Microsoft Visual Studio Online

Pros

Since 2007, I have used Visual Studio for all of my app development. It is indeed the best tool I have ever come across. Possibilities are endless, from legacy WinForms apps to Web Apps and services, Visual Studio is able to provide you with an easy to use, stable and reliable platform to build your apps on. I am a C# developer who uses it every single day. Built-in features like code-completion and code validation makes it easy for even the beginner to learn. Since Azure came along, deployments have become even simpler, whether published directly, or through Source Control. Another cool thing about Visual Studio is that with every new version, new tools are introduced and new types of projects as well. This makes all of those projects that used to take days to put together, a mere selection of a project type and all of the initial code and structure is generated automatically. Then there's the debugging tools, Nuget, Server explorer, Team explorer and the list just goes on. All of these tools and features in Visual Studio makes it the most powerful of its kind in my opinion and I am sure many others. Microsoft also introduced Visual Studio Community Editions a few years back, which makes it even easier for newbies to start their development careers hassle free.

Cons

For certain project types, certain versions of Visual Studio work best, so I often switch between 2012, 2015 and 2017. I found that 2012 works nicely with older(.NET Framework 4 and below), 2015 for all recent apps, while 2017 works better if you need to debug Azure Websites. Other than that, the IDE has stayed pretty much the same, which is awesome. Nuget packaes sometimes have issues, but I don't use them that often, so I am not really affected negatively by that. The initial install of Visual Studio 2015 and above are web installers, which takes even longer than older versions, so I dread new installs, but after the install, all is good.

Pros

VS 2019 provides everything someone needs to develop .NET software on Windows. It has a powerful debugger and excellent intellisense support. Project management (files, folders, and source control) is also very robust and full featured.

Cons

It can be slow at times and definitely requires a significant amount of RAM to be used effectively along witha powerful processor. If your project is of any truly practical size, you'll want at least 8G to run, and 12G to run comfortably. Even at that level, you'll experience frequent freezes and the occasional crash.

Pros

You can almost use/code in any language on the IDE, if you're missing features, you could look for extensions/plug-ings that add them, like DevExtreme or ReSharper. I mostly code in C# and the Community version for me works fine, but the Enterprise and Professional tiers are also really good. The IDE has been more open in the recent years and that has allowed for more straight updates than rather waiting for service releases or new year branded releases. You can code websites, mobile apps, desktop apps, console apps, service apps, anything related to Azure can be done in VS and yeah, you can easily debug and now in the latest versions, you can live-share a project and have a coworker assist you or work with you on the same project and both debug it. You can also use the live-share feature for teaching someone how to code.

Cons

Sometimes, extensions can be a little buggy. Azure Services, I would recommend a stable connection because it can get laggy. If you're going to use SQL Server in Visual Studio, you're better off downloading Azure Data Studio, because it is more versatile, strong, quicker and responsive than the options Visual Studio provides you. The community can cover you anything you need, but if you're looking for huge enterprise projects, you might want to invest on the paid options, but they can be expensive.

Pros

I like how the Microsoft product continues to evolve. In 2017 we make SSIS on its own server. It speeds up Queries and has always on availability groups. Moving it to the cloud has also helped make it more available. It now has a more robust reporting tool to provide analytics on use and ways to improve run times and queries

Cons

It is a lot different then previous versions. All of the code required major changes to run. There was several issues with connecting to Access databases and Microsoft products that are "known bugs" or being worked on. I cant understand why a product gets out that doesn't integrate with other microsoft products flawlessly.

Pros

I know people say its not about the tools one has in their tool box which makes someone a master of their craft, but in development world its a different case. I have been using Visual Studio for years now and I have tried many others IDEs but seems like VS will always tick all the boxes. Working in a team of developers VS makes it easy to collaborate on the same project but best of all its capabilities to develop crossplatform app be it mobile, web or desktop without having to use many other IDEs. Another great feature i really love about VS its auto complete and code reference within the IDE and also fast debugging and rigorous testing capabilities and support of many programming languages be it vb, python, java, angular and many more.

Cons

For a beginner it can be intimidating in terms of development environment and panels.