SharePoint Designer [EOL] vs Zend Studio comparison

Microsoft and Zend are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Additionally, 82% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Read 49 SharePoint Designer [EOL] reviews

82% willing to recommend

Zend Studio

Read 1 Zend Studio review

132 Views
132 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Zend Studio

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SharePoint Designer [EOL] and Zend Studio 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.

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.NET Development Services

September 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

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zend Studio

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

.NET Development Services (5th)

Featured Reviews

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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marketacumen

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.

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 initial setup is not too complex."

"The solution is scalable."

"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the user-friendly interface and easy workflow."

"We mostly used this solution for file storage and basic functions, etcetera."

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

"I am a developer, and whatever is not possible with the SharePoint default feature, we make custom features available for our clients. Anything which is not possible using all the methods within the solution we can customize."

"I would rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

"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

"The downside is the different versions of SharePoint which means we need to have different designers as not all versions are compatible."

"SharePoint does not have enough resources to cover the security part."

"Adding guest users is a bit difficult on SharePoint."

"It has a lot of bugs. It's also not very convenient. The UX/UI is not very user-friendly and not designed to be similar to other applications from Microsoft."

"The search capabilities need to be improved."

"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 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

"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."

"The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."

"SharePoint Online has a subscription-based model for payments and the price is based on user usage."

"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."

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

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

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"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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Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

Questions from the Community

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!

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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

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Comparisons

Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

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SharePoint Designer [EOL]

September 2025

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.NET Development Services

September 2025

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Overview

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

Zend Studio â the PHP IDE for smarter development. It codes faster with up to 3X performance improvements in indexing, validation, searching of PHP code. It has superior PHP 7.1 support, PHP 7.1 express migration assistant, and seamless integration with Zend Server 9. It provides robust debugging capabilities with Xdebug, Zend Debugger, and Z-Ray integration. Zend Studio has an extensive plugin capabilities provided by the large Eclipse eco-system and supports for best-in-class dev tools including Docker and Git Flow Intelligent code editor. Deploy PHP applications on any server including cloud support for Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure and support for HiDPi displays - scale graphics (ala 4K resolution).

Zend

Sample Customers

Pyrotek Inc., ICA, Deliver Australia, Secretary of Economy of Mexico, Aegon, ABB Switzerland, Ascent Yarns Private Limited, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd, Hitachi Consulting

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

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

September 2025

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