What does Visual Studio offer that Monodevelop lacks?
What would a developer used to working in Visual Studio have to give up if they switched to Monodevelop? This hypothetical developer most often develops ASP.NET web applications with C#.
I'm aware that Monodevelop has the basic Visual Studio features like syntax highlighting and support for Visual Studio solutions. What are the deficiencies that would most affect the productivity of a developer giving up Visual Studio?
To keep things consistent, please confine your answers to points about Visual Studio 2008 and Monodevelop 2.0.
Answer
Can't speak for the previous versions, but I've been using MonoDevelop 3+ on a MacBook for a commercial project and have found it to be a more pleasant experience than Visual Studio.
It loads faster, compiles faster and all the tools are more easily accessible and more logically laid out (like source control).
The UI layout is much better in my opinion, and you can tell it was developed by actual users of the software not "UI Designers" who don't actually use the software.
I have not found a need for 3rd party tools. In Visual Studio, I used Resharper for code-formatting and other minor things but generally find it overbearing. In MonoDevelop, I've found it handles code-formatting BETTER than Resharper and offers more options by default (e.g. it can format fluent-styles properly unlike Resharper).
On a cost-benefit-analysis alone, MonoDevelop trumps Visual Studio. If you need to do WPF development, TFS-based development, SharePoint or other MS-centric development then it isn't the tool for the job. If you need to build ASP.NET MVC apps, desktop apps, mobile apps, backend apps then I would recommend checking it out and saving money on Visual Studio licenses.
Personally, I plan to migrate 100% to MonoDevelop and eventually phase out Visual Studio. I certainly won't be going down the VS2012/RT route for future development. My current customer got rid of their Win8 machines and decided to use Win7. Their customer is requesting we develop desktop client apps on Mac's as they want to phase out Windows altogether. You make your own mind up where this is all going.