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 8.6, while Zend is ranked #6. Microsoft holds a 13.0% mindshare in NDS, compared to Zend’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend 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

Zend Studio

Read 1 Zend Studio review

171 Views
171 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

Zend Studio

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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, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images, Harman and others in .NET Development Services.

To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

January 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

Ranking in .NET Development Services

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

101

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zend Studio

Ranking in .NET Development Services

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 13.0%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 3.9%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

.NET Development Services Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Visual Studio	13.0%
Zend Studio	3.9%
Other	83.1%

.NET Development Services

Featured Reviews

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

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 solution can scale."

"The versatility and platform coverage of Microsoft Visual Studio make it a standard and stable product across Linux, Windows, and Mac."

"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."

"The tool is good for interactive testing. It has good integrations and works well for remote services. The product also has features for collaborative work where it allows others to control my screen. It has a good community for every language."

"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."

"I like that it works fine and that it performs better than competing products. I'm very happy with Microsoft Visual Studio."

"It is easy to integrate with GitHub. We integrate with GitHub, and we deploy our solution on our local system. We need this integration for pushing our code. When we were working with Eclipse, we had to write everything in the command prompt, which is a little bit tricky, whereas Visual Studio is very much UI-based and simple. So, it's very easy to integrate GitHub with Visual Studio. It is much easier than Eclipse."

"Visual Studio's best feature is debugging, which isn't available with any other Microsoft development tool."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"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 not recommend it for complex tasks."

"You do need to do some training in order to really take advantage of the solution."

"It would be better if it didn't get stuck. Sometimes when we are writing code, we open too many tabs and modules, and it gets stuck."

"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."

"We'd like the solution to be more secure."

"The product could be improved by including axle intelligence."

"The time that it takes to load the application can be reduced"

"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve by adding more features to the Mac version. There are a lot of features lacking in the Mac version, there are limitations. I can install Microsoft Visual Studio on the Mac operating system, but it is not the same as if I installed it on a Microsoft Windows system. The Microsoft Windows version has a lot of features available in Microsoft Visual Studio."

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is taken care of by my company and the price could be less expensive."

"We have an enterprise-level license. The cost is expensive for small to medium-sized organizations."

"Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product."

"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $400 annually."

"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 solution is a free tool."

"We use the free version, and you don't need a license."

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

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"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

19%

Performing Arts

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	50

No data available

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...

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Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

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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

January 2026

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