makes life so much easier too and you don't need to keep jumping to another tool. So, yeah, overall, I just find it very solid and honestly can't imagine switching to anything else any time soon.
DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING
50M - 250M USD, Media
CRITICAL

“Feature-Rich Visual Studio Offers Powerful Tools Amid Performance and Usability Challenges”

3.0
Nov 25, 2025
Overall, my experience with VS has been positive from both an end-user and admin perspective. The IDE is robust, with a variety of debugging tools and helpful features like IntelliSense that have improved productivity across the engineering team. That said, it can feel resource intensive and occasionally overwhelming due to the number of options and menus.

About Company

Company Description

Updated 11th August 2023

Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft is dedicated to advancing human and organizational achievement. Microsoft Security helps protect people and data against cyberthreats to give peace of mind.

Company Details

Updated 25th March 2024
Company type
Public
Year Founded
1975
Head office location
Redmond, Washington, United States
Number of employees
10000+
Annual Revenue
30B+ USD
Website
https://microsoft.com

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Key Insights

A Snapshot of What Matters - Based on Validated User Reviews

User Sentiment About Visual Studio IDE
Reviewer Insights for: Visual Studio IDE
Performance of Visual Studio IDE Across Market Features

Visual Studio IDE Likes & Dislikes

Like

I think the thing I like the most is just how everything is like right there in one place. It does a great job putting together a code editor, Git tools, AI Agent support, etc,.. all in the same window. Makes it so I don't have to keep hopping between apps. The IntelliSense is just amazing too, it helps me catch stuff way before I actually mess up. And honestly, the debugger is a life saver when things go sideways. It kinda just makes the whole dev process a lot smoother and quicker. So yeah, all in one, that's what makes it stand out for me..

Like

I like the IDE's varied development tooling, particularly the IntelliSense code suggestions, powerful debugging capabilities, and seamless integration with Microsoft services like Azure and Github. This feature-rich IDE makes it much easier and faster to develop, deploy, and test applications. We've seen improved time to market. Finally, the customizable interface and range of extensions also allows my users to tailor the environment to their workflow, which is a major plus!

Like

As I have mentioned above: 1. I love how huge the package library is. The languages this IDE supports is huge. 2. The visual appeal is excellent and soothing to the eyes so its easy to code even for new users. 3. Great organizational functionalities. This is very important for huge organizations, who have a lot of dependencies in their codebase. 4. Co-pilot is a god-send and it gets smarter the more you use it. 5. New AI agents are smarter than ever, making day-to-day tasks so much easier. They promote best practices and keep you organized and focused on tasks while handling everything in the background.

Dislike

Honestly, there isn't much I actually dislike about VS, but I guess if I had to pick something, probably the way it gets a little slow sometimes, especially when you load up huge solutions. It can take a bit to start up or build if you've got lots of projects open and a few times it just felt kinda heavy on my system. Also, just to mention, sometimes after a big update, a plugin or two would stop working, bit its not super frequent and usually they fix it pretty quick. But apart from that, really not much to complain about from my side.

Dislike

Visual Studio can be very resource-intensive. The IDE often feels clunky, with slow startup times and long solution builds, particularly on local machines with little compute. Updates can be disruptive and occasionally introduce extension or compatibility issues. At times, the total number of settings and menus can be overwhelming for new or occasional users.

Dislike

To start with: 1. The IDE gets slower the more packages you have downloaded, so coding on a powerful system is required which most people can't afford to do. 2. The amount of information overload makes it difficult to navigate and process for new users. 3. Not every kind of code can be run on this. You will need some amount of knowledge to use this product. 4. The better AI models are all hiddent behind a paywall

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Peer Discussions

Visual Studio IDE Reviews and Ratings

4.5

(1717 Ratings)

Rating Distribution

5 Star
57%
4 Star
40%
3 Star
3%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
0%
Why ratings and reviews count differ?

Customer Experience

Evaluation & Contracting

4.4

Integration & Deployment

4.6

Service & Support

4.5

Product Capabilities

4.7

Filter Reviews
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Most helpful
Last 12 Months
Star Rating
Reviewer Type
Reviewer's Company Size
Reviewer's Industry
Reviewer's Region
Reviewer's Job Function
  • SOFTWARE ENGINEER
    50M-1B USD
    Software
    Review Source

    Reliable, feature-rich IDE with seamless GIT integration and top-notch debugging

    5.0
    Nov 10, 2025
    Overall, I'd say my experience so far with Visual Studio has been super good. I use it almost daily for both main dev and some maintenance stuff, and honestly, it’s been reliable every time. I really like how easy it makes things like debugging and switching between projects and it just feels kinda familiar. Sometimes it's a little heavy and takes a bit longer to load up big solutions but, once it's running, I rarely have any problems. The whole git integration just makes life so much easier too and you don't need to keep jumping to another tool. So, yeah, overall, I just find it very solid and honestly can't imagine switching to anything else any time soon.
  • OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE
    50M-1B USD
    Media
    Review Source

    User-Friendly Visual Studio IDE Faces Slowdowns and Information Overload Challenges

    4.0
    Sep 28, 2025
    Visual Studio IDE by Microsoft has always been my go to since the early days . I have worked with many IDEs but none has given me the flexibility and the customization that Visual Studio has to offer. Starting from the online IDE & Code editor which does not need any installation to the installed version and its plethora of possibilities. I'll write my review with the pros and cons below to help understand why Visual Studio IDE is the best in the business. Pros: 1. The package library it has is so immense. You can run anything you can think of. It has a package for everything, even for machine learning projects. 2. The UI/UX design of the IDE is so user friendly with minimal clutter that it is easy on the eyes for any individual. New coders and industries can manage their workspace with ease and have no issues dealing with mismanagement. 3. The way it organizes the code is impressive, color coded so it makes sure you don't miss any indentations and your code is error free. 4. The built-in terminal is very functional and way better than the default Windows terminal. 5. I can't forget about co-pilot which is even smarter and helpful in so many ways. There's live help and it's all built into the IDE. 6. The small installation size & time it took to set up is something that is rare these days especially for IDEs. Cons: 1. Of course it is not all powerful, you can't run simulations and not all languages are supported properly. This is mainly because the IDE is open source. 2. You cannot train a machine learning algorithm as it's not connected to a direct server. 3. The IDE gets slow as you download a lot of packages.
  • DIRECTOR OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
    1B-10B USD
    Banking
    Review Source

    Customization And Community Features Stand Out In VS IDE For Coding

    5.0
    Nov 3, 2025
    The VS IDE has been of great help to developers and my journey to coding right from supporting all templates for .NET languages to unified debugging support which enhances the experience of troubleshooting and finding issues with your code. I have been using the IDE for more than 10 years now and the features just keep getting better and easier. I mostly used the IDE for my day to day development and it has rich features like auto code completion, live debugging, AI assisted development using prompts which was added recently and hot reloading of .NET projects which lets you watch the changes live while the code is being changed was super cool.
  • CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
    50M-1B USD
    Insurance (except health)
    Review Source

    Visual Studio IDE Eases .Net Development But Limited To Windows Platform

    5.0
    Oct 29, 2025
    I have been using this IDE for many years. I have been using Visual Studio IDE for web and desktop-based application development. .Net Programming with C# and VB is my favorite programming and I have been developing applications in C# programming with the help of Visual Studio IDE since the beginning of my professional career. I loved .Net programming due to Visual Studio IDE. It is very easy to develop web, and desktop-based software with the help of this IDE. This IDE provides so many capabilities and features like very excellent intelligence while coding, refactoring, debugging, tracing, watch window to see the result in runtime, and more.
  • SYSADMIN
    <50M USD
    Manufacturing
    Review Source

    Visual Studio IDE Offers Versatility But Faces Challenges With Updates And Extensions

    4.0
    Oct 6, 2025
    Visual Studio's IDE works great in professional environments, for developing software tools used in our organization. Microsoft's Visual Studio IDE overall has a wide range of capable programming languages to utilize, and packages, however sometimes can be difficult to get packages working correctly based on what packages you already have installed, which version, and what .NET frameworks are installed.
...
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