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 8.6, while SharePoint Designer is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0. Microsoft Visual Studio holds a 19.7% mindshare in NDS, compared to SharePoint Designer’s 13.1% 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

1,012 Views
295 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

SharePoint Designer

Read 49 SharePoint Designer reviews

625 Views
236 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

SharePoint Designer

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.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer

January 2025

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Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

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

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 19.7%, down from 23.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SharePoint Designer is 13.1%, down from 19.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

.NET Development Services

Featured Reviews

LorenzoMoore

IT Project Manager (Assistant Director, Technology Division) at a government with 10,001+ employees

Beneficial user interface, flexible, and good support

Microsoft Visual Studio is scalable. We have an assistant director and software development using Microsoft Visual Studio in my department. In the whole company, there could be hundreds using Microsoft Visual Studio. In my department, they do not like Microsoft Visual Studio, but across the departments, we will increase the usage of Microsoft Visual Studio.

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Vivek Vaibhav

Manager at Bain & Company

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is great for integration with Excel."

"Microsoft Visual Studio is a must-have tool if you work in Windows environments."

"It is pretty simple to set up."

"Visual Studio's best feature is debugging, which isn't available with any other Microsoft development tool."

"The product integrates well with Azure Cloud, and it supports a ton of languages."

"I like it that I don't need any special software to run this program."

"We use the solution to develop applications."

"It is definitely sophisticated and provides many out-of-the-box features. Going community has boosted all that."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"We used SharePoint Designer 2013 widely for data mining, exploring the content, and editing. Those are the main features that you would need to use SharePoint Designer for."

"The initial setup is very straightforward."

"We like that the interface is very user-friendly making it easy to use."

"Other valuable features are the ability able to update the master file, and creating the workflow."

"I find the document management and search of SharePoint the most valuable features."

"The product is very user-friendly."

"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."

"The workflow is the solution's most valuable feature."

More SharePoint Designer pros

Cons

"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."

"It has a ton of options and that sometimes can become very, very overwhelming for a new person, a new developer."

"The pricing for licenses could be reduced to make this solution more competitive."

"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve integration with the Microsoft Office suite; this was only implemented in 2022."

"They could add new modules to the platform for enhanced functioning."

"The reporting services are quite limited in terms of features and need to be improved."

"Since it is a heavy product, it is somewhat slow in building and executing the code in a localhost environment and it consumes a lot of resources."

"What I don't like about Microsoft Visual Studio is its user interface. It could be better. WebStorm is a better solution for me as it has a good user interface and is more user-friendly, though my friends like Microsoft Visual Studio. I worked with WebStorm for the web layer, and for the server layer, I worked with IBM Eclipse which is my favorite software. I also dealt with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS through Angular."

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"The web services aspect of the solution is very weak."

"The solution is not scalable at all."

"Further development for SharePoint online would be ideal. However, I'm not sure if it's true that Microsoft will no longer develop SharePoint Designer in the future or not."

"SharePoint Designer needs filter options for lists and libraries."

"SharePoint Designer doesn't support the features that are available in the latest version of SharePoint Online."

"The record management and digital signature sides need improvement because we still need to rely on other third-party tools."

"The search function should improve in the solution."

"The system can become slow which should be improved."

More SharePoint Designer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There's a community edition that is absolutely free to use. It's pretty good."

"I use Microsoft Visual Studio's free version."

"We are using the solution's free version."

"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio could be lowered. For a single developer, it is approximately $1,000."

"The price is good."

"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."

"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."

"Our purchasing department pays a fair price for it."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"We are using an enterprise SharePoint Designer license."

"SharePoint Online has a subscription-based model for payments and the price is based on user usage."

"I use Macintosh devices, and because this solution is not available in the Apple Ecosystem I use it because it is cost-effective."

"The cost of the solution is based on multiple factors such as the number of users, and any customization that may be required."

"It is a free solution that does not require a license."

"The tool is free of cost."

"This solution is free of charge."

"The price is reasonable."

More SharePoint Designer pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Educational Organization

10%

Comms Service Provider

Government

19%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

University

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

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Compared 40% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Visual Studio

January 2025

Download Microsoft Visual Studio product report

Buyer's Guide

SharePoint Designer

December 2024

Download SharePoint Designer product report

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

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Learn More

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

January 2025

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: January 2025.

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