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Microsoft Visual Studio vs Zend Studio comparison

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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
103
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zend Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 16.6%, up from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 7.7%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Visual Studio16.6%
Zend Studio7.7%
Other75.7%
.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

"It's a very easy-to-use product."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"It is a straightforward solution to set up."
"It has perfect integration into Microsoft; it goes straight to Azure, and it is massive."
"It is a stable solution."
"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."
"They've really gone the 9-mile to accommodate not only corporate or big companies, but small, single users to utilize the community issue or business vehicle, and to develop and build on application."
"The feature I find most valuable is the fact that it's broad-spectrum, so it can be used for a wide variety of technologies."
"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."
"Generally, it has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects."
 

Cons

"The product could be improved by including axle intelligence."
"Despite its advantages, challenges in diverse cloud environments may prompt the uninstallation of the application or entire development environment for resolution."
"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."
"I quite regularly get notifications that interrupt my workflow, telling me that Microsoft Visual Studio could be updated."
"Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."
"File installations are heavy."
"I would rate Microsoft Visual Studio a seven out of ten. I rate it a seven because you can't use it on all platforms."
"The best advice I can give to others is to take training because it's so easy to use out of the box. However, you might tend to install it and maybe configure it improperly. You need to have some training."
"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

"Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."
"Licensing costs are reasonable."
"Our purchasing department pays a fair price for it."
"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $400 annually."
"The development license for Microsoft Visual Studio is free. I don't know if there's a licensing cost to it."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
24%
Construction Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
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 Enterprise53
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?
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...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Visual Studio?
I use Microsoft Visual Studio to automate some processes within the establishment.
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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, Zend and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.