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Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Visual Studio
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
.NET Development Services (1st)
SharePoint Designer [EOL]
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Eitan Gold - PeerSpot reviewer
Test code efficiency improves with integrated debugger and automation
The test explorer is really important for us as it aids in testing, along with the regular debugger. Even though I forgot the term for it at the moment, there is an overall debugger tool within the IDE that is very effective. This comprehensive debugger tool does the job efficiently, making our work easier.
Raphael Haroun  Ikyagh - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers ability to directly share documents and highly stable
It's been stable for me. I haven't encountered any issues with the sites I've developed locally within the organization as long as the license remains valid. It's very stable. I haven't had any issues with outages or needing to republish content. It's always accessible to authorized users, so it's stable. The stability is almost a ten out of ten for me.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like the performance, stability and ease of use."
"The tool is good for interactive testing. It has good integrations and works well for remote services. The product also has features for collaborative work where it allows others to control my screen. It has a good community for every language."
"The solution can scale."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Visual Studio are the way we are able to design code, deploy, and test our application. It is easy to move an artifact from the start to the deployment stage. It has well-defined processes that you can integrate with any team. Additionally, the solution is always improving."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is its integration with Azure DevOps."
"This solution can integrate with almost any functionality offered by Microsoft."
"It is also flexible enough to let me use Git as well as its own version control mechanism."
"You can use the solution to do coding and drag and drop. It is easy to install with web documentation."
"One of the most valuable features is that it's free. If you have SharePoint and you want to do some branding, then the only tool available is SharePoint Designer. Microsoft gives the portal, the content management system, and, on top of that, it gives you Designer. So we don't have a choice, but Designer is good."
"The solution tightly integrates with all other collaboration tools."
"The most valuable part of the solution is its ability to allow for a high degree of customization."
"When you have a group project and you want to share your document with your group members, the solution is very useful."
"The support on offer is helpful."
"We appreciate the fact that this solution can provide us with an on-premises version, as due to our geographical location, we are not able to use cloud-based tools."
"The drag and drop feature is the most useful feature when using this solution."
"The solution is scalable."
 

Cons

"The solution is not really good at debugging JavaScript, jQuery, or SQL"
"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve by adding more features to the Mac version. There are a lot of features lacking in the Mac version, there are limitations. I can install Microsoft Visual Studio on the Mac operating system, but it is not the same as if I installed it on a Microsoft Windows system. The Microsoft Windows version has a lot of features available in Microsoft Visual Studio."
"The GUI of Microsoft Visual Studio could improve."
"The UI could be better, and development could be easier on Microsoft Visual Studio if there were more features like drag and drop and more frameworks, etc."
"The tool's interface should be more user-friendly."
"The interface could be more user friendly"
"With the free version, we don't have that much support for Visual Studio. Its support is a little bit less and can be better."
"The hot reload feature is good, but sometimes it doesn't work. It could be improved."
"SharePoint Designer needs filter options for lists and libraries."
"The system can become slow which should be improved."
"Designer is easy to manage."
"It has a lot of bugs. It's also not very convenient. The UX/UI is not very user-friendly and not designed to be similar to other applications from Microsoft."
"The initial setup depends on company specifics. So, it's a bit complex."
"The search function should improve in the solution."
"SharePoint Online should continue to integrate with other solutions."
"The pain point of SharePoint Designer is sometimes it gives you issues that can be resolved mostly by clearing the cache, but Microsoft should still work on it and make the product more stable. Another issue related to SharePoint Designer is that with the newer SharePoint versions, Microsoft hasn't released a newer version of SharePoint Designer. Instead, Microsoft is recommending that you use the same old SharePoint Designer 2013. If Microsoft updates SharePoint Designer, the product will be more beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is taken care of by my company and the price could be less expensive."
"I'm using the platform's open-source version."
"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."
"While the enterprise version can be relatively expensive due to its comprehensive features, I find the license I currently possess to be reasonable, considering it includes the full suite without additional activations or charges."
"I use the open-source version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"We purchased an expensive enterprise version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio could be lowered. For a single developer, it is approximately $1,000."
"Visual Studio Team System is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"Priced per user per month with different plans to choose from."
"The tool is free of cost."
"This solution is free of charge."
"It is a free solution that does not require a license."
"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."
"The cost of the license is based on the size of the user base."
"The price is reasonable."
"SharePoint Online has a subscription-based model for payments and the price is based on user usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise43
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Visual Studio?
The pricing for Microsoft Visual Studio is favorable. While many open-source solutions are available, none offer the robustness of Visual Studio, which includes a Marketplace for creating different...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, I believe a potential area of improvement for Microsoft Visual Studio could be incorporating more AI, as it makes things easier for us, and havin...
What do you like most about SharePoint Designer?
It saved me big time once! My car got broken into and they took my laptop with all my files. But I didn't have to worry because everything was backed up on SharePoint. It was a lifesaver!
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SharePoint Designer?
I've leased Microsoft SharePoint Designer for the enterprise, not System Center. It's for private work, web development specifically.
What needs improvement with SharePoint Designer?
For me, it's flexible enough for most things. But maybe they could improve the user interface to make it easier for everyone to navigate and use. That would be a big plus.
 

Comparisons

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Also Known As

MS Visual Studio
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Knab, Hamburg Port Authority, Kecioren Municipality, National Instruments, Hamburg Port Authority, Government of Odisha, Kongsberg Maritime AS
Pyrotek Inc., ICA, Deliver Australia, Secretary of Economy of Mexico, Aegon, ABB Switzerland, Ascent Yarns Private Limited, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd, Hitachi Consulting
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, FourJs, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.