Visual Studio vs Visual Studio Code: Navigating Microsoft’s IDEs

Microsoft Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are two widely-used development tools. But what should you consider when deciding which one to work with? After all, both tools come loaded with distinct features:  enhancing code development, debugging, and implementation. Here, we will discuss how they differ in capabilities, utility, pricing, features, and other critical factors. Let’s dive in.

The Importance of Choosing the Right Integrated Development Environment

The right integrated development environment can help developers accelerate development and delivery. It ensures operation standardization, improves code accuracy and efficiency, achieves better integration, and automatically builds executables. Some of the factors developers must consider when choosing an IDE are cost, speed, debugging capacity, compatibility, ease of use, packages available, libraries, and reliability.

Code editors share some qualities with IDEs, although they generally have fewer features. Code editors primarily focus on editing code efficiently, while IDEs provide a more comprehensive toolkit.

What Is Visual Studio?

Visual Studio is an IDE that offers built-in support for effective development, editing, debugging, and implementation of web- and mobile-based applications. It contains programming utilities like IntelliSense, compiler, debugger, and more,  making it a complete IDE.

Advantages of Visual Studio

Here are some of the benefits of using Visual Studio:

• Coding assistance: Visual Studio offers real-time coding assistance to developers regardless of the language they use with the help of IntelliSense.
• Testing platform: The application testing platform on Visual Studio helps developers with debugging. Developers can debug remotely or locally.
• Collaboration support: The more eyes on the code, the better. Visual Studio comes equipped with collaborative capabilities to boost team productivity.
• Customizability: Visual Studio allows extensive customizations with the help of add-ons and extensions available on VS Marketplace.
• Multilingual support: Its robust functionality can be harnessed for multiple languages like C++, Python, TypeScript, SQL, and more.

Disadvantages of Visual Studio

Visual Studio has its downsides, too. Here are the cons of using Visual Studio:

• Resource intensive: Visual Studio is a heavy IDE. Developers will have to upgrade their computers to achieve seamless code development because VS is quite resource-intensive.
• Steep learning curve: Using Visual Studio can be quite intimidating for beginners because it is one of the most robust and complete integrated development environments available.
• Limited cross-platform development: Visual Studio, unlike other IDEs, offers only limited cross-platform development support.

What Is Visual Studio Code?

Visual Studio Code is essentially a  code editor and is also called the “mini-version” of Visual Studio. This open-source, lightweight text editor offers multiple customizations and is useful for developers seeking a community version of a development environment. Centered around ease, speed, flexibility, and extensibility, VSC is ideal for developers branching out of .NET or C#.

Advantages of Visual Studio Code

Here are some of the benefits of using Visual Studio Code:

• Multiple language support: Supports different programming languages, including Java, Python, C++, and JavaScript, and the respective syntax, code completion features, and tools.
• Feature-rich IDE: Features like Git integration, endless extensions, debugging tools, and others help developers build a complete and reliable workflow using Visual Studio Code.
• Enables customizations: VSC is highly customizable and allows developers to configure the interface to their preferences. It is an excellent platform to create a supportive programming environment.
• Large community for support: Visual Studio Code has a large community of developers creating and maintaining extensions and plugins for seamless development.
• Fast and efficient: Visual Studio Code is light, fast, and efficient.

Disadvantages of Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code has some disadvantages too. Here are the ones you should know:

• Not beginner friendly: It might take beginners more time to learn how to use the editor efficiently because it has so many features and integrations to offer.
• Requires configurations: Developers building code on VSC often need to configure the editor, making it difficult to achieve seamless code development.
• Resource-intensive: Developers with less powerful computers might find Visual Studio Code highly resource-intensive, especially if they need multiple extensions or want to execute large projects.

Key Differences Between Visual Studio & Visual Studio Code

Now, let’s look at the key differences between Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.

These key differences are what make this IDE and code editor stand apart. But which one is better? Let’s find out.

Visual Studio Versus Visual Studio Code: Who Wins?

The head-to-head competition between VS and VSC shows that both are quite competent tools. The former is highly complete, and the latter is highly configurable. In other words, their application would most certainly depend on specific project requirements. Therefore, it’s better to refer to the following use cases of Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code:

When to Use Visual Studio?

Developers should use Visual Studio for developing and building cross-platform software applications such as desktop, mobile, and web applications; web services, and more. Visual Studio is an excellent option if you require powerful debugging tools, project management tools, and source control. Ideally, it should be used to manage projects, write code, debug, and test applications.

When to Use Visual Studio Code?

Developers should consider Visual Studio Code if they need support for:

• Many programming languages
• Simultaneous support for multiple projects
• Cross-platform support
• Web development support
• A hierarchical structure
• Terminal support
• Git support and repositories
• Extensions

VSC should be used to write, edit, and debug code. It can assist with all kinds of development projects (with the right tools integrations).

FAQs

What companies use Visual Studio?

Over 1,700 companies like Accenture, Intuit, Alibaba Travels, ViaVarejo, Yousign, Oxylabs, Statista, and others use Visual Studio.

What companies use Visual Studio Code?

Over 4,570 companies like CRED, Trivago, Groww, KAVAK, Revolut, Graphy, Typeform, and others use Visual Studio Code.

What tools integrate with Visual Studio?

Azure DevOps, .NET Core, NuGet, Azure Functions, CanvasJS, and others are some of the tools that can integrate with Visual Studio.

What tools integrate with Visual Studio Code?

Tools like .NET Core, TSLint, Pylint, GitHub Copilot, AWS Cloud Development, Anaconda, Apache OpenWhisk, and others can integrate with Visual Studio Code.

Which is better for beginners: Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code?

Beginners looking for an IDE should go for Visual Studio Code as it has sufficient features and tools for newer users. Visual Studio does have more bells and whistles, but beginners might not need them in the first place. Also, Visual Studio Code is OS-agnostic—i.e. it can be used on any operating system.

Is Visual Studio Code just a lighter version of Visual Studio?

Visual Studio Code is lighter than Visual Studio because it only takes a couple of hundred MBs in your computer and can be installed on any operating system. However, its size should not be mistaken as a weakness since VSC is quite a powerful integrated development environment.