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Microsoft Visual Studio vs Zend Studio 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
Ranking in .NET Development Services
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zend Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 17.1%, up from 15.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 7.4%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Visual Studio17.1%
Zend Studio7.4%
Other75.5%
.NET Development Services
 

Featured Reviews

PR
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.
marketacumen - PeerSpot reviewer
President at Market Acumen, Inc.
It has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects
* Stability is sometimes lacking in updates. * Search/replace across multiple files is not ideal. * The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects, as well as setting breakpoints, which often are ignored depending on your configuration. * The product requires a subscription to Zend Server Developer, which used to be free and now has an annual fee, but it is still worth the money.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is definitely sophisticated and provides many out-of-the-box features, and going community has boosted all that."
"The solution includes a debug function that I can breakpoint to easily detect what is wrong with my applications."
"It is a beneficial tool because we can write programming code, write our test cases and automate tests in Visual Studio.NET."
"Most valuable features include code navigation by symbols and document auto formatting."
"It's a great product and it's very easy to understand and develop the application."
"While you're coding, it's really nice to be able to print stuff out and make sure that all the data is being organized the way you want it to be."
"The feature I find most valuable is the fact that it's broad-spectrum, so it can be used for a wide variety of technologies."
"The design feature is really helpful; it's just a drag-and-drop process, which speeds up the design state of the project and makes designing any application quite precise and easier to do than any other application."
"Generally, it has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects."
"It has the ability to jump to any file in your project with a few keystrokes, as well as the ability to command-click on any token in your code and have it jump to the token's definition."
 

Cons

"It would be better if Microsoft Visual Studio didn't get stuck. Sometimes when we are writing code, we open too many tabs and modules, and it gets stuck."
"They could add new modules to the platform for enhanced functioning."
"There is room for improvement in search by extension."
"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."
"I would like to see more on-premise tips and tools along with development time so that I don't need to go to a third-party site."
"The technical support can be slow."
"Maybe sometimes Microsoft Visual Studio hangs if your computer resources are limited."
"Technical support can be slow to respond at times."
"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."
"Most recent set of patches (2018) on Mac OS X caused the app to crash when you would cut more than 10 lines of code. Apparently, this was due to a bug in Eclipse, but regardless, it took several months for Zend to post a patch."
"The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The development license for Microsoft Visual Studio is free. I don't know if there's a licensing cost to it."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is free. It's freeware, so you don't have to pay for its license."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is not expensive. Its licensing costs are expensive."
"There's a community edition that is absolutely free to use. It's pretty good."
"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $1,700 per user."
"The price is good."
"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."
"Licensing is reasonable for this type of tool. Although, you can cobble together a solution which is zero cost."
"The product requires a subscription to Zend Server Developer, which used to be free and now has an annual fee, but it is still worth the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
17%
Construction Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise53
No data available
 

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...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?
Microsoft Visual Studio has done enough from my perspective. I am not a core developer, so I just use the basic tools that I need for basic things. A core developer would easily see additional thin...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Visual Studio?
I use Microsoft Visual Studio to automate some processes within the establishment.
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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
CDS Global, EnglishCentral, BNP Paribas, Carlo Gavazzi, Sunstate Equipment, Novadex GmbH, CONFTEC, Marilan, Mediaspike, Cisco WebEx, Corvette America, Value Drug Mart Associates Ltd., Allied Beverage Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Zend, Harman and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.