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Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer comparison

Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Microsoft Visual Studio is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while SharePoint Designer is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1. Microsoft Visual Studio holds a 20.5% mindshare in NDS, compared to SharePoint Designer’s 12.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft Visual Studio users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of SharePoint Designer users who would recommend it.
Microsoft Visual Studio
Read 79 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews
  • 1,139 Views
  • 302 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
SharePoint Designer
Read 49 SharePoint Designer reviews
  • 652 Views
  • 241 Comparison Views
82% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two .NET Development Services solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer Report (Updated: December 2024).
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer
December 2024
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Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Visual Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 20.5%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SharePoint Designer is 12.5%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services
 

Featured Reviews

Paco Velasco Reina - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, works well in the Microsoft Windows ecosystem, and integrates well with Git
Efficiency is the main focus. Since Visual Studio's inception, it has been a race of constant improvements and attempts to improve the efficiency of the tool in every release. However, crashes and freezes are common when you work with the tool for a long time. The problems get worse when you have more than one project under development and then you need a very powerful computer to be able to perform complex developments. Even having a very powerful computer, as in my case, does not prevent you from having freezes from time to time. Long installation or upgrade times are sometimes a problem.
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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.
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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"You can use the solution to do coding and drag and drop. It is easy to install with web documentation."
"I like the performance, stability and ease of use."
"I like the product's connection with Azure analytics services and the ability to build the model on the cloud."
"The scalability of Microsoft Visual Studio is good."
"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."
"Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF is valuable. It's a tool to give clients a user interface for Windows applications. The summary for mobile applications is also very useful."
"My company works with outsourced programmers. The solution helps us to test, integrate and foresee the code quality. We can trace the development stages."
"Code management is a new and convenient feature."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pros
"We like the highly customizable websites that you can build."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The initial setup is not too complex."
"The technical support from Microsoft is very good."
"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."
"If you're working in a communication channel team, SharePoint Designer is a great solution because it helps to have some customized solutions in terms of communication and to create web experiences for external teams."
"The drag and drop feature is the most useful feature when using this solution."
"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."
More SharePoint Designer pros
 

Cons

"The tool's interface should be more user-friendly."
"With the free version, we don't have that much support for Visual Studio. Its support is a little bit less and can be better."
"Microsoft Visual Studio could benefit from a more centralized education system."
"This solution could be integrated with other open-source languages, such as Python and not only C#, .NET or Microsoft development languages."
"Could be improved with the ability to personalize the interface and development style and to edit extension requirements."
"You do need to do some training in order to really take advantage of the solution."
"The technical support can be slow."
"I would like to see more tools in the next release."
More Microsoft Visual Studio cons
"The solution is not scalable at all."
"The pain point of SharePoint Designer is sometimes it gives you issues that can be resolved mostly by clearing the cache, but Microsoft should still work on it and make the product more stable. Another issue related to SharePoint Designer is that with the newer SharePoint versions, Microsoft hasn't released a newer version of SharePoint Designer. Instead, Microsoft is recommending that you use the same old SharePoint Designer 2013. If Microsoft updates SharePoint Designer, the product will be more beneficial."
"The system can become slow which should be improved."
"If you compare the workflow with other engines like Olympus and K2, it is very complicated to create a workflow."
"Adding guest users is a bit difficult on SharePoint."
"We would like to see an improvement in the stability and overall consistency of performance in this solution."
"I am not sure how stable the solution will be once Microsoft stops supporting it."
"We'd like it if we got less frequent updates."
More SharePoint Designer cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Visual Studio Team System is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is free. It's freeware, so you don't have to pay for its license."
"I'm using the platform's open-source version."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $400 annually."
"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."
"I use the open-source version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"The price is good."
"I use Microsoft Visual Studio's free version."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice
"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."
"SharePoint Designer is less expensive than other solutions we have used. We purchased Office 365 which SharePoint comes with the package."
"SharePoint Online has a subscription-based model for payments and the price is based on user usage."
"SharePoint Designer's pricing is okay."
"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."
"There is no licensing cost for Designer—it's free."
"SharePoint Designer is a free product. It's SharePoint that needs a license, not SharePoint Designer."
"The cost of the license is based on the size of the user base."
More SharePoint Designer pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Government
20%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Visual Studio?
We can use different .NET features.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Visual Studio?
Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?
We have different platforms available for web development. The solution must provide user-friendly features. We get updates frequently. Multiple versions are released within a short period. We need...
See all answers
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!
See all answers
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.
See all answers
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.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

No data available
ASP.NET vs SharePoint Designer Logo
ASP.NET vs SharePoint Designer
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More SharePoint Designer Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio
December 2024
Microsoft Visual Studio reportDownload Microsoft Visual Studio product report
Buyer's Guide
SharePoint Designer
November 2024
SharePoint Designer reportDownload SharePoint Designer product report
 

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio
No data available
 

Learn More

Microsoft
Microsoft
 

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.
SharePoint Designer is the tool of choice for the rapid development of SharePoint applications. Using SharePoint Designer, advanced users and developers alike can rapidly create SharePoint solutions in response to business needs. Advanced users can compose no-code solutions that encompass a variety of common scenarios, from collaborative sites and web publishing to Line-Of-Business data integration, business intelligence solutions, and human workflows, leveraging the building blocks available in SharePoint in an easy to use environment.
 

Sample Customers

Knab, Hamburg Port Authority, Kecioren Municipality, National Instruments, Hamburg Port Authority, Government of Odisha, Kongsberg Maritime AS
Pyrotek Inc., ICA, Deliver Australia, Secretary of Economy of Mexico, Aegon, ABB Switzerland, Ascent Yarns Private Limited, Bakewell Biscuits Pvt Ltd, Hitachi Consulting
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer
December 2024
Free Report: Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
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