I'm using Microsoft Visual Studio for developing mobile applications using Xamarin. It's similar to a software development kit (SDK).
Mobile Engeneer at ServiceLInk inc
Beneficial UI functionality, complete development kit, and performs well
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Visual Studio for approximately nine years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Microsoft Visual Studio is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Visual Studio is scalable. I can write a lot of code and there is not any problem with performance.
We have approximately 200 IT department people using this solution in my organization.
How are customer service and support?
When we have an issue we generally put it in the online forum or email to receive a reply. They provide a response within 24 hours, which is good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $400 annually.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is Microsoft Visual Studio is a good tool for development. It is easy to handle and use, and it has a clean UI design. Overall it is not complicated. Anyone can use it to develop any web application or mobile application. It's cross-platform, it can run on Microsoft Windows and macOS. The cross-platform features are good.
I rate Microsoft Visual Studio a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Enterprise Architect - Integrations at BCA
Comprehensive and has features that work for different plans; powerful and efficient
Pros and Cons
- "What we like about Microsoft Visual Studio is that it's a comprehensive tool. It has features that work for different plans and it has a wide variety of use cases. It's also a powerful tool and it's quite efficient."
- "The UI could be better, and development could be easier on Microsoft Visual Studio if there were more features like drag and drop and more frameworks, etc."
What is our primary use case?
We use Microsoft Visual Studio for various builds such as building our .NET applications, and in some cases, we use it for design, and for building specifications.
What is most valuable?
What we like about Microsoft Visual Studio is that it's a comprehensive tool. It has features that work for different plans and it has a wide variety of use cases. It's also a powerful tool and it's quite efficient.
What needs improvement?
There's always room for improvement in any product, and in Microsoft Visual Studio, it can be spread into other areas of development and design. It's pretty much Microsoft-oriented at the moment. It can be spread into other open source or open source-based developments. That's why I gave it a rating of eight. There's always room for improvement, for example, the UI could be better, and development could be easier on Microsoft Visual Studio if there were more features like drag and drop and more frameworks, etc.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using Microsoft Visual Studio for the past three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Visual Studio is a stable tool. It has improved in terms of stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, I don't know if scalability applies to Microsoft Visual Studio, to be honest.
How are customer service and support?
We never required technical support from Microsoft Visual Studio because it's a straightforward tool. Online help is great, for example, the community support and forums are all good and widely used.
How was the initial setup?
Microsoft Visual Studio has improved a lot over the years, and setting it up is quite straightforward now.
How fast the tool is deployed depends on project to project, but usually deployment is quite efficient and fast. We usually take on average fifteen days to build a feature and deploy it in DevOps.
What about the implementation team?
We both have an in-house team and partners that take care of the implementation of Microsoft Visual Studio.
What was our ROI?
I've seen ROI from Microsoft Visual Studio.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The development license for Microsoft Visual Studio is free. I don't know if there's a licensing cost to it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Eclipse and also used other tools, but Microsoft Visual Studio is good.
What other advice do I have?
My company has been using Microsoft Visual Studio for development purposes, particularly Microsoft Visual Studio for .NET development.
I would highly recommend Microsoft Visual Studio to others looking into implementing it. I would also advise that it has some learning curve to use, in particular, people need the technical skill to use the tool properly.
My rating for Microsoft Visual Studio is eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Microsoft Visual Studio
September 2025

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Visual Studio. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
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Consultant at ATOS
Easy setup with good interface and lots of languages
Pros and Cons
- "The product integrates well with Azure Cloud, and it supports a ton of languages."
- "It has a ton of options and that sometimes can become very, very overwhelming for a new person, a new developer."
What is most valuable?
The product integrates well with Azure Cloud, and it supports a ton of languages.
It also has a very good interface for Git source code management. Then there are a couple of add-ins or plug-ins that are out there in the marketplace that sometimes come in handy. From a developer standpoint, it does a very good job when it comes to debugging. It's a great development tool.
The initial setup was pretty straightforward.
The solution has good technical support.
What needs improvement?
It has a ton of options and that sometimes can become very, very overwhelming for a new person, a new developer. If something can be done around simplifying the product, for example, if there's a way, to just have enough options that are relevant for me, that could probably help.
The upgrade system is a bit complex. If they're upgrading something, then they should not force us to go to the next version. Maybe they should probably just release a fix or something that, and once we implement that fix, it gives us at least a choice that you're good for some time even if you don't want to upgrade.
A ton of time is just spent trying to keep ourselves up with the frequent releases that Microsoft rolls out. That is something that takes away from our productive time that we could have invested that time to enhance your application, and could have worked on additional features or functionalities, however, you end up spending that time just to upgrade your current solution to the next version that they roll out.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for three years, however, my team members have been using it for ten to 12 years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of the stability, the frequent upgrades that they roll out and then they force us to upgrade the solution, upgrade the tool itself, those sometimes can be a nuisance.
Most of the time, I see my team members end up spending a lot of time just upgrading the application to the next .NET framework. Or sometimes even the Microsoft Visual Studio version that gets rolled out and then you just have to do that upgrade. Therefore, the frequent upgrades that happen just don't support the older ones, they just take it off support, which causes a lot of nuisance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The project that I'm part of is a huge team for sure. We are a team of a couple hundred.
How are customer service and support?
There have been instances in the past where we have reached out to Microsoft.
Support-wise, they're doing a fair job. I don't mind that. Whenever we reach out, we do get help.
How was the initial setup?
It was a pretty easy setup. For us, basically, it comes with some preconfigured settings. The license that we have is a project from our customer. It is fairly straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We had a third party help us with the initial setup. We did not do it completely by ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not someone who concerns myself with the cost. That said, my understanding is the license cost is a lot. Before customers roll out a license for any developer, they make sure that it is relevant and it's required for the job.
What other advice do I have?
We use the enterprise edition of the product. We're using the latest version.
We're end-users of Visual Studio. We're also using Microsoft Teams as well.
We have a couple of applications running on-prem. The roadmap is to move as much as possible onto Azure.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
BI Development & Validation Manager at JT International SA
Stable solution that facilitates different software development processes
Pros and Cons
- "This solution can integrate with almost any functionality offered by Microsoft."
- "The pricing for licenses could be reduced to make this solution more competitive."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution to support a number of different web development processes across different tools and languages.
What is most valuable?
This solution can integrate with almost any functionality offered by Microsoft.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for licenses could be reduced to make this solution more competitive.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Junior Software Engineer at PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk.
Scalable IDE for software development with easy access to support and quick updates for bugs
Pros and Cons
- "One of the most valuable features is its support. It's easy for me to get support even though I never use it. If there's a bug or a performance issue, Microsoft also provides quick updates, and this is another valuable feature of the program."
- "Microsoft Visual Studio could benefit from a more centralized education system."
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features is its support. It's easy for me to get support even though I never use it. If there's a bug or a performance issue, Microsoft also provides quick updates, and this is another valuable feature of the program.
What needs improvement?
A room for improvement in Microsoft Visual Studio is its performance. Currently, some of our devices are not that capable, so performance still needs to be improved.
An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Microsoft Visual Studio to make it better is a more centralized education system, e.g. for Microsoft to put the tutorial for the program under Microsoft Learn.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with Microsoft Visual Studio for two years, and I'm still using it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Microsoft Visual Studio is okay, but it could be more stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Visual Studio is a scalable program. It's enough for me, and I'm utilizing it a lot, and that's one of the most important things for me.
How was the initial setup?
I'm using my company's equipment, so Microsoft Visual Studio is already set up on it. The program's easy to set up.
What other advice do I have?
I'm using the latest version of Microsoft Visual Studio, e.g. the 2022 version if I remember correctly. It depends on what my company is using.
The most valuable thing about Microsoft Visual Studio is that it's already deployed in my company and used by my company, so I can just use it. That's the reason I'm using the program.
I haven't contacted technical support for Microsoft Visual Studio.
I'm giving Microsoft Visual Studio a rating of eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Sr. Consultant (Enterprise Architect) at Devoteam
Great support, easy to use, and simple to set up
Pros and Cons
- "It's a very easy-to-use product."
- "It would be great if they added some extra support for other languages that are available in the market and prepared it for the, let's say, crypto developers as we are going in the age of cryptocurrency."
What is our primary use case?
It's mainly used for development. Therefore, it's mainly for either developers or IT development companies where they produce products and then sell them.
It's great for when you want to do development, such as on an enterprise-size project that requires a lot of teams also to be working on that project and that It's also good for helping with the workflow of the development in general.
How has it helped my organization?
It's mainly for the organizations that are working on development. First of all, of course, it helps the organization due to the ease of use. It's been a legacy application. It's been working for years and it is already integrated with the cloud.
It's used to provide the support to develop on multiple platforms, whether it is computer devices, web, cloud, or even mobile applications with the same IDE, which is the Visual Studio itself.
What is most valuable?
It's a very easy-to-use product.
The support is great. The community and the documentation support for it are great. Whatever you are missing, you are going to find it at Microsoft help.
It's easy to set up.
The stability is good.
You can scale it well.
What needs improvement?
It would be great if they added some extra support for other languages that are available in the market and prepared it for the, let's say, crypto developers as we are going in the age of cryptocurrency.
If it was more friendly for the simple or starter developer, it would be great. It's friendly anyway, however, it would be better if there was a way to enhance it in a much more usable way as a user-experience type for the new customers or newbies who want to enter the technology.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Microsoft Visual Studio since the early versions of VB6, which is like in 2006 or 2005.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product, since it supports DevOps and is connected to the cloud, is scalable. It can take on many users. It's a per-user installation. It's not a server application. It's a computer-based application.
There is a new version of it. I didn't try it yet, however, it is fully over the cloud where the development happens on the cloud in Azure. Since I didn't try it, I can't comment on that.
How are customer service and support?
The support is great and so is the supporting documentation. You can easily find answers to your questions. We've very satisfied with that.
Usually, whenever I faced an issue in the past, it would take one to two working days maximum to get assistance. If it was on Azure and you've had a problem on Azure with the server, then it's going to take as much as one day, as it's going to be distributed to the team that is responsible for the region that you are opening the ticket from.
How was the initial setup?
The product is so easy to set up. The only thing you do usually with Microsoft Visual Studio is to go to the internet and download the installer for it. Then it will download the required files and everything from the internet for you, and you go through the installation like any normal program.
The length of time it takes to deploy depends on the features. Visual Studio comes with so many features. It depends on if you are going to choose only Windows development or Windows and mobile development and so on. However, it really depends on the features that you are going to require.
It also depends on the internet speed, as each feature requires extra downloads from the internet.
What about the implementation team?
Usually, I deploy it for my team. I started a company also that provides services for IT companies. What we do is, if they want a development environment and they don't have anyone, then we install it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is per user.
There is also the Community Edition which users can access as a start for a small application. It's for open-source applications. That's where they build out the support for the open-source community.
There are also Professional or Enterprise options. Which would be the best option depends on the capacity and the requirements of the company that is going to use it. The licensing is affordable for companies, not for individuals. It's not for personal usage.
What other advice do I have?
We provide Microsoft products to customers.
We are using the 2019 version. I know that they have been planning or they already did create a new version of it, however, the last one was 2019.
I would rate the solution at a nine ot of ten. There is always room for improvement, however, we've been quite happy with it so far.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Business Application Solutions at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Great features, lots of helpful documentation, allows us to manage our code directly via the repository
Pros and Cons
- "I was testing how to publish in a cloud using Azure and it was very easy."
- "You do need to do some training in order to really take advantage of the solution."
What is our primary use case?
Currently, in my daily work, I am using Visual Studio to develop different tools. Also, I am trying to use DevOps to manage code and different work items.
What is most valuable?
It's an excellent tool in general. There are a lot of features that are very, very nice in Visual Studio.
We can publish directly to the premise's servers. I was testing how to publish in a cloud using Azure and it was very easy. There are a lot of good features in Visual Studio and I'm sure we can add different add-ins or add-ons to make it a little more functional as well.
We can manage our code directly via the repository. We are trying to manage the code in DevOps. With Visual Studio, we can connect to DevOps and manage the different versions that we have using the repository.
What needs improvement?
You do need to do some training in order to really take advantage of the solution.
Currently, we have issues when Visual Studio has updates. When Visual Studio has updates, right now we have issues in terms of updating our repositories. That was the current issue that we have. We need to update Visual Studio, however, we also need to update continuously the Visual Studio version due to the fact that if we don't update the Visual Studio, we have different problems that follow us.
The initial setup can be a bit complex.
The thing that is very important is to manage your requirements and the features that you need to develop using Visual Studio. DevOps has that feature available. When we connect Visual Studio or a project with DevOps, we can manage different work items. They could improve that feature, to manage the work items requirements and different things a bit better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution since about 2012, across two different companies.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution We don't really deal with bugs or glitches. I don't find that it crashes or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've found the product to be scalable. If a company needs to expand it out they can do so.
We have about 15 people using it regularly right now.
I'm not sure if we intend to expand usage just yet. We are already, this year, planning to migrate some tools to the cloud. That said, we don't know if we are going to need a little more support or people to do that.
How are customer service and support?
Currently, we use different documentation that exists on the internet to assist us with troubleshooting. We currently use the Microsoft or Visual Studio page to research different functionalities or different features that we need to implement or we need to add to our project. So far, that's been quite helpful.
How was the initial setup?
Initially, it was a little complex to set up. We needed to learn the different features that we could manage in Visual Studio. Right now, as we have had some time to pick things up, it's very straightforward to use.
In terms of deployment, for example, yesterday, I implemented a new version for one of the plants that we have. The tech was immediately published as we are able to use an option to publish the code. We only select the new version and automatically the code is published. It's very fast to publish a new version for the different tools that we have. In that sense, it doesn't take long to deploy.
Each developer is responsible for publishing his own tools and doesn't require another special group or another special people to deploy the tools that we are managing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding the licensing, I don't manage that. The license is updated each time that it's required to be as the company where I am working, requires that. I don't know if the license is updated monthly or annually, however. It may be annually.
What other advice do I have?
We're customers and end-users.
While this solution is currently on-premises, the plan is this year try to migrate some tools to the cloud using Azure.
I'd advise new users that it's important initially to do some training to implement Visual Studio. If there are people trying to implement Visual Studio in the company, it's very important to consider the training that will be involved and not just the licensing costs.
I'd rate the product at a nine out of ten. It's a good solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior SQL Server DBA Consultant at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Highly stable solution, good integration, and straightforward installation
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is its integration with Azure DevOps."
- "The migration could improve in Microsoft Visual Studio. When I upgraded from 2017 and up to 2022 it was not smooth. There was a lot of manual hand-picking. Microsoft should put a higher budget for the database developers' section in Visual Studio."
What is our primary use case?
I am using Microsoft Visual Studio for developing SQL Server applications.
How has it helped my organization?
Using Microsoft Visual Studio has heightened the quality of the work that I do since it is checking everything.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is its integration with Azure DevOps.
What needs improvement?
The migration could improve in Microsoft Visual Studio. When I upgraded from 2017 and up to 2022 it was not smooth. There was a lot of manual hand-picking. Microsoft should put a higher budget for the database developers' section in Visual Studio.
In a future release, it would be a benefit to include an option so I can share the library of methods between different projects in SQL Server easier.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Visual Studio for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Visual Studio is a highly stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have four or five people using Microsoft Visual Studio in our organization. We are a small startup company.
How are customer service and support?
I have not used the support from Microsoft Visual Studio.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used SQL Server Management Studio which is very popular for development. However, I wanted to source code handling as well, and this is why I moved to Microsoft Visual Studio.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Microsoft Visual Studio was straightforward. However, the difficulty depends on how much of the solution is going to be used. The installation is typically done in smaller steps at the beginning which makes it easy.
The time it took for the deployment was approximately one day.
What about the implementation team?
We did the deployment of the solution in-house but we had a consultant with the GitHub integration.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is expensive.
I rate the price of Microsoft Visual Studio a two out of five.
What other advice do I have?
I am the only person that is needed for maintaining the solution.
My advice to others is to do small steps at the beginning to make it simple. This solution is very large and is best to do it in small steps.
I rate Microsoft Visual Studio an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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sharing their opinions.