Microsoft Visual Studio vs Zend Studio comparison

Microsoft and Zend are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while Zend is ranked #8. Microsoft holds a 15.9% mindshare in NDS, compared to Zend’s 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Visual Studio

Read 79 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews

663 Views
196 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Zend Studio

Read 1 Zend Studio review

112 Views
25 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

Zend Studio

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Visual Studio and Zend Studio based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Adobe, FourJs and others in .NET Development Services.

To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

March 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 845,406 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

Ranking in .NET Development Services

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zend Studio

Ranking in .NET Development Services

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 15.9%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 3.3%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

.NET Development Services

Featured Reviews

LorenzoMoore

IT Project Manager (Assistant Director, Technology Division) at a government with 10,001+ employees

Beneficial user interface, flexible, and good support

Microsoft Visual Studio is scalable. We have an assistant director and software development using Microsoft Visual Studio in my department. In the whole company, there could be hundreds using Microsoft Visual Studio. In my department, they do not like Microsoft Visual Studio, but across the departments, we will increase the usage of Microsoft Visual Studio.

Read full review

marketacumen

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.

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

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Visual Studio are the UI functionality where you can do software development. Everything is available there that you need. You can create the UI, and code, develop and compile it."

"The most valuable feature is the integration with different databases."

"It is definitely sophisticated and provides many out-of-the-box features. Going community has boosted all that."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is how easy it is to access all the basic templates for development. There are so many features you get with Visual Studio that it's really helpful for the deployment, the development, and the intelligence behind it."

"My company works with outsourced programmers. The solution helps us to test, integrate and foresee the code quality. We can trace the development stages."

"Microsoft Visual Studio's most valuable features are usability. It's an integrated development environment, they have a lot of built-in tools that will be helpful for a new developer to quickly develop their applications, such as mobile applications or web applications."

"Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF is valuable. It's a tool to give clients a user interface for Windows applications. The summary for mobile applications is also very useful."

"The initial setup was very easy."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"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."

Cons

"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."

"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve by bringing back designers. They used to have designers for architecture charts and diagrams. They were able to do things, such as database design. If they can bring them back, it would be great."

"Additional components such as add-ons could be included in the installation packages."

"Long installation or upgrade times are sometimes a problem."

"The interface could be more user friendly"

"Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."

"This solution could be integrated with other open-source languages, such as Python and not only C#, .NET or Microsoft development languages."

"I would like to have more integration with other platforms and technologies."

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."

"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."

"The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Our purchasing department pays a fair price for it."

"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."

"The price is good."

"Licensing costs are reasonable."

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

"Microsoft Visual Studio is free. It's freeware, so you don't have to pay for its license."

"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Licensing is reasonable for this type of tool. Although, you can cobble together a solution which is zero cost."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which .NET Development Services solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Visual Studio?

We can use different .NET features.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Visual Studio?

Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?

We have different platforms available for web development. The solution must provide user-friendly features. We get updates frequently. Multiple versions are released within a short period. We need...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

SharePoint Designer vs Microsoft Visual Studio

Compared 100% of the time

More Microsoft Visual Studio Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Visual Studio

March 2025

Download Microsoft Visual Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

March 2025

Download Zend Studio 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

Zend Studio â the PHP IDE for smarter development. It codes faster with up to 3X performance improvements in indexing, validation, searching of PHP code. It has superior PHP 7.1 support, PHP 7.1 express migration assistant, and seamless integration with Zend Server 9. It provides robust debugging capabilities with Xdebug, Zend Debugger, and Z-Ray integration. Zend Studio has an extensive plugin capabilities provided by the large Eclipse eco-system and supports for best-in-class dev tools including Docker and Git Flow Intelligent code editor. Deploy PHP applications on any server including cloud support for Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure and support for HiDPi displays - scale graphics (ala 4K resolution).

Zend

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

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

March 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Adobe, FourJs and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best .NET Development Services vendors.

We monitor all .NET Development Services reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.