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 103 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews

3,746 Views
3,746 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Read 49 SharePoint Designer [EOL] reviews

82% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

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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, Zend, Harman and others in .NET Development Services.

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July 2026

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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

Microsoft Visual Studio

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

.NET Development Services (1st)

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

PrasannaRao

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.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the product's connection with Azure analytics services and the ability to build the model on the cloud."

"Microsoft Visual Studio provides comprehensive development capabilities and is very user-friendly, allowing you to create any type of application, including mobile applications, console applications, Windows applications, WPF, ASP.NET MVC, and .NET Core, while also offering intelligence features that automatically identify issues and help avoid coding errors."

"The Azure integration with Microsoft Visual Studio is perfect and wonderful."

"The installation of the solution is easy."

"I have found that it is scalable."

"One valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is its powerful debugger, which is the only feature I primarily use."

"We like Visual Studio because you can choose the different types of languages, like JavaScript, and I think it's better than the other solutions I used."

"The solution is a very good tool, and I like the performance, stability and ease of use."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"The most valuable feature of SharePoint Designer is document management."

"The most valuable feature is the capability of creating HTML pages, with CSS code."

"Other valuable features are the ability able to update the master file, and creating the workflow."

"One of the most valuable features is that it's free. If you have SharePoint and you want to do some branding, then the only tool available is SharePoint Designer. Microsoft gives the portal, the content management system, and, on top of that, it gives you Designer. So we don't have a choice, but Designer is good."

"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."

"We like that the interface is very user-friendly making it easy to use."

"If you're working in a communication channel team, SharePoint Designer is a great solution because it helps to have some customized solutions in terms of communication and to create web experiences for external teams."

"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."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

Cons

"Visual Studio.Net is only used for Microsoft Windows operating system."

"I would like the solution to have a designing default in addition to the current coding default."

"I would like to see more tools in the next release."

"A room for improvement in Microsoft Visual Studio is its performance. Currently, some of our devices are not that capable, so performance still needs to be improved."

"Every time it updates, there are issues. It alerts to an exception and then quits."

"Microsoft sometimes has outsourced people with less knowledge on their support team. When we open a ticket, it often needs to be escalated to the next level to reach an expert, rather than being resolved at the first level."

"The solution must provide user-friendly features."

"Code editor is expensive."

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"The record management and digital signature sides need improvement because we still need to rely on other third-party tools."

"If you compare the workflow with other engines like Olympus and K2, it is very complicated to create a workflow."

"There is zero technical support. I have to use Google to fix the issues myself."

"It would be helpful to have the SharePoint Designer capabilities built directly into SharePoint itself, into the management page, so as to create an online version of it directly in SharePoint."

"If they included some training modules, I would give them a ten, because that would make it even more user-friendly."

"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."

"The availability and quality of technical support both need improvement."

"Overall, it's not the best solution in terms of stability."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better."

"While the enterprise version can be relatively expensive due to its comprehensive features, I find the license I currently possess to be reasonable, considering it includes the full suite without additional activations or charges."

"The development license for Microsoft Visual Studio is free. I don't know if there's a licensing cost to it."

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

"I am working with the open-source community version, which is free."

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

"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."

"I use Microsoft Visual Studio's free version."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"It is a free solution that does not require a license."

"The tool is free of cost."

"The cost of the solution is based on multiple factors such as the number of users, and any customization that may be required."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"I've never paid for SharePoint Designer. What I paid for, is the SharePoint license, the cava, and then the client accesses the line fee."

"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."

"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."

"This solution is free of charge."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

17%

Construction Company

11%

Marketing Services Firm

10%

Financial Services Firm

20%

Construction Company

16%

Outsourcing Company

Marketing Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	53

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Visual Studio?

I use Microsoft Visual Studio to automate some processes within the establishment.

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Visual Studio

July 2026

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Buyer's Guide

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

July 2026

Download SharePoint Designer [EOL] product report

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

No data available

Overview

Microsoft Visual Studio is a comprehensive platform for coding and app development, integrating tools for multiple languages like .NET, C#, Python, and JavaScript. Known for its debugging, IntelliSense, and Azure/Git integration, it enhances both cloud and local project workflows.

Developers turn to Microsoft Visual Studio for its diverse capabilities in building web, mobile, and cloud solutions. Its robust tools offer rich debugging and code navigation, supported by a user-friendly interface and seamless Azure/Git connectivity. Despite a powerful feature set, users suggest areas for performance, usability, and third-party integration improvements. The platform is designed to support both large-scale and small team development through Live Share and a flexible plugin ecosystem.

What are the key features of Microsoft Visual Studio?

Debugger: Offers powerful error resolution tools for efficient coding.
IntelliSense: Provides smart autocomplete to enhance coding speed and accuracy.
Code Navigation: Facilitates easy exploration of large codebases.
Multi-language Support: Accommodates .NET, C#, Python, JavaScript, and more.
Azure/Git Integration: Simplifies cloud deployment and version control.
Live Share: Enables real-time collaboration among developers.

What benefits should users consider in Microsoft Visual Studio?

Versatility: Supports a wide range of project types and languages.
Performance: Designed for efficient operation in development tasks.
Collaboration: Live Share facilitates teamwork and project management.
Deployment: Offers streamlined processes for both cloud and local apps.
Development Efficiency: Tools improve coding, testing, and prototyping speeds.

Microsoft Visual Studio is widely implemented in industries needing diverse app development such as finance, healthcare, and technology. With tools that suit both cloud services and on-premises applications, it caters to web, mobile, and integrated service demands, enabling cohesive development and operations strategies.

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

July 2026

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