Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer [EOL] comparison

Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Microsoft Visual Studio is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while SharePoint Designer [EOL] is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7. Microsoft Visual Studio holds a 15.1% mindshare in NDS, compared to SharePoint Designer [EOL]’s 8.6% mindshare. 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

654 Views
654 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Read 49 SharePoint Designer [EOL] reviews

453 Views
453 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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, Adobe, FourJs and others in .NET Development Services.

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

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

August 2025

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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

Ranking in .NET Development Services

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Ranking in .NET Development Services

3rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 15.1%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SharePoint Designer [EOL] is 8.6%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

.NET Development Services

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

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

"Most valuable features include code navigation by symbols and document auto formatting."

"It is great for integration with Excel."

"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."

"I was testing how to publish in a cloud using Azure and it was very easy."

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

"The solution can scale."

"The valuable feature is that it provides a basic template for everything and built-in debugging tools. They definitely save me time."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

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

"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 Power App is the most valuable feature."

"The product is very user-friendly."

"The most valuable features of SharePoint Designer are integration and collaboration capabilities, such as allowing more than one person to edit a file."

"SharePoint has very good features for collaboration."

"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!"

"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."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

Cons

"What I don't like about Microsoft Visual Studio is its user interface. It could be better. WebStorm is a better solution for me as it has a good user interface and is more user-friendly, though my friends like Microsoft Visual Studio. I worked with WebStorm for the web layer, and for the server layer, I worked with IBM Eclipse which is my favorite software. I also dealt with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS through Angular."

"In the next version I would like to see a better development tool."

"For Visual Studio, the only challenge I've faced is referencing any package or new concept I'm trying to debug or run."

"The pricing for licenses could be reduced to make this solution more competitive."

"You do need to do some training in order to really take advantage of the solution."

"The solution must provide user-friendly features."

"The tool's interface should be more user-friendly."

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

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

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

"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."

"SharePoint is too complex to install and maintain."

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

"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."

"SharePoint Online should continue to integrate with other solutions."

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

"The new SharePoint Designer is very limited."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better."

"You have to be a subscriber with a Visual Studio subscription to use the solution and the organization has to purchase a license that's linked to the account."

"The solution is a free tool."

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

"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."

"Licensing costs are reasonable."

"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."

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

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."

"The tool is free of cost."

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

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

"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

Computer Software Company

16%

Performing Arts

13%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

15%

Healthcare Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

August 2025

Download Microsoft Visual Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

July 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

August 2025

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