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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 8.7, while Zend is ranked #8. Microsoft holds a 20.5% mindshare in NDS, compared to Zend’s 2.7% 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 79 Microsoft Visual Studio reviews
  • 1,139 Views
  • 302 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
Zend Studio
Read 1 Zend Studio review
  • 103 Views
  • 33 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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, Adobe, FourJs and others in .NET Development Services.

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To learn more, read our detailed .NET Development Services Report (Updated: December 2024).
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.NET Development Services
December 2024
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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
Zend Studio
Ranking in .NET Development Services
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the .NET Development Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Visual Studio is 20.5%, down from 24.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zend Studio is 2.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
.NET Development Services
 

Featured Reviews

Paco Velasco Reina - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, works well in the Microsoft Windows ecosystem, and integrates well with Git
Efficiency is the main focus. Since Visual Studio's inception, it has been a race of constant improvements and attempts to improve the efficiency of the tool in every release. However, crashes and freezes are common when you work with the tool for a long time. The problems get worse when you have more than one project under development and then you need a very powerful computer to be able to perform complex developments. Even having a very powerful computer, as in my case, does not prevent you from having freezes from time to time. Long installation or upgrade times are sometimes a problem.
Read full review
marketacumen - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"We like Visual Studio because you can choose the different types of languages, like JavaScript. I think it's better than the other solutions I used."
"It is a stable solution."
"It is definitely sophisticated and provides many out-of-the-box features. Going community has boosted all that."
"The most valuable features are the extensions."
"The solution can scale."
"I like that it works fine and that it performs better than competing products. I'm very happy with Microsoft Visual Studio."
"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."
"We can use different .NET features."
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

"We'd like the solution to be more secure."
"It would be great if they added some extra support for other languages that are available in the market and prepared it for the, let's say, crypto developers as we are going in the age of cryptocurrency."
"The best advice I can give to others is to take training because it's so easy to use out of the box. However, you might tend to install it and maybe configure it improperly. You need to have some training."
"File installations are heavy."
"Technical support can be slow to respond at times."
"Since it is a heavy product, it is somewhat slow in building and executing the code in a localhost environment and it consumes a lot of resources."
"I would like to see Visual Studio improve reporting to give us more details on failures. When there are failures, it's difficult to debug. It would be helpful to have more error information to help us to identify the issue and resolve it. I want to know more about software failures and exceptions in the system."
"Technical support needs to be improved. Right now, it's not great."
More Microsoft Visual Studio cons
"Stability is sometimes lacking in updates."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The introduction of the Community Version allows some people to use it free of charge."
"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 have an enterprise-level license. The cost is expensive for small to medium-sized organizations."
"I'm using the platform's open-source version."
"The price of Microsoft Visual Studio is reasonable but could be better."
"I use Microsoft Visual Studio's free version."
"The cost of using Microsoft Visual Studio is approximately $1,700 per user."
"The solution is expensive."
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
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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?
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...
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Comparisons

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More Microsoft Visual Studio Competitors
No data available
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Visual Studio
December 2024
Microsoft Visual Studio reportDownload Microsoft Visual Studio product report
Buyer's Guide
.NET Development Services
December 2024
Zend Studio reportDownload Zend Studio product report
 

Also Known As

MS Visual Studio
No data available
 

Learn More

Microsoft
Zend
 

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.
Zend Studio – 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).
 

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
December 2024
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Adobe, FourJs and others in .NET Development Services. Updated: December 2024.
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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.