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R&D Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A total solution in a single interface that makes for a convenient development tool
Pros and Cons
  • "It is convenient to have all the development tools in one interface."
  • "The interface is slow to start up."

What is our primary use case?

We use it mostly for build management.  

What is most valuable?

Visual Studios is a business solution developed by Microsoft. In general, I like it because it integrates many tools into one interface to provide a total solution. I think it is convenient to have everything in one interface.  

What needs improvement?

I think that because it integrates many tools into one interface the startup is very slow. It would be nice if the startup speed could be improved. Maybe in the future, they can provide a better, lighter interface or something based in the cloud. It would be on Azure, for example, or other cloud providers. But I do not think Microsoft will have native support with AWS.  

We have not only purchased the Visual Studio, but we also subscribed to MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network). I like that this way we can always have the latest updates. All the products from Microsoft always have the most up-to-date functionality.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Visual Studio for 15 years.  

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio
April 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Visual Studio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is amazing sometimes that Visual Studio will pop up a message reminding me about the performance. Sometimes it will tell me how much time it is spending on certain tasks. Microsoft suggested I disable this feature, but I cannot disable it, so I have to let it post the reminders and alerts.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

What I want to have is more scalability. If Microsoft can provide more possibilities for scalability that would be better for me. Sometimes I do not need it, but sometimes I think I need it. I want it to be easy to configure and easy to add our demos.  

Hundreds of users are using this product within our company.  

How are customer service and support?

With technical support, we have the benefit of raising a ticket if we get stuck on something in progress. We can create a ticket with Microsoft with specific questions or problems to get their help in working through any technical issues. They are pretty good with their response.  

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

When I came to work in this company, the company had already decided to use this tool. So I have to use this tool for development when working here because it is what was available for development.  

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The company buys and pays for the product. I think our purchasing department gets a fair price for it. But the actual price is something I do not have any idea of.  

What other advice do I have?

I think how the product gets used and how it fits your use case depends on different user scenarios in the development environment. I cannot say which tool is better for someone in their circumstances. If someone wants to use the open-source to get free development resources, I think that is also an okay solution, but they may need to spend more time on making anything integrated with other OSS (Open Source Software) or OTS (Off-The-Shelf Software) software.  

I would recommend this product, but it depends on the user's scenario and the user environment. I cannot easily say if another user can easily accommodate Microsoft Visual Studio or not.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate Visual Studio as a seven or eight-out-of-ten.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1358424 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Great integrated debugger, offers lots of features, and is extremely stable
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."

What is our primary use case?

Right now I'm primarily using the solution for C-Sharp development.

I've actually been using the solution on iOS to do Xamarin apps. That might be something that's quite atypical, in terms of using the solution. It's not easy to do.

What is most valuable?

Having also done development within a text, I really enjoyed the (what I believe is called) IntelliSense feature. It helps if you are doing development within a text browser.

The integrated debugger is fantastic. 

None of these are particularly new features. Everybody else has been using it for 20 years too.

I find it funny that a lot of people complain about the solution. However, I find that it provides users with so many great and useful features, like console output, for example. You always have the option to dump a whole bunch of items out if you don't need them in the production.

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. 

It's got a lot of tools integrated into it. 

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

What needs improvement?

If you use the professional edition, you can do unit testing much easier. You can do mock-ups and tasks of that nature. It would be nice if they made that available on the community edition as well. 

There needs to be a feature upgrade, especially for the free features. They might have done so in the past or over the last few years. Still, it would be nice it if happened more often.

During some research into the product, I've discovered that they are trying to apply AI, as well as machine learning. This would be a welcome edition. They will most likely be advanced features. That means they won't be free. However, maybe in the future, they will be, given that enough time passes.

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

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for a long time. I would estimate I've used it on and off for 20 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is actually really stable. It's been around for so long. It's not like Microsoft Office products where a few years ago they decided to go redesign everything, and then the file formats were no longer compatible. In that case, users were confused as to which excel format to save in. This solution has been the same for 20 or so years. The format is the same. It hasn't changed. It remains very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I can't really comment on that aspect of the solution. I work on small projects, so I've never used it on any kind of scale.

There are about 20 people who use it in our organization. They're either software developers or software testers.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't actually used their formal tech support, but have tried using their Microsoft answers. A lot of them are out of date. They're terrible. The support is basically: "Well, we can't reproduce that."

They don't even seem to do a search for themselves on Stack Overflow. You basically Google search to see if somebody else has answered the question. I would say that of course, it is free, so you get what you pay for and therefore the bar should be low on expectations. Still, it can be frustrating.

I have considered that maybe they have some poor interns trying to answer these questions, and they certainly don't seem too interested in providing the type of detailed responses a user might require. That's just what my impression is from trying to find answers occasionally. 

The nice thing about their model is if somebody asks a question, people will answer it. Then everyone can vote on the answer as the solution, and people can follow up. 

On Microsoft, if you go to their forums or help section for the product, you'll see the question is five years old. Nobody will ever say whether the answer they gave was the solution helped. So users often get confused. You need to ask yourself: "Do I spend half an hour deploying this? Or do I keep Googling?" It's awful.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is really easy. You just download it and start it up.

I don't think my company uses much of an implementation strategy. There aren't as many protocols or structures. If we need it, we just download it and begin using it. 

I would say the only downside with this setup is that although it's usually pretty clear what libraries you want to include, it is slow to download. You do have to set aside a time when you can start the download. It's best to go off and do something on your own. You'd hate to do it at work, as you'll have to wait and you'll have nothing else to do. It's going to take half an hour to download at least.

Maintenance requirements are extremely low. There's next to none, really. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution has a community version, which is free. It also has a paid version, with a few more premium features, but the free version is still really useful.

What other advice do I have?

I believe I am using the 2015 version of the solution. It's the default for C-Sharp programs at the very least. Depending on what programs we get in, we can often use it extensively. I don't have plans to expand the solution right now. There are other solutions that would be available to us. 

For example, if we're going to do Python development, we'll probably use PyCharm instead of Visual Studio. Visual Studio does support Python, but PyCharm was in there before and everybody knows it. So we don't really force people to use it. Our company is a small company, where developers can choose their own development avenues.

In terms of advice, I would give to other users, I would suggest following a tutorial at first if you've never used it. They actually have some good tutorials online. If you actually follow them line by line, you get the setup and training that you need. Their help answers to random user questions are terrible, however.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten, mostly due to the fact that it's got a lot of features. If you want to do development, it makes it easy. I know, on the other hand, that there are some other really amazing tools out there. However, they aren't necessarily free. It's a good selling point: you get all this stuff for free, it's standard, and lots of people use it. Once you've learned it, it's quite useful.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio
April 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Visual Studio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Andres  Alberdi - PeerSpot reviewer
General manager at ESOFT
Real User
Top 10
Comes with Azure DevOps integration which helps to check code quality but needs to improve documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "My company works with outsourced programmers. The solution helps us to test, integrate and foresee the code quality. We can trace the development stages."
  • "Visual Studio Team System needs to improve documentation."

What is our primary use case?

I use the Visual Studio Team System for programming. 

How has it helped my organization?

My company works with outsourced programmers. The solution helps us to test, integrate and foresee the code quality. We can trace the development stages. 

What is most valuable?

I like Azure DevOps integration and the nativeness of the C#. 

What needs improvement?

Visual Studio Team System needs to improve documentation. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for ten years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the product's scalability a nine out of ten. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

What other advice do I have?

You can start using the community edition first. I rate the tool an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Crewmem67 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant at College Notre Dame de Nazareth
Real User
Handles tasks well, helps simplify tasks, and can scale
Pros and Cons
  • "It's pretty prevalent."
  • "We'd like the solution to be more secure."

What is our primary use case?

It's up to the client or the software we are using. I use VB .NET or C# sometimes.

What is most valuable?

You can get two tables, child and parents tables, and you can handle tasks such as invoicing, receipts, et cetera. I like to have the results on hand fast. It's making my life easy. 

Many firms can use it. It's pretty prevalent. 

I like the copy-paste all capabilities.

The stability is okay.

You can expand usage if you would like to. 

What needs improvement?

I had to use VB .NET in place of using C# immediately with the child and parent table.

Generally, the solution works well and I haven't really had issues with it. 

We'd like the solution to be more secure. 

The installation can take a long time. 

We'd like the solution to be more stable. 

Technical support does not respond quickly.

The ability to scale can be difficult.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for 15 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is mostly stable. It's rate it six or seven out of ten. It could be better.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale, however, it's not straightforward. Sometimes it's very confusing in terms of what you need to do to make it happen. 

We have three users on the solution right now. 

We do plan to increase usage in the future. 

How are customer service and support?

We are in Lebanon and we had to wait for Microsoft to reply to us. We used it two years ago, however, and they were responding fairly well. 

They could be faster. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I started with VB Access and Visual FoxPro. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty hard to set up. 

It took too long to install it. We also needed the new hard discs. It's very big. It's not a light application. It's about 25GBs. 

The deployment took about two hours. 

What about the implementation team?

We handled the installation ourselves without ht need of integrators or consultants. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I can't speak to the exact cost of the solution. It's not an aspect that I deal with. 

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Alaa T Alhorani - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant (Enterprise Architect) at Devoteam
Real User
Great support, easy to use, and simple to set up
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a very easy-to-use product."
  • "It would be great if they added some extra support for other languages that are available in the market and prepared it for the, let's say, crypto developers as we are going in the age of cryptocurrency."

What is our primary use case?

It's mainly used for development. Therefore, it's mainly for either developers or IT development companies where they produce products and then sell them.

It's great for when you want to do development, such as on an enterprise-size project that requires a lot of teams also to be working on that project and that It's also good for helping with the workflow of the development in general.

How has it helped my organization?

It's mainly for the organizations that are working on development. First of all, of course, it helps the organization due to the ease of use. It's been a legacy application. It's been working for years and it is already integrated with the cloud.

It's used to provide the support to develop on multiple platforms, whether it is computer devices, web, cloud, or even mobile applications with the same IDE, which is the Visual Studio itself. 

What is most valuable?

It's a very easy-to-use product.

The support is great. The community and the documentation support for it are great. Whatever you are missing, you are going to find it at Microsoft help.

It's easy to set up.

The stability is good.

You can scale it well.

What needs improvement?

It would be great if they added some extra support for other languages that are available in the market and prepared it for the, let's say, crypto developers as we are going in the age of cryptocurrency.

If it was more friendly for the simple or starter developer, it would be great. It's friendly anyway, however, it would be better if there was a way to enhance it in a much more usable way as a user-experience type for the new customers or newbies who want to enter the technology.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Microsoft Visual Studio since the early versions of VB6, which is like in 2006 or 2005.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is great. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product, since it supports DevOps and is connected to the cloud, is scalable. It can take on many users. It's a per-user installation. It's not a server application. It's a computer-based application. 

There is a new version of it. I didn't try it yet, however, it is fully over the cloud where the development happens on the cloud in Azure. Since I didn't try it, I can't comment on that.

How are customer service and support?

The support is great and so is the supporting documentation. You can easily find answers to your questions. We've very satisfied with that.

Usually, whenever I faced an issue in the past, it would take one to two working days maximum to get assistance. If it was on Azure and you've had a problem on Azure with the server, then it's going to take as much as one day, as it's going to be distributed to the team that is responsible for the region that you are opening the ticket from.

How was the initial setup?

The product is so easy to set up. The only thing you do usually with Microsoft Visual Studio is to go to the internet and download the installer for it. Then it will download the required files and everything from the internet for you, and you go through the installation like any normal program.

The length of time it takes to deploy depends on the features. Visual Studio comes with so many features. It depends on if you are going to choose only Windows development or Windows and mobile development and so on. However, it really depends on the features that you are going to require.

It also depends on the internet speed, as each feature requires extra downloads from the internet. 

What about the implementation team?

Usually, I deploy it for my team. I started a company also that provides services for IT companies. What we do is, if they want a development environment and they don't have anyone, then we install it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing is per user. 

There is also the Community Edition which users can access as a start for a small application. It's for open-source applications. That's where they build out the support for the open-source community.

There are also Professional or Enterprise options. Which would be the best option depends on the capacity and the requirements of the company that is going to use it. The licensing is affordable for companies, not for individuals. It's not for personal usage.

What other advice do I have?

We provide Microsoft products to customers.

We are using the 2019 version. I know that they have been planning or they already did create a new version of it, however, the last one was 2019.

I would rate the solution at a nine ot of ten. There is always room for improvement, however, we've been quite happy with it so far.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sergio Aranda Parra - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Application Solutions at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Great features, lots of helpful documentation, allows us to manage our code directly via the repository
Pros and Cons
  • "I was testing how to publish in a cloud using Azure and it was very easy."
  • "You do need to do some training in order to really take advantage of the solution."

What is our primary use case?

Currently, in my daily work, I am using Visual Studio to develop different tools. Also, I am trying to use DevOps to manage code and different work items.

What is most valuable?

It's an excellent tool in general. There are a lot of features that are very, very nice in Visual Studio. 

We can publish directly to the premise's servers. I was testing how to publish in a cloud using Azure and it was very easy. There are a lot of good features in Visual Studio and I'm sure we can add different add-ins or add-ons to make it a little more functional as well.

We can manage our code directly via the repository. We are trying to manage the code in DevOps. With Visual Studio, we can connect to DevOps and manage the different versions that we have using the repository.

What needs improvement?

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

Currently, we have issues when Visual Studio has updates. When Visual Studio has updates, right now we have issues in terms of updating our repositories. That was the current issue that we have. We need to update Visual Studio, however, we also need to update continuously the Visual Studio version due to the fact that if we don't update the Visual Studio, we have different problems that follow us.

The initial setup can be a bit complex. 

The thing that is very important is to manage your requirements and the features that you need to develop using Visual Studio. DevOps has that feature available. When we connect Visual Studio or a project with DevOps, we can manage different work items. They could improve that feature, to manage the work items requirements and different things a bit better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution since about 2012, across two different companies. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution We don't really deal with bugs or glitches. I don't find that it crashes or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've found the product to be scalable. If a company needs to expand it out they can do so. 

We have about 15 people using it regularly right now. 

I'm not sure if we intend to expand usage just yet. We are already, this year, planning to migrate some tools to the cloud. That said, we don't know if we are going to need a little more support or people to do that.

How are customer service and support?

Currently, we use different documentation that exists on the internet to assist us with troubleshooting. We currently use the Microsoft or Visual Studio page to research different functionalities or different features that we need to implement or we need to add to our project. So far, that's been quite helpful.

How was the initial setup?

Initially, it was a little complex to set up. We needed to learn the different features that we could manage in Visual Studio. Right now, as we have had some time to pick things up, it's very straightforward to use.

In terms of deployment, for example, yesterday, I implemented a new version for one of the plants that we have. The tech was immediately published as we are able to use an option to publish the code. We only select the new version and automatically the code is published. It's very fast to publish a new version for the different tools that we have. In that sense, it doesn't take long to deploy.

Each developer is responsible for publishing his own tools and doesn't require another special group or another special people to deploy the tools that we are managing.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Regarding the licensing, I don't manage that. The license is updated each time that it's required to be as the company where I am working, requires that. I don't know if the license is updated monthly or annually, however. It may be annually. 

What other advice do I have?

We're customers and end-users.

While this solution is currently on-premises, the plan is this year try to migrate some tools to the cloud using Azure.

I'd advise new users that it's important initially to do some training to implement Visual Studio. If there are people trying to implement Visual Studio in the company, it's very important to consider the training that will be involved and not just the licensing costs. 

I'd rate the product at a nine out of ten. It's a good solution.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Erick  Karanja - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Cellulant Kenya
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Can be used to develop applications but needs improvement in integrations
Pros and Cons
  • "We use the solution to develop applications."
  • "Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to develop applications. 

What needs improvement?

Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Microsoft Visual Studio's stability a nine out of ten. 

How was the initial setup?

The tool's deployment is straightforward. It takes less than an hour to complete. 

What about the implementation team?

I can install the solution by myself. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft Visual Studio a nine out of ten. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Mehmet Saribas - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Development Manager at Anadolu Hayat Emeklilik
Real User
After the initial setup, it is easy to use with different languages
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability is fine."
  • "The initial setup could be more straightforward."

How has it helped my organization?

I think Microsoft Visual Studio is a good tool.

What is most valuable?

I think it is very successful and easy to use. I currently do not see any areas to develop. Microsoft Visual Studio is an excellent product.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have a very scalable solution with Microsoft Visual Studio.

How are customer service and support?

We have not had the need to use technical support, but the website has been good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup could be more straightforward. After the initial setup, it is easy to use and develop codes in different languages.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

A license is required. I think it is a good product, but the price is high. They could sell it at a better price point.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Microsoft Visual Studio a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Visual Studio Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Visual Studio Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.