What are the differences between Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio?

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Aswajith picture Aswajith · May 29, 2015 · Viewed 631.5k times · Source

Microsoft recently released Visual Studio Code and I am a little confused about its usage, since Visual Studio has lot of similarities functionally with it.

Answer

Jenny O'Reilly picture Jenny O'Reilly · Nov 19, 2015

Visual Studio (full version) is a "full-featured" and "convenient" development environment.

Visual Studio (free "Express" versions - only until 2017) are feature-centered and simplified versions of the full version. Feature-centered meaning that there are different versions (Visual Studio Web Developer, Visual Studio C#, etc.) depending on your goal.

Visual Studio (free Community edition - since 2015) is a simplified version of the full version and replaces the separated express editions used before 2015.

Visual Studio Code (VSCode) is a cross-platform (Linux, Mac OS, Windows) editor that can be extended with plugins to your needs.

For example if you want to create an ASP.NET application using VS Code you need to perform several steps on your own to setup the project. There is a separate tutorial for each OS.

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