Visual Studio Code icon
Visual Studio Code icon

Visual Studio Code

Free and extensible code editor with built-in Git support, smart IntelliSense, integrated debugger, 30,000+ extensions, works offline, supports markdown and syntax highlighting for numerous languages.

Visual Studio Code screenshot 1

Cost / License

  • Free
  • Proprietary (MIT)

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux  64-bit only
  • Online  [https://vscode.dev/](https://vscode.dev/)
  • Chrome OS  Linux app support required or go to [https://vscode.dev/](https://vscode.dev/)
  • Snapcraft
Visual Studio Code screenshot 1
Visual Studio Code screenshot 2
+2
Visual Studio Code screenshot 3
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Features

Properties

  1.  Customizable
  2.  Support for Themes

Features

  1.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  2.  Autocompletion
  3.  Built-in terminal emulation
  4.  Syntax Highlighting
  5.  Code Completion
  6.  Multiple languages
  7. GitHub icon  GitHub Integration
  8.  Dark Mode
  9. Git icon  Git Support
  10.  Supports Python
  11.  C++
  12.  Multiple Cursors
  13.  Auto Update
  14.  Graphical User Interface
  15.  Support for MarkDown
  16.  WYSIWYG HTML Editor
  17.  Plug-ins
  18.  Minimap
  19.  Support for Javascript
  20. Node.js icon  Support for Node.js
  21.  Theme Customization
  22.  PHP IDE
  23.  Remote Debugging
  24. Git icon  Git integration
  25.  C# Scripting
  26.  Works Offline
  27.  Ad-free
  28.  Live Preview
  29.  WYSIWYG Support
  30.  No registration required
  31.  Code Formatting
  32.  Full-Text Search
  33.  C support
  34.  Ruby support
  35.  Lint support
  36.  Code navigation
  37.  Embedded debugger
  38.  Specific for 64-Bit
  39.  Support for 64 bit
  40.  Custom Plugins
  41. GitHub Copilot icon  GitHub Copilot Integration
  42.  Electron based
  43.  Run Android Apps on Desktop
  44.  Mercurial support
  45.  Objective-c

 Tags

Visual Studio Code News & Activities

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Recent News

Recent activities

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Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Visual Studio Code is praised for its versatility, ease of use, and extensive plugin support, making it a popular choice among programmers. It excels in language support, especially for JavaScript and TypeScript, and integrates well with Git and debugging tools. However, some users find it resource-intensive, becoming slower with updates. Concerns are also raised about its proprietary components despite being advertised as open-source. Overall, it's considered highly customizable and efficient for cross-platform development.
Top Positive Comment
denissherstennikov
19

Faster then atom. Fresher then notepad++. Freer then sublime text.

JohnDangerbrooks

And more extensible than all three.

petrovnn2

Fast, intuitive, extensible

Top Negative Comment
Nonononoki
35

It is actually NOT open source. Its base is open source, you have to compile it yourself since the binary you can download on the official page was actually MODIFIED and under a proprietary license! It's like the relationship between Chrome and Chromium, except that Google NEVER even tried to call the Chrome "open source", but Microsoft indeed does.

The name for the open source application is actually called "Code - OSS Dev".

dany111

Actually, VSCode developers says that "The cool thing about all of this is that you have the choice to use the Visual Studio Code branded product under our license or you can build a version of the tool straight from the vscode repository, under the MIT license. Here's how it works. When you build from the vscode repository, you can configure the resulting tool by customizing the product.json file. This file controls things like the Gallery endpoints, “Send-a-Smile” endpoints, telemetry endpoints, logos, names, and more. When we build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license." They seems to be light and reversible customizations.

[Edited by dany111, December 18] https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/60

Things seem to be more complex. See: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/31168#issuecomment-317319063 https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/DOCS.md#proprietary-debugging-tools https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/49159

[Edited by dany111, June 14]

JohnDangerbrooks

One of the tenets of the FOSS philosophy is that you can create derivative works from a FOSS product for whatever purpose, including commercial. Now Microsoft has done exactly that: It has created branded binaries from its own FOSS code. And there is a good reason behind that; they need to protect their customers against backspaceware. (The same goes for the popular Google Chrome.)

Jared Scott
0

Hard to argue with the default. The extension marketplace is the real moat, even as the app drifts further from lightweight editor with every release.

easyissimple
0

Great overall editor with an incredible library of extensions. It can get a bit resource-heavy with too many plugins, but it's still my primary go-to.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Moumou Johnson
0

Fast, free, tons of extensions. My daily editor.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Mayur Mahajan
0

My fav IDE. Has everything I want. Unlimited themes, font customisations. I really like the AI side chat.

Nuncio Bitis
1

This used to be a good IDE until they forced their AI extension to be installed by default and cannot be uninstalled. Disabling it doesn't even turn it off.

7 of 81 comments

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Official Links

AppStores & Other Links

Download from Microsoft Store

What is Visual Studio Code?

Visual Studio Code is a free and extensible code editor for building web, desktop, and mobile applications, using any programming language and framework.

Visual Studio Code has built-in support for Git source control management and powerful integrations with GitHub, an integrated debugger, and smart code completion with IntelliSense and with AI-driven IntelliCode. With over 30,000 extensions and themes in the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, you can customize the features and the look of Visual Studio Code to fit your needs, preferences, and style.

You can use Visual Studio Code to build any kind of app, for web, desktop, and mobile. Visual Studio Code supports JavaScript and TypeScript natively and offers extensions for coding in languages such as Python, Java, C/C++, C#, Go, Rust, PHP, and many more.

Known as VS-Code amongst the community, it is one of the most popular code editors and has a browser version which can be immediately accessed by going to vscode.dev.

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All your sessions, one view Stay productive while multiple agents work on tasks in parallel. Track all your agent sessions from a single view, regardless of where they run.

Quickly filter and monitor sessions, or dive into an individual agent interaction, without switching to a different tool or terminal.

Your rules, your agents Ensure agents follow your practices and team workflows. Define custom instructions, add agent skills, or build custom agents tailored to your project.

Connect to external tools and services with MCP servers, or install agent plugins or extensions to expand the agent's capabilities.

Visual Studio Code information

AlternativeTo Categories

Development, Office & Productivity, OS & Utilities

GitHub repository

  •  167,636 Stars
  •  30,663 Forks
  •  9178 Open Issues
  •   Updated  

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Our users have written 81 comments and reviews about Visual Studio Code, and it has gotten 1479 likes

Visual Studio Code was added to AlternativeTo by CrypticCube on and this page was last updated . Visual Studio Code is sometimes referred to as Code, VSC, VSCode.