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Visual Studio Code

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft
172.1K
156.6K
+ 1
2.3K

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.
Visual Studio Code is a tool in the Text Editor category of a tech stack.
Visual Studio Code is an open source tool with 156.9K GitHub stars and 27.3K GitHub forks. Here’s a link to Visual Studio Code's open source repository on GitHub

Who uses Visual Studio Code?

Companies
4744 companies reportedly use Visual Studio Code in their tech stacks, including CRED, HENNGE K.K., and KAVAK.

Developers
164051 developers on StackShare have stated that they use Visual Studio Code.

Visual Studio Code Integrations

GitHub, .NET Core, TSLint, Windows, and Azure Functions are some of the popular tools that integrate with Visual Studio Code. Here's a list of all 138 tools that integrate with Visual Studio Code.
Pros of Visual Studio Code
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
Decisions about Visual Studio Code

Here are some stack decisions, common use cases and reviews by companies and developers who chose Visual Studio Code in their tech stack.

Denys
Software engineer at Typeform · | 13 upvotes · 1.7M views
Shared insights
at
  • Go because it's easy and simple, facilitates collaboration , and also it's fast, scalable, powerful.
  • Visual Studio Code because it has one of the most sophisticated Go language support plugins.
  • Vim because it's Vim
  • Git because it's Git
  • Docker and Docker Compose because it's quick and easy to have reproducible builds/tests with them
  • Arch Linux because Docker for Mac/Win is a disaster for the human nervous system, and Arch is the coolest Linux distro so far
  • Stack Overflow because of Copy-Paste Driven Development
  • JavaScript and Python when a something needs to be coded for yesterday
  • PhpStorm because it saves me like 300 "Ctrl+F" key strokes a minute
  • cURL because terminal all the way
See more
C.A. Tucker
Shared insights
at

Problem was wanting to save time and money on converting well-written C# code to Ubuntu. Solution was to use Mono and Visual Studio Code which allowed us to convert our application libraries straight across.

See more
Lidiexy Alonso
Senior Software Engineer at Palinode LLC · | 6 upvotes · 369.9K views
Shared insights

As developer at Applied Health Analytics we decided to create a React Native App. In terms of #IDE I'm a good fan of PhpStorm cause we have a lot of PHP in the backend, but I've definitely gave a try to Visual Studio Code and now is my primary JavaScript #IDE. I was impress how fast VS Code has become the No.1 @JavaScript Editor in the community.

See more
Johnny Bell

When I switched to Visual Studio Code 12 months ago from PhpStorm I was in love, it was great. However after using VS Code for a year, I see myself switching back and forth between WebStorm and VS Code. The VS Code plugins are great however I notice Prettier, auto importing of components and linking to the definitions often break, and I have to restart VS Code multiple times a week and sometimes a day.

We use Ruby here so I do like that Visual Studio Code highlights that for me out of the box, with WebStorm I'd need to probably also install RubyMine and have 2 IDE's going at the same time.

Should I stick with Visual Studio Code, or switch to something else? #help

See more
Johnny Bell
Shared a protip
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Prettier not formatting code on save in Visual Studio Code? - I've come across the same issue and took me a long time googling around to find the issue.

It is actually a very simple fix. Add the below to your Visual Studio Code settings.json

"[javascript]": {
    "editor.formatOnSave": true
},
"[javascriptreact]": {
  "editor.formatOnSave": true
}
See more
Felix Hungenberg
Graphic Designer & Web Developer at hosting.de GmbH · | 2 upvotes · 110.5K views

I use Visual Studio Code every day, it was very refreshing coming from Atom to get a lightweight, all i need setup right out of the box.

After working with Atom for around 2 years I switch to VSCode.

Here is why:

  1. Color display of variables in code. This may now sound much, but it improve the display of scss variables and its a core feature.
  2. Out of the box features.
  3. Automation! VSCode suggests usefull things to you.
  4. Integraded console. I love the console in VSCode. It is faster than my 'default' cmd on Windows. For Atom you would have to install a package, that doesn't work so well on Windows.
  5. Output logging per Plugin.
  6. Setup time. In VSCode I can set up my workspace in under 5 minutes. For Atom I need
  7. Plugins work perfect out of the box. This is a mayor one for me. For example: In order to set up Editorconfig you have to adjust mutliple values and plugins to get it work. Plugin creators of Editorconfig for Atom are not to blame: They include a linter, that verifies whether the settings are correct or not.
  8. Git implementation. VSCode ships with Git and even if the git packet of vscode doesn't look like much, theres a lot to it. For example you can watch changes inline.
  9. Minimap and vertical scrollbar. This feature is much better implementet in VSCode and you don't need an extra plugin.
  10. Auto completion. Sass mixins example: @include and you press CTRL+SPACE and VSCode shows you every Sass mixin.
  11. Copy paths from open file tab. In VSCode you can copy the path of an file directly when you have it open. In atom you need to select 'show in tree view' and than copy the path or relative path.
  12. Tree view. The tree view VSCode automaticly brings you to the current open file by default. This helps when working with components.
  13. File search. The file search supports the asterisk so you can search for eg molecule-*.ts.
  14. Tasks support. Tasks are integrated in VSCode so eg. for Typescript you can CTRL + SHIFT + B and select tsc: watch - tsconfig.ts.
  15. Short waiting time. For example when deleting files or beautifying 20.000 lines of json (Atom hangs up).
  16. More releases. Faster feature implementation. Active community.
See more

Visual Studio Code's Features

  • Combines UI of a modern editor with code assistance and navigation
  • Integrated debugging experience

Visual Studio Code Alternatives & Comparisons

What are some alternatives to Visual Studio Code?
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

Visual Studio Code's Followers
156695 developers follow Visual Studio Code to keep up with related blogs and decisions.