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About Visual Studio
Visual Studio is Microsoft's full IDE, distinct from the lighter Visual Studio Code editor. It combines a code editor with IntelliSense completion, a debugger, project and build tooling, and deployment features, and is aimed at .NET, C++ and Windows application development.
The current release is Visual Studio 2026. It comes in three editions: Community, which is free to download, plus paid Professional and Enterprise editions for commercial teams.
Strengths
- Complete toolset for .NET and C++ projects
- IntelliSense code completion and an integrated debugger
- Free Community edition
- Large extension ecosystem
Limitations
- Large install compared with a plain code editor
- Professional and Enterprise editions are paid
- Proprietary software
Details
- Pricing
- FreemiumCommunity edition is free; Professional and Enterprise are paid.
- License
- Proprietary (Proprietary)
- Developer
- Microsoft
- Platforms
- Windows
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Best suited for
- Developers building .NET, C++ or Windows applications who want a full IDE
- Categories
- Code editors, Developer tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to Visual Studio
Compare allSoftware that can replace Visual Studio for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Apache NetBeans
An open-source IDE for Java, PHP, JavaScript, HTML and other languages from Apache.
Apache NetBeans is free and open source under Apache-2.0 and cross-platform, but focuses on Java and PHP rather than .NET and C++.
Qt Creator
A cross-platform IDE for building C++ and Qt applications, maintained by the Qt project.
Qt Creator is an open-source cross-platform IDE for C++ and Qt applications, without Visual Studio's .NET tooling.
KDevelop
A cross-platform open-source IDE from KDE for C, C++, Python, QML/JavaScript and PHP.
KDevelop is a free KDE IDE for C and C++ with CMake support on Windows, macOS and Linux, lacking .NET development tools.
Code::Blocks
A free, plugin-based IDE for C, C++ and Fortran with a consistent interface across platforms.
Code::Blocks is a free plugin-based IDE for C, C++ and Fortran on Windows and Linux, with long gaps between major releases.
Theia IDE
An open-source IDE for desktop and browser from the Eclipse Foundation that runs VS Code extensions.
Theia IDE is an open-source Eclipse Foundation IDE for desktop and browser that runs VS Code extensions from Open VSX.
Cursor
An AI code editor built on VS Code, with coding agents that plan and carry out tasks.
Cursor is a VS Code-based AI code editor on macOS with coding agents, replacing a full IDE with a lighter editor and hosted AI features.
Visual Studio as an alternative
Listings that name Visual Studio as an alternative.
Android Studio
Google's official IDE for building Android apps, based on IntelliJ.
Visual Studio is Microsoft's Windows-only IDE focused on .NET and C++, with a free Community edition, and lacks Android Studio's official Jetpack Compose and Android tooling.
CLion
C and C++ IDE with CMake integration and deep static analysis.
Visual Studio gives C++ developers IntelliSense and an integrated debugger with a free Community edition, but it runs only on Windows and is proprietary.
Rider
Cross-platform .NET IDE combining ReSharper analysis with a full IDE.
Visual Studio is Microsoft's .NET IDE with a free Community edition, but it runs only on Windows instead of Rider's Windows, macOS and Linux.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
.NET
Microsoft's free, open-source, cross-platform runtime and SDK for building apps in C#, F# and Visual Basic.
Xcode
Apple's IDE for developing, testing and distributing apps for all Apple platforms.
PhpStorm
A commercial JetBrains IDE for PHP, with built-in JavaScript, TypeScript and SQL support.
RustRover
A JetBrains IDE for Rust with code analysis, refactoring, debugging, testing and Cargo integration.
GitHub Copilot
An AI coding assistant from GitHub that suggests code and carries out coding tasks in editors and terminals.
