Microsoft Visual Studio vs Zend Studio comparison

Microsoft and Zend are both solutions in the .NET Development Services category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while Zend is ranked #5. Microsoft holds a 12.6% mindshare in NDS, compared to Zend’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zend users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Visual Studio

Read 92 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews

823 Views
823 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Zend Studio

Read 1 Zend Studio review

132 Views
132 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Visual Studio

Zend Studio

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Visual Studio and Zend Studio 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.

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

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

November 2025

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Helped 872,837 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

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zend Studio

Ranking in .NET Development Services

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 12.6%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 4.9%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

.NET Development Services Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Visual Studio	12.6%
Zend Studio	4.9%
Other	82.5%

.NET Development Services

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

marketacumen

President at Market Acumen, Inc.

It has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects

* Stability is sometimes lacking in updates. * Search/replace across multiple files is not ideal. * The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects, as well as setting breakpoints, which often are ignored depending on your configuration. * The product requires a subscription to Zend Server Developer, which used to be free and now has an annual fee, but it is still worth the money.

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

"Most valuable features include code navigation by symbols and document auto formatting."

"What we like about Microsoft Visual Studio is that it's a comprehensive tool. It has features that work for different plans and it has a wide variety of use cases. It's also a powerful tool and it's quite efficient."

"I like that it works fine and that it performs better than competing products. I'm very happy with Microsoft Visual Studio."

"It's a very easy-to-use product."

"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 most valuable feature of Microsoft Visual Studio is the good intelligence and UI."

"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."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pros

"It has the ability to jump to any file in your project with a few keystrokes, as well as the ability to command-click on any token in your code and have it jump to the token's definition."

"It has higher quality code, faster debugging, and higher quality projects."

Cons

"The stability of Microsoft Visual Studio could improve. There are times it hangs or stops working and I have to restart the program."

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

"Microsoft Visual Studio needs to improve integration."

"I'd like the product to become more secure. You could potentially, for example, download an extension that contains malware."

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

"The solution must provide user-friendly features."

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

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

More Microsoft Visual Studio cons

"Most recent set of patches (2018) on Mac OS X caused the app to crash when you would cut more than 10 lines of code. Apparently, this was due to a bug in Eclipse, but regardless, it took several months for Zend to post a patch."

"The debugger often has problems determining where to map files to local projects."

"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio monthly is approximately $300."

"Licensing costs are reasonable."

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

"I am using the free version of Microsoft Visual Studio."

"Its price could be better."

More Microsoft Visual Studio pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is reasonable for this type of tool. Although, you can cobble together a solution which is zero cost."

"The product requires a subscription to Zend Server Developer, which used to be free and now has an annual fee, but it is still worth the money."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

University

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	43

No data available

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

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Product Reports

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Microsoft Visual Studio

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

November 2025

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Also Known As

MS Visual Studio

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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

Zend Studio â the PHP IDE for smarter development. It codes faster with up to 3X performance improvements in indexing, validation, searching of PHP code. It has superior PHP 7.1 support, PHP 7.1 express migration assistant, and seamless integration with Zend Server 9. It provides robust debugging capabilities with Xdebug, Zend Debugger, and Z-Ray integration. Zend Studio has an extensive plugin capabilities provided by the large Eclipse eco-system and supports for best-in-class dev tools including Docker and Git Flow Intelligent code editor. Deploy PHP applications on any server including cloud support for Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure and support for HiDPi displays - scale graphics (ala 4K resolution).

Zend

Sample Customers

Knab, Hamburg Port Authority, Kecioren Municipality, National Instruments, Hamburg Port Authority, Government of Odisha, Kongsberg Maritime AS

CDS Global, EnglishCentral, BNP Paribas, Carlo Gavazzi, Sunstate Equipment, Novadex GmbH, CONFTEC, Marilan, Mediaspike, Cisco WebEx, Corvette America, Value Drug Mart Associates Ltd., Allied Beverage Group

Buyer's Guide

.NET Development Services

November 2025

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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Zend, Cognosys Inc Hardened Images and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: November 2025.

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