Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 8.5, while SharePoint Designer is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.9. Microsoft Visual Studio holds a 15.9% mindshare in NDS, compared to SharePoint Designer’s 13.0% 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
  • 663 Views
  • 196 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
SharePoint Designer
Read 49 SharePoint Designer reviews
  • 544 Views
  • 162 Comparison Views
82% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report
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.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
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
Download the complete report
Helped 845,040 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
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 April 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 15.9%, down from 23.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SharePoint Designer is 13.0%, down from 18.8% 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.
Read full review
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.
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 way we are able to design code, deploy, and test our application. It is easy to move an artifact from the start to the deployment stage. It has well-defined processes that you can integrate with any team. Additionally, the solution is always improving."
"The most valuable feature is that it is a complete package, with an IDE and everything that you need for software development."
"The scalability of Microsoft Visual Studio is good."
"The tool is good for interactive testing. It has good integrations and works well for remote services. The product also has features for collaborative work where it allows others to control my screen. It has a good community for every language."
"The stability is fine."
"It is easy to integrate with GitHub. We integrate with GitHub, and we deploy our solution on our local system. We need this integration for pushing our code. When we were working with Eclipse, we had to write everything in the command prompt, which is a little bit tricky, whereas Visual Studio is very much UI-based and simple. So, it's very easy to integrate GitHub with Visual Studio. It is much easier than Eclipse."
"Microsoft Visual Studio is stable and the performance was good. However, if you do not have decent hardware you will not have the same experience."
"It is a straightforward solution to set up."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pros
"I am a developer, and whatever is not possible with the SharePoint default feature, we make custom features available for our clients. Anything which is not possible using all the methods within the solution we can customize."
"The solution is scalable."
"Designer is easy to manage."
"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."
"We mostly used this solution for file storage and basic functions, etcetera."
"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 initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable part of the solution is its ability to allow for a high degree of customization."
More SharePoint Designer pros
 

Cons

"The time that it takes to load the application can be reduced"
"Microsoft Visual Studio can improve memory management, and packaging and reporting components."
"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."
"File installations are heavy."
"The interface is slow to start up."
"I would like the solution to have a designing default in addition to the current coding default."
"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."
"The reporting services are quite limited in terms of features and need to be improved."
More Microsoft Visual Studio cons
"In the solution, if you have a case of accidental deletion, there's no restoration, which should have been there."
"We'd like it if we got less frequent updates."
"Designer is easy to manage."
"Sharepoint could improve the user interface to make it easier for everyone to navigate and use. That would be a big plus."
"I would like to be able to use SharePoint Designer without having to buy other third party programs."
"The search function should improve in the solution."
"I believe Microsoft does not support Sharepoint on-premises. They only support Sharepoint on the Cloud. They should provide for both options and let the client choose their preference."
"SharePoint Online should continue to integrate with other solutions."
More SharePoint Designer cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am using the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."
"I use the open-source version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"I use Microsoft Visual Studio's free version."
"You may have to purchase more hardware utilities like processors or RAM."
"The price is good."
"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio monthly is approximately $300."
"The license is taken care of by my company and the price could be less expensive."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice
"The tool is free of cost."
"Priced per user per month with different plans to choose from."
"The cost of the solution is based on multiple factors such as the number of users, and any customization that may be required."
"SharePoint Designer is less expensive than other solutions we have used. We purchased Office 365 which SharePoint comes with the package."
"The price is reasonable."
"SharePoint Online has a subscription-based model for payments and the price is based on user usage."
"This solution is free of charge."
"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."
More SharePoint Designer pricing and cost advice
report
See which vendors are best for you
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which .NET Development Services solutions are best for your needs.
See recommendations
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
18%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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
No data available
 

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.
DOWNLOAD NOW
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See our Microsoft Visual Studio vs. SharePoint Designer report.
See our list of best .NET Development Services vendors.

We monitor all .NET Development Services reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.