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

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900 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, Zend, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images and others in .NET Development Services.

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

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.NET Development Services

November 2025

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Helped 873,209 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

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Visual Studio are the availability of many extensions, an interpreter, a code formator, and helpful dark and light modes."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is the user interface."

"The solution includes a debug function that I can breakpoint to easily detect what is wrong with my applications."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the integrated development environment. It also offers a very good integration with Microsoft Cloud."

"The stability is fine."

"It's a useful integrated development environment."

"The most valuable feature is how smoothly it runs."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is the good intelligence and UI."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"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!"

"The initial setup is not too complex."

"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."

"SharePoint Designer is easy to deploy and it is one of the most valuable features. The whole process took a couple of days and it is easy to work on."

"SharePoint has very good features for collaboration."

"The most valuable feature is the development."

"The scalability is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten."

"The solution tightly integrates with all other collaboration tools."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

Cons

"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."

"I'd like the product to become more secure. You could potentially, for example, download an extension that contains malware."

"The reporting services are quite limited in terms of features and need to be improved."

"There could be more coding languages in the solution."

"IntelliSense could be better."

"I would like to see support for rapid application development. For example, if I am developing a new project, I am repeating many similar steps again and again and again. But the platform could do this easily, instead of me. It would save me time. This is something I would like to have in Microsoft Visual Studio, to have it take over repetitive tasks from me."

"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."

"File installations are heavy."

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"The search capabilities need to be improved."

"The solution is not very flexible when trying to access the solution via a personal PC."

"SharePoint Designer could improve by making the searching feature better. It is not accurate in some cases, and there are some descriptions that are not clear."

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

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

"We'd like it if we got less frequent updates."

"The solution requires more web-based publishing. It would benefit from adding in more collaboration features as well."

"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."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have an enterprise-level license. The cost is expensive for small to medium-sized organizations."

"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."

"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio monthly is approximately $300."

"There's a community edition that is absolutely free to use. It's pretty good."

"Visual Studio Team System is expensive, but it is worth the money."

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

"I use the open-source version of Microsoft Visual Studio."

"The price is good."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."

"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."

"The pricing is fair."

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

"The cost of the license is based on the size of the user base."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

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

October 2025

Download Microsoft Visual Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

October 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

November 2025

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