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Microsoft Visual Studio vs Zend Studio comparison

 

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

Microsoft Visual Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zend Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 15.9%, up from 14.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 5.9%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Visual Studio15.9%
Zend Studio5.9%
Other78.2%
.NET Development Services
 

Featured Reviews

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.
marketacumen - PeerSpot reviewer
President at Market Acumen, Inc.
It has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects
* Stability is sometimes lacking in updates. * Search/replace across multiple files is not ideal. * The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects, as well as setting breakpoints, which often are ignored depending on your configuration. * The product requires a subscription to Zend Server Developer, which used to be free and now has an annual fee, but it is still worth the money.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Notably, the Enterprise version facilitates seamless integration with Microsoft products, leveraging the ease of connectivity within the Microsoft ecosystem."
"It is definitely sophisticated and provides many out-of-the-box features, and going community has boosted all that."
"Visual Studios is a business solution developed by Microsoft, and in general, I like it because it integrates many tools into one interface to provide a total solution."
"It is a stable solution."
"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."
"Microsoft Visual Studio has positively impacted my organization by providing a standardized interface, making it easy to collaborate across teams."
"Visual Studio is the best tool available for working on the Microsoft platform, with features that aren't available on any other development tool."
"If you want to use .NET or C#, then Visual Studio is the best solution."
"Generally, it has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects."
"It has the ability to jump to any file in your project with a few keystrokes, as well as the ability to command-click on any token in your code and have it jump to the token's definition."
"It has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects."
 

Cons

"I would like to see support for rapid application development. For example, if I am developing a new project, I am repeating many similar steps again and again and again. But the platform could do this easily, instead of me. It would save me time. This is something I would like to have in Microsoft Visual Studio, to have it take over repetitive tasks from me."
"The migration could improve in Microsoft Visual Studio. When I upgraded from 2017 and up to 2022 it was not smooth. There was a lot of manual hand-picking. Microsoft should put a higher budget for the database developers' section in Visual Studio."
"Additional components such as add-ons could be included in the installation packages."
"It is simple to use for most developers and nearly impossible to use for non-developers."
"Microsoft should add more visualization for analytical studies or research."
"IntelliSense could be better."
"The time that it takes to load the application can be reduced"
"With the free version, we don't have that much support for Visual Studio. Its support is a little bit less and can be better."
"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."
"The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects."
"Most recent set of patches (2018) on Mac OS X caused the app to crash when you would cut more than 10 lines of code. Apparently, this was due to a bug in Eclipse, but regardless, it took several months for Zend to post a patch."
"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"Visual Studio Team System is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"We purchased an expensive enterprise version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"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 price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."
"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."
"Our purchasing department pays a fair price for it."
"We use the free version, and you don't need a license."
"Licensing is reasonable for this type of tool. Although, you can cobble together a solution which is zero cost."
"The product requires a subscription to Zend Server Developer, which used to be free and now has an annual fee, but it is still worth the money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Performing Arts
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise50
No data available
 

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...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?
I think Microsoft Visual Studio is good at the moment. When I think of additional improvements, I would like to have the ability to use Claude in my Microsoft Visual Studio account since I believe ...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Visual Studio?
My main use case for Microsoft Visual Studio is for writing code. Since I'm a data engineer, projects I work on using Microsoft Visual Studio are related to data engineering. We have GitHub or Bitb...
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Also Known As

MS Visual Studio
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Knab, Hamburg Port Authority, Kecioren Municipality, National Instruments, Hamburg Port Authority, Government of Odisha, Kongsberg Maritime AS
CDS Global, EnglishCentral, BNP Paribas, Carlo Gavazzi, Sunstate Equipment, Novadex GmbH, CONFTEC, Marilan, Mediaspike, Cisco WebEx, Corvette America, Value Drug Mart Associates Ltd., Allied Beverage Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Harman, Apache and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.