Microsoft Visual Studio vs SharePoint Designer [EOL] comparison

Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Additionally, 96% of Microsoft Visual Studio users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of SharePoint Designer [EOL] users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Visual Studio

Read 100 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews

1,132 Views
1,132 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Read 49 SharePoint Designer [EOL] reviews

82% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images, Harman and others in .NET Development Services.

To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

December 2025

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Helped 879,422 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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

100

Ranking in other categories

.NET Development Services (1st)

SharePoint Designer [EOL]

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Eitan Gold

SQA Manager at Elmo Motion Control Ltd.

Test code efficiency improves with integrated debugger and automation

The test explorer is really important for us as it aids in testing, along with the regular debugger. Even though I forgot the term for it at the moment, there is an overall debugger tool within the IDE that is very effective. This comprehensive debugger tool does the job efficiently, making our work easier.

Read full review

Raphael Haroun Ikyagh

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.

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

"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."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the integrated development environment. It also offers a very good integration with Microsoft Cloud."

"It's a useful integrated development environment."

"The installation of the solution is easy."

"Microsoft Visual Studio is an easy-to-use solution."

"The best feature of Microsoft Visual Studio for debugging applications is IntelliSense, which I refer to as autocomplete, and the integration capabilities with Microsoft DevOps Server streamline my development process efficiently, making it perfectly integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio."

"Using Microsoft Visual Studio has saved me considerable time and effort during development, with savings between twenty and fifty percent in terms of both time and money."

"The solution can scale."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"The most valuable feature is the development."

"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."

"It helps centralize and store files."

"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 basic functionality the solution makes it easy to share documents or information with the team."

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

"The scalability is excellent, and I rate it ten out of ten."

"The solution is scalable."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros

Cons

"Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."

"Microsoft Visual Studio could improve by being compatible with more operating systems. However, we understand the solution is proprietary to Microsoft."

"There could be some features for YAML pipelines in Visual Studio."

"Technical support can be slow to respond at times."

"There have been some issues but not very often."

"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."

"Despite its advantages, challenges in diverse cloud environments may prompt the uninstallation of the application or entire development environment for resolution."

"The solution is not really good at debugging JavaScript, jQuery, or SQL"

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"The downside is the different versions of SharePoint which means we need to have different designers as not all versions are compatible."

"It would be helpful to have the SharePoint Designer capabilities built directly into SharePoint itself, into the management page, so as to create an online version of it directly in SharePoint."

"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."

"Sharepoint could improve the user interface to make it easier for everyone to navigate and use. That would be a big plus."

"I am not sure how stable the solution will be once Microsoft stops supporting it."

"SharePoint Designer's integration with Microsoft tools could be improved."

"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 interface of SharePoint Designer could be improved, such as in SAP."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a free tool."

"I use the open-source version of Microsoft Visual Studio."

"We use the free version, and you don't need a license."

"Microsoft Visual Studio is free. It's freeware, so you don't have to pay for its license."

"The development license for Microsoft Visual Studio is free. I don't know if there's a licensing cost to it."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"SharePoint Designer is less expensive than other solutions we have used. We purchased Office 365 which SharePoint comes with the package."

"The tool is free of cost."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

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

"The cost of the license is based on the size of the user base."

"The entire package is expensive. There is no extra cost in addition to the standard license."

"Priced per user per month with different plans to choose from."

"This solution is free of charge."

More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Outsourcing Company

University

Performing Arts

11%

Computer Software Company

Government

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	19
Large Enterprise	49

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	21

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?

The setup cost rates about eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?

AI integration is something that every company is trying to incorporate. While Microsoft Visual Studio is working very well currently, there is still room to improve the AI functionality.

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

ASP.NET vs Microsoft Visual Studio

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

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Microsoft Visual Studio

December 2025

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SharePoint Designer [EOL]

December 2025

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Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

No data available

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.

Microsoft

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.

Microsoft

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

.NET Development Services

December 2025

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