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Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer [EOL] comparison

Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Additionally, 96% of Microsoft Visual Studio users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of SharePoint Designer [EOL] users who would recommend it.
Microsoft Visual Studio
Read 101 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews
  • 1,384 Views
  • 1,384 Comparison Views
96% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images, Harman and others in .NET Development Services.

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.NET Development Services
January 2026
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Helped 881,707 peers since 2012

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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
.NET Development Services (1st)
SharePoint Designer [EOL]
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Eitan Gold - PeerSpot reviewer
Eitan Gold
SQA Manager at Elmo Motion Control Ltd.
Test code efficiency improves with integrated debugger and automation
The test explorer is really important for us as it aids in testing, along with the regular debugger. Even though I forgot the term for it at the moment, there is an overall debugger tool within the IDE that is very effective. This comprehensive debugger tool does the job efficiently, making our work easier.
Read full review
Vladimir Vasilev - PeerSpot reviewer
Vladimir Vasilev
Digital Lead at Baker Tilly
Helps to centralize and share files and has an easy setup
I'm using the solution for creating different sites in our organization. We also use it for a file repository mainly.  It's provided us with a centralized document database that is available to all collaborators 24/7. There are good features in general. It helps centralize and store files.  It's…
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

"Microsoft Visual Studio is integrated with all tools and offers all necessary extensions, making it very convenient."
"The solution can scale."
"It is pretty simple to set up."
"We see savings in terms of time and money; if I take the manual testing against automatic testing, we see about an 80% saving."
"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."
"My company works with outsourced programmers. The solution helps us to test, integrate and foresee the code quality. We can trace the development stages."
"Most valuable features include code navigation by symbols and document auto formatting."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is stable and the performance was good. However, if you do not have decent hardware you will not have the same experience."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pros
"The most valuable feature of SharePoint Designer is document management."
"The Power App is the most valuable feature."
"It helps centralize and store files."
"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 find the document management and search of SharePoint the most valuable features."
"SharePoint has very good features for collaboration."
"We like the highly customizable websites that you can build."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the user-friendly interface and easy workflow."
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros
 

Cons

"I would like to have more integration with other platforms and technologies."
"Microsoft Visual Studio could improve by making it faster. Every time they add a new feature or plugin it slows it down. They should allow the user to turn off features they do not use."
"There have been some issues but not very often."
"Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."
"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 UI could be better, and development could be easier on Microsoft Visual Studio if there were more features like drag and drop and more frameworks, etc."
"Technical support can be slow to respond at times."
"I would like to see Visual Studio improve reporting to give us more details on failures. When there are failures, it's difficult to debug. It would be helpful to have more error information to help us to identify the issue and resolve it. I want to know more about software failures and exceptions in the system."
More Microsoft Visual Studio cons
"Microsoft could include more applications in this. And if more applications are included, then it can be scalable that way."
"If you compare the workflow with other engines like Olympus and K2, it is very complicated to create a workflow."
"The designer itself could be improved, as it isn't particularly intuitive."
"SharePoint Designer could improve most in analytics and reporting."
"Further development for SharePoint online would be ideal. However, I'm not sure if it's true that Microsoft will no longer develop SharePoint Designer in the future or not."
"The solution is not very flexible when trying to access the solution via a personal PC."
"The solution is not scalable at all."
"The search function should improve in the solution."
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a free tool."
"I am working with the open-source community version, which is free."
"Visual Studio Team System is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $400 annually."
"I use Microsoft Visual Studio's free version."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product."
"I am using the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice
"It is a free solution that does not require a license."
"Priced per user per month with different plans to choose from."
"The cost of the license is based on the size of the user base."
"The price is reasonable."
"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."
"SharePoint Designer is less expensive than other solutions we have used. We purchased Office 365 which SharePoint comes with the package."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"This solution is free of charge."
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
19%
Performing Arts
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
20%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise50
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Visual Studio?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Microsoft Visual Studio is that the pricing is free, which is perfect.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?
I think Microsoft Visual Studio is a very good tool and I do not have many improvements to suggest. The only thing I can think of is that I quite regularly get notifications that interrupt my workf...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Visual Studio?
My main use case for Microsoft Visual Studio is writing code, specifically infrastructure as code to build resources in cloud platforms such as AWS EC2 instances, Google IAM resources, and networks...
See all answers
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Comparisons

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Compared 38% of the time
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ASP.NET vs SharePoint Designer [EOL] Logo
ASP.NET vs SharePoint Designer [EOL]
Compared 39% of the time
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio
January 2026
Microsoft Visual Studio reportDownload Microsoft Visual Studio product report
Buyer's Guide
SharePoint Designer [EOL]
January 2026
SharePoint Designer [EOL] reportDownload SharePoint Designer [EOL] product report
 

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio
No data available
 

Overview

Visual Studio.NET is the umbrella that represents the key pieces of the .NET platform delivered from Microsoft, including the .NET Framework, the recently announced .NET Core, and a shared common layer of packages, compilers and runtime. Read this .NET blog post about the evolution of the platform and the different pieces that make .NET 2015.
Microsoft

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
 

Sample Customers

Knab, Hamburg Port Authority, Kecioren Municipality, National Instruments, Hamburg Port Authority, Government of Odisha, Kongsberg Maritime AS
Pyrotek Inc., ICA, Deliver Australia, Secretary of Economy of Mexico, Aegon, ABB Switzerland, Ascent Yarns Private Limited, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd, Hitachi Consulting
Buyer's Guide
.NET Development Services
January 2026
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