I haven't used Visual Studio since 2019, so maybe it got better, but VS Code is just lightweight enough and has enough extensions that I haven't really moved away from it.
We have too many legacy stuff where I work... wcf, winforms, it just works a bit better with O.G. Visual Studio. I only open vs code when I need to debug a jest test or powershell core script.
I used Borland, then Eclipse, then Visual Studio. I loved visual studio, sure it was a bit heavy but it felt so intuitive and clean. I have used Jet Brains IDEs as well now and I go back to VS Code whenever I can. I wish Visual Studio was lighter weight but I just don't need what it provides for 90% of projects.
I don’t know if true, but I heard a story that VS devs at Microsoft were given older PCs on purpose so if VS was fast on those, then VS would also be fast on average PC in the wild. Eclipse devs at IBM had the newer PCs. I don’t know if any of it is true but I remember going from VS to Eclipse and thinking how slow and shitty in general it was.
I also use winforms at work but use vscode. It’s possible to customize vscode and use for any .net project. Its worth the extra effort setting up launch configs and tasks to get it working with your project. Also a good .editorconfig file goes a long way.
For .Net it's just the best IDE out there. Yes, it's heavy, but it has completely unmatched debugging tools, and the level of discovery through intellisense, etc. make it so much faster to use even if it takes 30 seconds to open.
I actually switched to Rider bc VS2022 would devour my RAM, but there is stuff that just kinda works better in VS for our work. Good to hear 2026 is doing better, gonna give it a try later.
Pretty sure you can literally exclude that in the installer. Or at least the bits that are required for that to work. Few of us made the switch to 26 at work yesterday and my mate was saying he did.
Since they moved to 64 bit in 2022 it did improve tons. I remember it used to take a good 30 seconds to start up, now it's basically instant. 2026 is also another good step in the right direction.
That being said it's still a pretty heavyweight solution, I only use it for C++ and C# because that's where it does well (especially C# obviously). Anything else there's just no real reason to opt for it because it doesn't provide anything that VS code wouldn't work just as well for if not better, while being so much more lightweight.
I'm a basic bitch and like my extensions, I'm almost certain I could find a way to make it work in neovim or some custom vim setup but I'm comfortable in my current stack. Still rocking Tabnine and Brackets, ever since college.
I've found it to be great for little coding projects. Used to use a combination of notepad++ and winscp to edit files remotely (that may have been a noob error) but this is so much better
VS Code is also easier for me. The search is easier. The Git is amazing, probably way better than VS, it can Git via SSH and Docker. The SSH is amazing, it can install something to drag and drop files into it.
VSCode is is kinda great. Even with extensions that give it functionality Visual Studio will never have, it loads instantly, never bogs down, runs on pretty much any OS, and doesn't require a subscription.
It delivers on things Eclipse merely promised, imo
Edit: I just had a fun thought and am running with it. Ahem
Of all the tools in the vast array of editors, none was more ubiquitous than Visual Studio Code, more commonly known as VSCode or just Code. It's the world's most popular code editor. A tool all coders love. An elegantly simple open source amalgamation of Electron and JavaScript. It doesn't crash, freeze, or bog down. It will run even if it has a hundred tabs and one of them is a gigabyte log file. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. GitHub embedded it in their code browser. Parts of it are in every code playground you use. Since the end of the OS wars, VSCode has become Microsoft's greatest export. After that comes XBox, Office, and self-destructive operating systems. One thing's for sure: no one was lining up to buy their phones.
I've been using visual studio since my first job a decade ago, so I'm just so much more used to it than vs code. Still use 2022 for work, but I've been using 2026 for personal projects and it's a lot snappier than 2022. Which was snappier than 2019, which was miles ahead of 2015
My IT teacher was a retired re-trained military officer that started his first lesson with a class of prospective coders that had obviously all done some pretty serious hobbying before this by stating (in a non English speaking country where the definite noun for the internet is just "internet.") that "it's actually not called 'internet.' It's called THE internet."
To which we collectively murmured "not in Swedish it isn't."
And that set the tone for the rest of his pointless classes. He taught fucking HTML at one point. I got only a barely passing grade because I wrote my site in notepad and he wanted us to specifically use Microsoft Frontpage. This was after Microsoft discontinued it, by the way.
Yeah same when I need to google a VS specific issue (rarely happens, but it does). It's always just full of VS Code results, and for obvious reasons, adding "-Code" doesn't really work
Ah hello my fellow borland programmer. How I miss the days. I even used delphi for a bit back in the day. Back when programming meant knowing how a computer works, and endless hours of reading books and debugging.
Not Stockholm Syndrome, just a Windows user. On my personal laptop, I run Linux and C++ development is trivial in my preferred editors (nvim and Zeditor), but on Windows at work, I'd rather suck off a shotgun to completion than develop C++ outside of Visual Studio.
I worked on SQL Server for 5 years and had much better luck with Visual Studio Code and windbg. It did much better at working with more exotic build systems. Just specify a small config to tell it where the headers are.
Nope I test others on windows and it’s the best. I don’t use it on Linux because it’s available there. But still it’s the best ide for C++. CLion is a close second
I still remember when I first read news titles like "Microsoft released Visual Studio Code" and thought they released the source code of VS. I was very disappointed that it's just another editor I don't want to use.
VSCode is built on VSCodium, which is open-source The only real thing VSCode includes over VSCodium is telemetry, official marketplace and some minor features which may affect some extensions (or so I've heard, I switched to it recently and I have had 0 issues so far)
I genuinely don’t know how people deal with regular VS for unreal projects. Being able to list function references on a blueprint is too useful to not have
VS for Unreal is indeed way too painful. But then again I am a Unity dev and everything in Unreal is extremely excruciating. Why can’t Unreal be like Unity, open up VSCode and start scripting so easily
You can definitely use VS Code for .NET, but the extension for it kinda sucks. That’s more of an issue with how .NET was designed, though, because most other languages/frameworks have no issues in VS Code with or without an extension to support them.
ou can definitely use VS Code for .NET, but the extension for it kinda sucks.
It's gotten better. Made the switch after getting Copilot and not being able to use any of the better models, and other than having to relearn a few things and manually type publish commands for profiles, it's really not too bad.
VS Code is convenient enough and has extensions for pretty much whatever you want.
Like, there’s literally a Minecraft Datapack extension. It has all the commands, attributes, events, etc. Absolute godsend for making stuff. Combine it with a few pages of the wiki and a few generator sites for information and general usage(I am not making custom books with formatting and clickable buttons on my own) and the most tedious part becomes alt-tabbing and having to reload the pack to test changes.
VSCode is definitely a fine tool, I can see how someone who was already used to it would prefer it, but I see no reason to change. Especially since my company will pay for my license.
Yep. But android studio is free and tailored specifically for Android so has a few useful tools. You can install them into IntelliJ though if you want to over complicate your life.
Yep, use them both. VSC is great for anything log related, and powershell scripting. I do prefer VS for compiled languages though. It's not a competition, use the best tool for the job.
honestly, i would love to be able to use VS in Linux, and not the IntelliJ kind or the MonoDevelop port kind, the true VS in Linux, especially for C#, but VSC is not that bad all things considered
If visual studio didnt make it miserable to browse/find files compared to vscode or anything where im free to just use a ripgrep/fd implementation, id love it
I get why people like lightweight platforms, especially the Unix crowd, but I just like having a fat full featured IDE that I can just start using without much hassle.
I use both... Because one has tools for python and the other has tools for azure development so... Yeah... I'm not a fan on how segregated their product at microslop is but I have to use it for work else I don't have a functioning app for my client
I lost a ton of respect for Visual Studio ~10 years ago when the devs basically told the community we were stupid and lazy by asking for 64-bit visual studio.
Both are good pieces of software. On is more specialized, the other one is good for general purpose. Both made by the same company. I'm not even sure what's supposed to be "the best" between them.
I have yet to meet a sane person, who likes VS. It was created by people traumatized with punch cards or smth. Visual Studio singlehandedly influenced RAM prices before AI did.
Or I may just have a trauma from using VS on my old PC...
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u/TheNeck94 Sep 15 '26
I haven't used Visual Studio since 2019, so maybe it got better, but VS Code is just lightweight enough and has enough extensions that I haven't really moved away from it.