Visual Studio Code vs VSCodium

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Visual Studio Code

174.1K
156.7K
+ 1
2.3K
VSCodium

103
89
+ 1
57
Add tool

VSCodium vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

VSCodium and Visual Studio Code are both popular code editors used by developers. Let's explore the key differences between them.

  1. Licensing: VSCodium is released under the MIT license, which allows users to freely use, modify, and distribute the software without any restrictions. On the other hand, Visual Studio Code is released under a proprietary license by Microsoft, which means there are some usage restrictions and limitations.

  2. Branding and Telemetry: VSCodium differs from Visual Studio Code in terms of branding and telemetry. VSCodium is stripped of Microsoft branding and any telemetry or tracking features that may be present in Visual Studio Code. This makes VSCodium more privacy-focused, appealing to users who value privacy and open-source software without any tracking.

  3. Extensions: Another difference is in the extensions available. While Visual Studio Code has a wide range of official and third-party extensions available through the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, VSCodium does not have direct access to the marketplace. However, VSCodium can still use extensions by manually installing them or through alternative extension repositories.

  4. Update Frequency: VSCodium and Visual Studio Code also differ in terms of update frequency. Visual Studio Code is updated more frequently, often with new features and improvements, while VSCodium may not receive updates as frequently. This can be an important consideration for users who want access to the latest features and bug fixes.

  5. Integrated Services and Features: Visual Studio Code offers integrated services and features that are not available in VSCodium. This includes Visual Studio LiveShare, which allows for collaborative editing and debugging, as well as the ability to easily connect to Azure services. These integrated features can be a significant advantage depending on the specific needs of the developer.

  6. Support and Documentation: As an officially supported Microsoft product, Visual Studio Code has extensive support and documentation available. Users can access official Microsoft documentation, support forums, and other resources for assistance. While VSCodium also has community support, it may not have the same level of official support and documentation as Visual Studio Code.

In summary, VSCodium and Visual Studio Code are both popular code editors based on the same underlying source code, but they differ in their licensing and branding. VSCodium is essentially Visual Studio Code without Microsoft branding and telemetry, providing a fully open-source alternative for users who prioritize privacy and freedom.

Decisions about Visual Studio Code and VSCodium
Kamaleshwar BN
Senior Software Engineer at Pulley · | 12 upvotes · 1.3M views

Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.

Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.

See more
Simon Ibssa
Student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo · | 2 upvotes · 1.2M views

I decided to choose VSCode over Sublime text for my Systems Programming class in C. What I love about VSCode is its awesome ability to add extensions. Intellisense is a beautiful debugger, and Remote SSH allows me to login and make real-time changes in VSCode to files on my university server. This is an awesome alternative to going back and forth on pushing/pulling code and logging into servers in the terminal. Great choice for anyone interested in C programming!

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Visual Studio Code
Pros of VSCodium
  • 339
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 308
    Fast
  • 193
    Front-end develop out of the box
  • 158
    Support TypeScript IntelliSense
  • 142
    Very basic but free
  • 126
    Git integration
  • 106
    Intellisense
  • 78
    Faster than Atom
  • 53
    Better ui, easy plugins, and nice git integration
  • 45
    Great Refactoring Tools
  • 44
    Good Plugins
  • 42
    Terminal
  • 38
    Superb markdown support
  • 36
    Open Source
  • 34
    Extensions
  • 26
    Large & up-to-date extension community
  • 26
    Awesome UI
  • 24
    Powerful and fast
  • 22
    Portable
  • 18
    Best editor
  • 18
    Best code editor
  • 17
    Easy to get started with
  • 15
    Lots of extensions
  • 15
    Built on Electron
  • 15
    Crossplatform
  • 15
    Good for begginers
  • 14
    Extensions for everything
  • 14
    Open, cross-platform, fast, monthly updates
  • 14
    All Languages Support
  • 13
    Easy to use and learn
  • 12
    Extensible
  • 12
    "fast, stable & easy to use"
  • 11
    Totally customizable
  • 11
    Git out of the box
  • 11
    Faster edit for slow computer
  • 11
    Ui design is great
  • 11
    Useful for begginer
  • 10
    Great community
  • 10
    SSH support
  • 10
    Fast Startup
  • 9
    It has terminal and there are lots of shortcuts in it
  • 9
    Powerful Debugger
  • 9
    Great language support
  • 9
    Works With Almost EveryThing You Need
  • 8
    Python extension is fast
  • 8
    Can compile and run .py files
  • 7
    Great document formater
  • 7
    Features rich
  • 6
    He is not Michael
  • 6
    Awesome multi cursor support
  • 6
    Extension Echosystem
  • 6
    She is not Rachel
  • 5
    Language server client
  • 5
    Easy azure
  • 5
    SFTP Workspace
  • 5
    VSCode.pro Course makes it easy to learn
  • 5
    Very proffesional
  • 4
    Supports lots of operating systems
  • 4
    Has better support and more extentions for debugging
  • 4
    Excellent as git difftool and mergetool
  • 4
    Virtualenv integration
  • 3
    Has more than enough languages for any developer
  • 3
    Better autocompletes than Atom
  • 3
    Emmet preinstalled
  • 3
    'batteries included'
  • 3
    More tools to integrate with vs
  • 2
    VS Code Server: Browser version of VS Code
  • 2
    Big extension marketplace
  • 2
    Customizable
  • 2
    Microsoft
  • 2
    Light
  • 2
    Fast and ruby is built right in
  • 2
    CMake support with autocomplete
  • 6
    Simple and intuitive UI
  • 6
    Community-driven
  • 6
    Open source
  • 5
    Intellisense
  • 4
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 4
    Terminal
  • 4
    Fast
  • 4
    Good Plugins
  • 4
    Crossplatform
  • 4
    Git integration
  • 4
    Privacy
  • 3
    Powerful
  • 3
    Extensions

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Visual Studio Code
Cons of VSCodium
  • 46
    Slow startup
  • 29
    Resource hog at times
  • 20
    Poor refactoring
  • 16
    Microsoft
  • 13
    Poor UI Designer
  • 11
    Weak Ui design tools
  • 10
    Poor autocomplete
  • 8
    Super Slow
  • 8
    Microsoft sends telemetry data
  • 7
    Poor in PHP
  • 7
    Huge cpu usage with few installed extension
  • 6
    It's MicroSoft
  • 3
    No built in live Preview
  • 3
    No Built in Browser Preview
  • 3
    Poor in Python
  • 3
    Electron
  • 3
    No color Intergrator
  • 3
    Very basic for java development and buggy at times
  • 2
    Powered by Electron
  • 2
    Bad Plugin Architecture
  • 1
    Terminal does not identify path vars sometimes
  • 1
    Slow C++ Language Server
  • 2
    Some extentions can't be isntalled direclty from IDE

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Visual Studio Code?

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

What is VSCodium?

It is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VSCode.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Visual Studio Code?
What companies use VSCodium?
See which teams inside your own company are using Visual Studio Code or VSCodium.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Visual Studio Code?
What tools integrate with VSCodium?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

What are some alternatives to Visual Studio Code and VSCodium?
Atom
At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.
Visual Studio
Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.
Eclipse
Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.
IntelliJ IDEA
Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.
WebStorm
WebStorm is a lightweight and intelligent IDE for front-end development and server-side JavaScript.
See all alternatives