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ASP.NET vs Microsoft Visual Studio comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

ASP.NET
Ranking in .NET Development Services
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of ASP.NET is 12.3%, up from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 16.6%, up from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Visual Studio16.6%
ASP.NET12.3%
Other71.1%
.NET Development Services
 

Featured Reviews

SasidharParupudi - PeerSpot reviewer
Principle Consultant at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Building reliable web APIs and sites has become faster and development stays well supported
I think Microsoft can make ASP.NET better by catching up with other frameworks by adopting features that are very popular in those frameworks, such as minimal APIs and other innovations. They have introduced Blazor, which is their newer front-end development software framework, but unfortunately, Blazor is not well adopted in the market. However, I feel that they will catch up in the future as Blazor has a lot of potential. In my opinion, there is not anything extra needed immediately for ASP.NET; the framework is self-sufficient and very mature at this stage. The problem lies with wider adoption, as some people are anti-Microsoft and prefer open-source alternatives such as React. Microsoft could potentially do a better job at marketing these solutions, but other than that, the tool has the potential to be used in any enterprise-level applications. I would say the setup process for ASP.NET is relatively simple, but with the latest generation of user management or integration with OpenID, the documentation is not comprehensive in terms of what you can do with the latest libraries. They support many things and have decoupled themselves from their own identity servers, but still need to improve documentation considerably.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have been using ASP.NET framework from mobile development to web development, and it just works like a perfect solution to each possible project I've come across in life up till now."
"I have found the entity framework to be a valuable feature. The authentication layer is amazing as well. ASP.NET has a vibrant community, and as a result, we haven't had the need to contact technical support."
"The solution is very easy to maintain because UI management is simple and many libraries are available."
"The developer support for ASP.NET is a big positive. It's actually very good, and since there are so many people who use ASP.NET, it's easy to get responses to questions about ASP.NET in the broader community."
"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to use."
"ASP.NET is stable, and I did not have to do any maintenance on it."
"The solution provides a good framework for creating commands and portals for user log-ins and can perform many functions such as special credentials or authorizations that are specific to each user."
"If I needed to build a new site from scratch, and was able to use IIS7, it would be extremely likely that I would choose ASP.NET MVC."
"The most valuable feature is how smoothly it runs."
"The product integrates well with Azure Cloud, and it supports a ton of languages."
"It is also flexible enough to let me use Git as well as its own version control mechanism."
"I find Microsoft Visual Studio to be a good development environment; its integration with SQL and features like check-in, check-out, and integration with Visual SourceSafe and now the Azure counterpart are very effective for debugging applications."
"One of the most valuable features is its support. It's easy for me to get support even though I never use it. If there's a bug or a performance issue, Microsoft also provides quick updates, and this is another valuable feature of the program."
"The coding standard has been enforced and has tremendously improved with Microsoft Visual Studio, with anywhere between 20 to 50% improvement depending on which team we are discussing."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is the best tool that we've got currently, and I don't have any complaints about it."
"Microsoft Visual Studio has improved the way our organization functions by allowing us to develop applications rapidly."
 

Cons

"In addition to the visual aspect, there is a need for ASP.NET to provide a robust visual front end like there was in the past."
"The solution's initial setup is intermediate, and it could be improved."
"It could use better reporting and documentation."
"It's important to focus on productivity. The more heavyweight the system becomes, the more we need to focus only on our core and repeated functionalities, making them easier for us."
"The most important thing to improve in the next release would be support in tooling and high-level designer toolbox for cross-platform mobile app development."
"In the future, I would like to see more AI and machine learning technologies made available in libraries."
"I'd like to be able to run any application from a specific point instead of compiling all the code. For example, if I want to test function A, I should be able to test it even if my other functions aren't working. Like in SQL, you provide parameters to the function, and it executes. I'd like to see something similar in ASP.NET."
"It should be open source or deployable to any operating system so that the dependency can be removed."
"A kind of tutorial page should be embedded in the software to enable first-time users learn more without the help of an expert."
"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."
"Additional components such as add-ons could be included in the installation packages because it saves time for the user during installation."
"There have been some issues but not very often."
"It would be nice if Visual Studio's extensions and updates could self-correct, if they are not working or disabled, and also inform the user."
"Sometimes crashes happen and occasionally there might be hanging issues."
"In the next version I would like to see a better development tool."
"Sometimes, the deprecation of packages can be a challenge."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution requires a licensing fee but is worth the investment."
"The solution is free to use."
"The solution is open source and free."
"ASP.NET is open-source and free of charge."
"ASP.NET is an open-source solution."
"This is a free solution. However, we have some server licensing costs which are not directly a cost of using the solution."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. Not too expensive, but not the cheapest either."
"ASP.NET is not an expensive solution."
"I'm using the platform's open-source version."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $400 annually."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is free. It's freeware, so you don't have to pay for its license."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product."
"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 price of Microsoft Visual Studio could be lowered. For a single developer, it is approximately $1,000."
"I use the open-source version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Outsourcing Company
24%
Construction Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise53
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ASP.NET?
Our solution is deployed in a hybrid setup; we have some on-site on a private cloud and some on Azure. Most of our costing comes from database licensing, as we use SQL Server, which has very costly...
What needs improvement with ASP.NET?
With the Aspire project, the community is working well on third-party tools for integration, but as a framework, it is solid for almost all normal use cases. For some advanced use cases, I do not s...
What is your primary use case for ASP.NET?
I am mainly developing backend solutions, microservices, and monolithic web backends with ASP.NET.I tried Angular and Blazor; I worked with Angular a long time ago, but I worked with a small projec...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Visual Studio
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kienzle Automotive GmbH, Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Vengo Labs, Oneview Healthcare, BookedOut, Ministry of Rural Development, Grupo WRR
Knab, Hamburg Port Authority, Kecioren Municipality, National Instruments, Hamburg Port Authority, Government of Odisha, Kongsberg Maritime AS
Find out what your peers are saying about ASP.NET vs. Microsoft Visual Studio and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.