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, 96% 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 102 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews

2,700 Views
2,700 Comparison Views

96% 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, Harman, Apache and others in .NET Development Services.

To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

April 2026

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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

102

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

PrasannaRao

Senior Manager, Application Development at PSKW, LLC

Code reviews have become clearer and debugging now improves multi-language API development

I appreciate the debugging capability of Microsoft Visual Studio the most. The tracing of the debugging is what I value. I can use any editor to write the code, but Microsoft Visual Studio has strong capability. Microsoft Visual Studio has good integration with the plugins I want to use, the different types of plugins available for different languages and even JSON. Microsoft Visual Studio has improved significantly. Before, people used to use Notepad and other basic editors. Using the studio gave them the capability to properly debug and find issues. Additionally, it provides good code organization and indentation, as well as color coding for comments. It is very useful, as it gives function descriptions and class descriptions. It is very easy for someone who is not writing the code to understand it when they look at it, as it is very descriptive with proper commenting. I cannot give exact statistics on time saved, but I can provide statistics on quality improvement. The coding standard has been enforced. It has tremendously improved with Microsoft Visual Studio. I would say anywhere between 20 to 50% improvement, depending on which team we are discussing.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is also flexible enough to let me use Git as well as its own version control mechanism."

"Microsoft Visual Studio has positively impacted my organization because it's very easy to use, very easy for the people to pick up on, and we can all have the same configuration or personalize it as needed."

"Visual Studio's best feature is debugging, which isn't available with any other Microsoft development tool."

"It is a straightforward solution to set up."

"I think the code management is the most convenient and valuable new feature."

"The scalability of Microsoft Visual Studio is good."

"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."

"We use the solution to develop applications."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"Mainly, it is a very useful tool I can use for small to medium requirements."

"The basic functionality the solution makes it easy to share documents or information with the team."

"Retrieving documents and uploading them is easy."

"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."

"As an enterprise, I'd say it is completely worth the money."

"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."

"SharePoint has very good features for collaboration."

"I have setup many simple and complex workflows, very useful for daily automation (invoices, travel, leave approval) and it is also useful to make small branding customizations."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

Cons

"This solution could be integrated with other open-source languages, such as Python and not only C#, .NET or Microsoft development languages."

"Sometimes crashes happen and occasionally there might be hanging issues."

"The GUI of Microsoft Visual Studio could improve."

"I chose a rating of 9 instead of a 10 because there might be some improvements that can be made with the coming age of AI."

"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 having more intelligence in the tool would be beneficial."

"IntelliSense could be better."

"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve memory management, and packaging and reporting components."

"Every time it updates, there are issues. It alerts to an exception and then quits."

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"The web services aspect of the solution is very weak."

"I have heard of clients that have complained about the stability once a certain amount of data, over 200 gigs has been reached as well as the stability of SQL Databases."

"The pricing is a little bit high and can be reduced."

"I would like to see SharePoint improve the integration with different systems. I also would like to see more customization."

"SharePoint Designer could be improved by being more user-friendly."

"The solution is a bit complex. They should work to simplify it."

"The search capabilities need to be improved."

"SharePoint Designer is not releasing a new version. Version 2013 was the latest version. Now in 2019, we are still using the biggest version. It doesn't work properly anymore. Sometimes we experience issues, but there is no new version."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm using the platform's open-source version."

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

"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."

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

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

"We use the free version, and you don't need a license."

"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."

"Licensing costs are reasonable."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"Priced per user per month with different plans to choose from."

"The entire package is expensive. There is no extra cost in addition to the standard license."

"The tool is free of cost."

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

"SharePoint Designer's pricing is okay."

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

"SharePoint Designer is less expensive than other solutions we have used. We purchased Office 365 which SharePoint comes with the package."

"The pricing is fair."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Performing Arts

10%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Marketing Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	50

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Visual Studio?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that since we install it directly from downloads, the cost is minimal. If we have a Microsoft Visual Studio enterprise license, I'm not sure...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?

I think Microsoft Visual Studio is good at the moment. When I think of additional improvements, I would like to have the ability to use Claude in my Microsoft Visual Studio account since I believe ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Visual Studio?

My main use case for Microsoft Visual Studio is for writing code. Since I'm a data engineer, projects I work on using Microsoft Visual Studio are related to data engineering. We have GitHub or Bitb...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Visual Studio

April 2026

Download Microsoft Visual Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

April 2026

Download SharePoint Designer [EOL] product report

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Visual Studio is a comprehensive platform for coding and app development, integrating tools for multiple languages like .NET, C#, Python, and JavaScript. Known for its debugging, IntelliSense, and Azure/Git integration, it enhances both cloud and local project workflows.

Developers turn to Microsoft Visual Studio for its diverse capabilities in building web, mobile, and cloud solutions. Its robust tools offer rich debugging and code navigation, supported by a user-friendly interface and seamless Azure/Git connectivity. Despite a powerful feature set, users suggest areas for performance, usability, and third-party integration improvements. The platform is designed to support both large-scale and small team development through Live Share and a flexible plugin ecosystem.

What are the key features of Microsoft Visual Studio?

Debugger: Offers powerful error resolution tools for efficient coding.
IntelliSense: Provides smart autocomplete to enhance coding speed and accuracy.
Code Navigation: Facilitates easy exploration of large codebases.
Multi-language Support: Accommodates .NET, C#, Python, JavaScript, and more.
Azure/Git Integration: Simplifies cloud deployment and version control.
Live Share: Enables real-time collaboration among developers.

What benefits should users consider in Microsoft Visual Studio?

Versatility: Supports a wide range of project types and languages.
Performance: Designed for efficient operation in development tasks.
Collaboration: Live Share facilitates teamwork and project management.
Deployment: Offers streamlined processes for both cloud and local apps.
Development Efficiency: Tools improve coding, testing, and prototyping speeds.

Microsoft Visual Studio is widely implemented in industries needing diverse app development such as finance, healthcare, and technology. With tools that suit both cloud services and on-premises applications, it caters to web, mobile, and integrated service demands, enabling cohesive development and operations strategies.

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

April 2026

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