Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer [EOL] comparison

Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft Visual Studio users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of SharePoint Designer [EOL] users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Visual Studio

Read 92 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews

823 Views
823 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Read 49 SharePoint Designer [EOL] reviews

82% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, FourJs, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images and others in .NET Development Services.

To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

September 2025

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Helped 868,706 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

.NET Development Services (1st)

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Eitan Gold

SQA Manager at Elmo Motion Control Ltd.

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.

Read full review

Raphael Haroun Ikyagh

Network Administrator at Letshego

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Visual Studio is stable and the performance was good. However, if you do not have decent hardware you will not have the same experience."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is its integration with Azure DevOps."

"It is pretty simple to set up."

"Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF is valuable. It's a tool to give clients a user interface for Windows applications. The summary for mobile applications is also very useful."

"It is easy to integrate with GitHub. We integrate with GitHub, and we deploy our solution on our local system. We need this integration for pushing our code. When we were working with Eclipse, we had to write everything in the command prompt, which is a little bit tricky, whereas Visual Studio is very much UI-based and simple. So, it's very easy to integrate GitHub with Visual Studio. It is much easier than Eclipse."

"The stability is fine."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is how easy it is to access all the basic templates for development. There are so many features you get with Visual Studio that it's really helpful for the deployment, the development, and the intelligence behind it."

"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."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"It’s very convenient for me to update. Last time I used a function called Word. It is a good function, which I can use to coordinate easily."

"The product is very user-friendly."

"If you're working in a communication channel team, SharePoint Designer is a great solution because it helps to have some customized solutions in terms of communication and to create web experiences for external teams."

"The document filing system is the solution's most valuable feature. We have used SharePoint as an option for a document managed system, like Documentum and IBM Filenet."

"We used SharePoint Designer 2013 widely for data mining, exploring the content, and editing. Those are the main features that you would need to use SharePoint Designer for."

"The solution is scalable."

"I find the document management and search of SharePoint the most valuable features."

"When you have a group project and you want to share your document with your group members, the solution is very useful."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

Cons

"There have been some issues but not very often."

"It is simple to use for most developers and nearly impossible to use for non-developers."

"Since it is a heavy product, it is somewhat slow in building and executing the code in a localhost environment and it consumes a lot of resources."

"I would like to see more tools in the next release."

"Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."

"I would not recommend it for complex tasks."

"It has a ton of options and that sometimes can become very, very overwhelming for a new person, a new developer."

"The time that it takes to load the application can be reduced"

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"The record management and digital signature sides need improvement because we still need to rely on other third-party tools."

"We would like to see an improvement in the stability and overall consistency of performance in this solution."

"Microsoft could include more applications in this. And if more applications are included, then it can be scalable that way."

"The designer itself could be improved, as it isn't particularly intuitive."

"Exporting the whole SharePoint website is an issue."

"This solution could definitely be made easier to use."

"I believe Microsoft does not support Sharepoint on-premises. They only support Sharepoint on the Cloud. They should provide for both options and let the client choose their preference."

"It needs to align with PowerApps and Power Automate."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the solution's free version."

"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."

"Its price could be better."

"The price is good."

"Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product."

"Licensing costs are reasonable."

"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio could be lowered. For a single developer, it is approximately $1,000."

"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $1,700 per user."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"It is a free solution that does not require a license."

"Most of the time, our customer's license from Microsoft includes the cost of SharePoint. However, if you have to buy it then SharePoint is quite expensive."

"I use Macintosh devices, and because this solution is not available in the Apple Ecosystem I use it because it is cost-effective."

"SharePoint Designer is a free product. It's SharePoint that needs a license, not SharePoint Designer."

"This solution is free of charge."

"The cost of the solution is based on multiple factors such as the number of users, and any customization that may be required."

"The price is reasonable."

"There is no licensing cost for Designer—it's free."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	43

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Visual Studio?

We can use different .NET features.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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!

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Visual Studio

September 2025

Download Microsoft Visual Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

September 2025

Download SharePoint Designer [EOL] product report

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

No data available

Overview

Visual Studio.NET is the umbrella that represents the key pieces of the .NET platform delivered from Microsoft, including the .NET Framework, the recently announced .NET Core, and a shared common layer of packages, compilers and runtime. Read this .NET blog post about the evolution of the platform and the different pieces that make .NET 2015.

Microsoft

SharePoint Designer is the tool of choice for the rapid development of SharePoint applications. Using SharePoint Designer, advanced users and developers alike can rapidly create SharePoint solutions in response to business needs. Advanced users can compose no-code solutions that encompass a variety of common scenarios, from collaborative sites and web publishing to Line-Of-Business data integration, business intelligence solutions, and human workflows, leveraging the building blocks available in SharePoint in an easy to use environment.

Microsoft

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

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

September 2025

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