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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 8.6, while SharePoint Designer is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1. Microsoft Visual Studio holds a 18.9% mindshare in NDS, compared to SharePoint Designer’s 13.3% 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
  • 750 Views
  • 219 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
SharePoint Designer
Read 49 SharePoint Designer reviews
  • 559 Views
  • 176 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: March 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer
March 2025
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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
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 March 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 18.9%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SharePoint Designer is 13.3%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services
 

Featured Reviews

LorenzoMoore - PeerSpot reviewer
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 - 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

"It is convenient to have all the development tools in one interface."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is its integration with Azure DevOps."
"Microsoft Visual Studio's most valuable features are usability. It's an integrated development environment, they have a lot of built-in tools that will be helpful for a new developer to quickly develop their applications, such as mobile applications or web applications."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Visual Studio are debugging and IntelliSense."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is an easy-to-use solution."
"The code analysis tool is particularly valuable as it eliminates the need for manual code reviews."
"Visual Studio is a tool used for custom software development. It covers everything under this umbrella, including architecture for automation testing."
"Visual Studio's best feature is debugging, which isn't available with any other Microsoft development tool."
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."
"Designer is easy to manage."
"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."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the capability to directly access the SharePoint data structure."
"When you have a group project and you want to share your document with your group members, the solution is very useful."
"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’s very convenient for me to update. Last time I used a function called Word. It is a good function, which I can use to coordinate easily."
More SharePoint Designer pros
 

Cons

"They could add new modules to the platform for enhanced functioning."
"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve by bringing back designers. They used to have designers for architecture charts and diagrams. They were able to do things, such as database design. If they can bring them back, it would be great."
"There could be more coding languages in the solution."
"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve integration with the Microsoft Office suite; this was only implemented in 2022."
"It has a ton of options and that sometimes can become very, very overwhelming for a new person, a new developer."
"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."
"Microsoft should add more visualization for analytical studies or research."
"There are some features that I have yet to explore and it would be helpful to have more information about what is available and how it works."
More Microsoft Visual Studio cons
"There is zero technical support. I have to use Google to fix the issues myself."
"The initial setup depends on company specifics. So, it's a bit complex."
"The solution is not very flexible when trying to access the solution via a personal PC."
"The downside is the different versions of SharePoint which means we need to have different designers as not all versions are compatible."
"It needs to align with PowerApps and Power Automate."
"The new SharePoint Designer is very limited."
"SharePoint Designer needs filter options for lists and libraries."
"If you compare the workflow with other engines like Olympus and K2, it is very complicated to create a workflow."
More SharePoint Designer cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our purchasing department pays a fair price for it."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is a free product."
"The solution is expensive."
"I am using the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"While the enterprise version can be relatively expensive due to its comprehensive features, I find the license I currently possess to be reasonable, considering it includes the full suite without additional activations or charges."
"I'm using the platform's open-source version."
"Its price could be better."
"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio monthly is approximately $300."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice
"The pricing is fair."
"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."
"I use Macintosh devices, and because this solution is not available in the Apple Ecosystem I use it because it is cost-effective."
"This solution is free of charge."
"SharePoint Designer is a free product. It's SharePoint that needs a license, not SharePoint Designer."
"The entire package is expensive. There is no extra cost in addition to the standard license."
"It is a free solution that does not require a license."
"The price is reasonable."
More SharePoint Designer pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Government
19%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
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
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ASP.NET vs SharePoint Designer
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More SharePoint Designer Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio
March 2025
Microsoft Visual Studio reportDownload Microsoft Visual Studio product report
Buyer's Guide
SharePoint Designer
March 2025
SharePoint Designer reportDownload SharePoint Designer product report
 

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
Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer
March 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: March 2025.
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