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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Visual Studio

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/AVisual Studio (now in the 2022 edition) is a 64-bit IDE that makes it easier to work with bigger projects and complex workloads, boasting a fluid and responsive experience for users. The IDE features IntelliCode, its automatic code completion tools that understand code context and that can complete up to a whole line at once to drive accurate and confident coding.

    $45

    per month

    Xcode

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/AXcode is an IDE used to develop, test, and distribute apps across all Apple platforms, featuring Swift and SwiftUI with a multiplatform app experience, enhanced editor features to help users code faster.N/A
    Pricing
    Visual StudioXcode
    Editions & Modules
    Professional
    $45.00
    per month
    Enterprise
    $250.00
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Visual StudioXcode
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Visual StudioXcode
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Apple
    Chose Xcode
    Xcode is the clear choice in general circumstances in Apple echosphere application development (for instance, not for Java or web programming necessarily) primarily due to the fact that it is Apple's in-house tool. It received a lot of attention and is used by a huge audience …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    27 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    27 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    25 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    Visual StudioXcode
    Small Businesses
    IntelliJ IDEA
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Visual Studio
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    PyCharm
    Score9.3 out of 10
    PyCharm
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    WebStorm
    Score9.6 out of 10
    WebStorm
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Visual StudioXcode
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (105 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (15 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Visual StudioXcode
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    It's useful for app development, debugging, and testing. I've been using it for two years and have seen it grow into a fantastic tool. All of the features, NuGet packages, and settings that enable different types of projects are fantastic. It also has a connection to Azure DevOps and Git. It's a fantastic product that's simple to use.
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    Apple
    This is almost not a case of Xcode being the 300-pound gorilla in the space, but of it being essentially the ONLY viable gorilla in the space. There are other text editors, of course, that can be used for coding; and in some cases other IDE's might make sense for a cross-platform development scenario, but since this is Apple's in-house tool, fighting against that flow is just going to be an exercise in frustration. And, if you need help from Developer Support, they are going to be most familiar with Xcode.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Since Microsoft offers a free Community Edition of the IDE many of our new developers have used it at home or school and are very familiar with the user interface, requiring little training to move up to the paid, enterprise-friendly editions we use.
    • The online community support for Visual Studio is outstanding, as solid or better than any other commercial or open-source project software.
    • Microsoft continuously keeps the product up to date and has maintained a history of doing so. They use it internally for their own development so there is little chance it will ever fall out of favor and become unsupported.
    Incentivized
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    Apple
    • Debugging
    • Profiling
    • Great IDE
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Certain settings and features can sometimes be challenging to locate. The interface isn't always intuitive.
    • Sometimes there are too many ways to do the same thing. For example, users can quickly add a new workspace in Source Control Explorer when a local path shows as "Not Mapped," but it doesn't indicate that the user might want to check the dropdown list of workspaces. The shortcut of creating a new workspace by clicking on the "Not Mapped" link can lead to developers creating too many workspaces and causing workspace management to become unwieldy. If the shortcut link were removed, the user would be forced to use the Workspace dropdown. While it can add an extra step to the process, workspaces would be managed more easily, and this would enforce consistency. At the very least, there should be a high-level administrative setting to hide the shortcut link.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apple
    • Documentation
    • Number of settings can be overwhelming
    • Embedded help for settings and configuration
    • Templates
    • Collaboration
    • Managing of credentials (although this has recently gotten better)
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    VS is the best and is required for building Microsoft applications. The quality and usefulness of the product far out-weight the licensing costs associated with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Apple
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Microsoft
    The thing I like the most is Visual Studio doesn't suffer from Microsoft's over eager marketing department who feel they need to redesign the UI (think Office and windows) which forces users to loose large amounts of productivity having to learn software that they had previously known.
    Incentivized
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    Apple
    Xcode occasionally exhibits some behaviors that are hard to explain, but are generally cleared by restarting the program. In an application this large and complex, I suppose this is somewhat expected. The sheer vastness of the frameworks collection has to be a huge management issue all by itself. However, those breaks in the flow can have impact on developer productivity.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Apple
    Since we don't use the cloud based features of Xcode, it is basically available 24/7 for us. We don't need the extended compilation features that are offered in the cloud as our projects to this point have not been that large or complex. We have never seen a wholesale breakdown of Xcode availability at any point in our use of the product.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Apple
    Every developer wants faster compiles, but that can be achieved by either going to the cloud or by provisioning the local station to a higher powered configuration. My only minor complaint is the amount of local mass storage that Xcode as a system consumes. This makes it interesting to set up a development environment on a midrange laptop, however it is easily managed with external storage at a reasonable price.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    Between online forums like StackOverflow, online documentation, MSDN forums, and the customer support options, I find it very easy to get support for Visual Studio IDE when I need it. If desired, one can also download the MSDN documentation about the IDE and have it readily available for any support needs.
    Incentivized
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    Apple
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    I personally feel Visual Studio IDE has [a] better interface and [is more] user friendly than other IDEs. It has better code maintainability and intellisense. Its inbuilt team foundation server help coders to check on their code then and go. Better nugget package management, quality testing and gives features to extract TRX file as result of testing which includes all the summary of each test case.
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    Apple
    Xcode is a much easier to use and full featured IDE than many of the competitors. It also is a way better experience to use. Much better looking in general
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Apple
    Xcode only loses points due to the occasional situation where it manages to somehow tie itself into a knot and starts to exhibit odd symptoms. This is almost always solved by simply saving progress and restarting the environment. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too frequently and is easily repaired while taking a short break to walk around and stretch.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • We've had hundreds of hours saved by the rapid development that Visual Studio provides.
    • We've lost some time in the Xamarin updates. However, being cross platform, we ultimately saved tons of time not having to create separate apps for iOS and Android.
    Incentivized
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    Apple
    • It's helped us gain worldwide distribution of our native iOS app
    • It's allowed us to build a high performance experience
    • It has allowed us to build stable software by helping us write unit tests
    Incentivized
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