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

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, 95% 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 92 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews
  • 900 Views
  • 900 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report
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, Zend, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images and others in .NET Development Services.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: November 2025).
Buyer's Guide
.NET Development Services
November 2025
Download the complete report
Helped 873,085 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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
.NET Development Services (1st)
SharePoint Designer [EOL]
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Eitan Gold - PeerSpot reviewer
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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"Microsoft Visual Studio helps my company improve efficiency in software development suites."
"Most valuable features include code navigation by symbols and document auto formatting."
"The most valuable feature is how smoothly it runs."
"It is also flexible enough to let me use Git as well as its own version control mechanism."
"I like the IDE or the integrated development environment. It's the best IDE."
"I have found that it is scalable."
"The stability is fine."
"What I like the most about Microsoft Visual Studio is that it's useful. It's also a very stable solution, and is scalable as well. It's quick to set up as it only took me a few seconds to do it."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pros
"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."
"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."
"The support on offer is helpful."
"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 feature I find most valuable, is the workflow of the product."
"It helps centralize and store files."
"The solution tightly integrates with all other collaboration tools."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] pros
 

Cons

"The solution must provide user-friendly features."
"Microsoft Visual Studio could improve by making it faster. Every time they add a new feature or plugin it slows it down. They should allow the user to turn off features they do not use."
"The solution’s technical support could be improved."
"Despite its advantages, challenges in diverse cloud environments may prompt the uninstallation of the application or entire development environment for resolution."
"The product could be improved by including axle intelligence."
"I would like the solution to have a designing default in addition to the current coding default."
"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."
"There have been some issues but not very often."
More Microsoft Visual Studio cons
"The web services aspect of the solution is very weak."
"It has a lot of bugs. It's also not very convenient. The UX/UI is not very user-friendly and not designed to be similar to other applications from Microsoft."
"The record management and digital signature sides need improvement because we still need to rely on other third-party tools."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I want the tool to be more approachable to people. I would like to see AI integration with the tool's future versions."
"We would like to see an improvement in the stability and overall consistency of performance in this solution."
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have an enterprise-level license. The cost is expensive for small to medium-sized organizations."
"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."
"We purchased an expensive enterprise version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"There's a community edition that is absolutely free to use. It's pretty good."
"We are using the solution's free version."
"I'm using the platform's open-source version."
"I am using the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio."
"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $1,700 per user."
More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice
"The price is reasonable."
"The cost of the solution is based on multiple factors such as the number of users, and any customization that may be required."
"The tool is free of cost."
"This solution is free of charge."
"I use Macintosh devices, and because this solution is not available in the Apple Ecosystem I use it because it is cost-effective."
"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."
"Priced per user per month with different plans to choose from."
"There is no licensing cost for Designer—it's free."
More SharePoint Designer [EOL] 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
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise43
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise21
 

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 pricing for Microsoft Visual Studio is favorable. While many open-source solutions are available, none offer the robustness of Visual Studio, which includes a Marketplace for creating different...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Microsoft Visual Studio?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, I believe a potential area of improvement for Microsoft Visual Studio could be incorporating more AI, as it makes things easier for us, and havin...
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
October 2025
Microsoft Visual Studio reportDownload Microsoft Visual Studio product report
Buyer's Guide
SharePoint Designer [EOL]
October 2025
SharePoint Designer [EOL] reportDownload SharePoint Designer [EOL] 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
.NET Development Services
November 2025
Download Free Report
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Zend, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: November 2025.
DOWNLOAD NOW
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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.