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SharePoint Designer [EOL] 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

SharePoint Designer [EOL]
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zend Studio
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
.NET Development Services (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Raphael Haroun  Ikyagh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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 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."
"SharePoint has very good features for collaboration."
"In summary, this product allows our developers to do what they want to do."
"It saved me big time once! My car got broken into and they took my laptop with all my files. But I didn't have to worry because everything was backed up on SharePoint. It was a lifesaver!"
"The most valuable feature of SharePoint Designer is the storing of files. In the Office 365 version, there is the capability to share files with others which is helpful. The files have cross versions capability. If the solution is shut down abruptly the file is stored on the system automatically."
"Designer is easy to manage."
"The solution tightly integrates with all other collaboration tools."
"The workflow is the solution's most valuable feature."
"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 search function should improve in the solution."
"The solution requires more web-based publishing. It would benefit from adding in more collaboration features as well."
"The availability and quality of technical support both need improvement."
"It has a lot of bugs. It's also not very convenient. The UX/UI is not very user-friendly and not designed to be similar to other applications from Microsoft."
"Microsoft could include more applications in this. And if more applications are included, then it can be scalable that way."
"The solution does not need any additional features."
"The pricing is a little bit high and can be reduced."
"We would like to see an improvement in the stability and overall consistency of performance in this solution."
"The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"SharePoint Designer is a free product. It's SharePoint that needs a license, not SharePoint Designer."
"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."
"I use Macintosh devices, and because this solution is not available in the Apple Ecosystem I use it because it is cost-effective."
"There is no licensing cost for Designer—it's free."
"SharePoint Online has a subscription-based model for payments and the price is based on user usage."
"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."
"The pricing is fair."
"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."
"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
Financial Services Firm
23%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pyrotek Inc., ICA, Deliver Australia, Secretary of Economy of Mexico, Aegon, ABB Switzerland, Ascent Yarns Private Limited, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd, Hitachi Consulting
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: May 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.