• HOME
  • CATEGORIES

    • CATEGORIES

    • Browse All Categories
  • FOR VENDORS

    • FOR VENDORS

    • Log In to Vendor Portal
    • Get Started
  • REVIEWS

    • REVIEWS

    • Write a Review
    • Product Reviews
    • Vendor Directory
    • Product Comparisons
  • GARTNER PEER COMMUNITY™
  • GARTNER.COM
  • Community GuidelinesListing GuidelinesBrowse VendorsRules of EngagementFAQPrivacyTerms of Service
    ©2026 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
    All rights reserved.
  • Categories

    • No categories available

      Browse All Categories

      Select a category to view markets

  • For Vendors

    • Log In to Vendor Portal 

    • Get Started 

  • Write a Review

Join / Sign In

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.

Key Insights

A Snapshot of What Matters - Based on Validated User Reviews

Peer Discussions

Recommended Gartner Insights

Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

This site is protected by hCaptcha and its Privacy Policy and Terms of Use apply.


Software reviews and ratings for EMMS, BI, CRM, MDM, analytics, security and other platforms - Peer Insights by Gartner
Community GuidelinesListing GuidelinesBrowse VendorsRules of EngagementFAQsPrivacyTerms of Use

©2026 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

All rights reserved.

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

Do You Manage Peer Insights at Microsoft?

Access Vendor Portal to update and manage your profile.

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

The best features i enjoy most for the IDE include Intellitrace which is like time travel debugging and records your debugging history right from the start. I also use the nuget package manager for managing my app dependencies and the performance profiler to monitor the performannce of my code even when it connects to external DB's which is good for end to end profiling of your app. I also like that it has a good support for github integration where you can create, check in your PR changes and observer the diffs right within the IDE. We have a lot of unit tests and it executes those as soon as your code changes which is a great feature for monitoring the health of the app. Recently with the addition of AI assisted prompting it has become even more easier to automate things like running the refactoring agents to inspect code and suggest changes for improving the code quality. It also has integration with azure and docker containers which is great for running cloud apps.

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

Nothing that I could point at which make it less friendly. The loading time could be made a little better for large projects with multiple sub projects.

Top Visual Studio IDE Alternatives

  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Visual Studio IDE
Logo of Visual Studio IDE

Visual Studio IDE

byMicrosoft
in Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Software
4.5

Visual Studio IDE Reviews and Ratings

User Sentiment About Visual Studio IDE
Performance of Visual Studio IDE Across Market Features
Filter Reviews
Sort By:
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.
  • 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.
  • SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
    <50M USD
    Services (non-Government)
    Review Source

    Visual Studio IDE Transforms Coding Experience With Customization And Debugging Tools

    4.0
    Nov 6, 2025
    I have been a user of Visual Studio IDE for more than 4 years now. It's been a game changer for coding, when there is only notepad & CLI is available to code. It created a revolution in the IDE world and gave a different perspective to the Developers across the world. There are plenty of features given by default, by changing the theme, setting up profiles inside of an IDE. Along with N number of extensions available to do customization inside of it, for an example, material icons for folder & file differentiation, as well as the language difference in file icon. Code formatter to better understand the coding structure. Also, Live server for individual file debugging on Local machine. There are plenty of more features that are still need to explore. It has given developers a new confidence in coding as they can easily find the errors, while coding as well as in compiling. Even though there are so many features, there are some catches that need to be improved, like some users report it becoming less lightweight and more prone to sluggishness, especially with large projects. For certain extensions or complex configurations, it consumes more of the GPU resulting in an impact on overall system performance.
  • Senior Business Analyst Ii
    50M-1B USD
    IT Services
    Review Source

    Seamless Collaboration Features Offset By Heavy Resource Usage With Large Projects

    4.0
    Jan 20, 2026
    My overall experience with this has been very good as it makes building and debugging applications much easier. The interface is intuitive and the built-in tools like Intellisense, debugging and refactoring significantly improve productivity. It performs well with large projects and supports a wide range of programming languages, which makes it suitable for different types of development work. The ability to customize the environment with extensions is another great advantage. However, it can feel quite heavy at times, particularly when opening large solutions or installing updates, and it requires a machine with decent performance to run smoothly.
...
Showing Result 1-5 of 1940

4.5

(1719 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

Reviewer Insights for: Visual Studio IDE
Logo of Android Studio
1. Android Studio
4.4
(683 Ratings)
Logo of IntelliJ IDEA
2. IntelliJ IDEA
4.5
(297 Ratings)
Logo of Xcode
3. Xcode
4.4
(276 Ratings)
View All Alternatives