Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

SharePoint Designer 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
Ranking in .NET Development Services
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zend Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of SharePoint Designer is 13.0%, down from 18.8% 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

Vivek Vaibhav - PeerSpot reviewer
Intuitive, customizable, and reliable
Exporting the whole SharePoint website is an issue. For example, let's say I want to deploy it in the client environment. Right now, this was based on our own company's environment and if I wanted to deploy that onto the client's environment. To do this, I will have to recreate everything from scratch, which takes a lot of time. There should be a way somewhere where I can download the custom designs I have made and upload them to the client servers so that we can configure them on their servers. Secondly, when you have uploaded data, for example, from an Excel spreadsheet, you download it in the form of a dot IQY file. This IQY file is a bit tough to work with as it's a server-side file. If there was any option where you could just download the flat files and work with them, that would have been great.
marketacumen - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"We like that the interface is very user-friendly making it easy to use."
"Designer is easy to manage."
"The drag and drop feature is the most useful feature when using this solution."
"Retrieving documents and uploading them is easy."
"The document filing system is the solution's most valuable feature. We have used SharePoint as an option for a document managed system, like Documentum and IBM Filenet."
"We appreciate the fact that this solution can provide us with an on-premises version, as due to our geographical location, we are not able to use cloud-based tools."
"The scalability is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"One of the most valuable features is that it's free. If you have SharePoint and you want to do some branding, then the only tool available is SharePoint Designer. Microsoft gives the portal, the content management system, and, on top of that, it gives you Designer. So we don't have a choice, but Designer is good."
"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

"The solution does not need any additional features."
"I am not sure how stable the solution will be once Microsoft stops supporting it."
"Sharepoint could improve the user interface to make it easier for everyone to navigate and use. That would be a big plus."
"The initial setup depends on company specifics. So, it's a bit complex."
"SharePoint Designer could improve by making the searching feature better. It is not accurate in some cases, and there are some descriptions that are not clear."
"The new SharePoint Designer is very limited."
"I believe Microsoft does not support Sharepoint on-premises. They only support Sharepoint on the Cloud. They should provide for both options and let the client choose their preference."
"The web services aspect of the solution is very weak."
"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."
"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."
"The cost of the license is based on the size of the user base."
"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."
"SharePoint Designer is a free product. It's SharePoint that needs a license, not SharePoint Designer."
"SharePoint Designer's pricing is okay."
"The entire package is expensive. There is no extra cost in addition to the standard license."
"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."
"The tool is free of 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."
"Licensing is reasonable for this type of tool. Although, you can cobble together a solution which is zero cost."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which .NET Development Services solutions are best for your needs.
845,589 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
18%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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 SharePoint Designer?
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!
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SharePoint Designer?
I've leased Microsoft SharePoint Designer for the enterprise, not System Center. It's for private work, web development specifically.
What needs improvement with SharePoint Designer?
For me, it's flexible enough for most things. But maybe they could improve the user interface to make it easier for everyone to navigate and use. That would be a big plus.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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, Adobe, FourJs and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: March 2025.
845,589 professionals have used our research since 2012.