Wait, You Mean They're Different?

Source: Dev.to

The Short Version

Visual Studio is a full integrated development environment (IDE). It’s massive, feature‑rich, and designed for building complex applications—think enterprise .NET projects, C++ game development, or large‑scale software with multiple developers.

Visual Studio Code is a lightweight source‑code editor. It’s fast, flexible, and extensible. You can make it do almost anything through extensions, but out of the box it’s intentionally minimal.

Same family name. Completely different animals.

When to Use Visual Studio (the big one)

I reach for Visual Studio when I’m working on something that genuinely needs the horsepower:

• A .NET application with dozens of projects.
• Deep debugging with breakpoints across multiple threads.
• Mobile development with Xamarin or MAUI.
• Game development in C++ or with Unity integration that benefits from tighter tooling.

Visual Studio comes with built‑in support for compiling, advanced debugging, profiling, database tools, UI designers, and team‑collaboration features. It understands your entire solution architecture, making it essential for complex work in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Trade‑off: It’s heavy. Startup times can test your patience, it demands a decent amount of RAM, and unless you use the free Community edition, it costs money.

When to Use VS Code (the fast one)

VS Code is my daily driver for almost everything else:

• Quick script edits.
• Web development.
• Python projects.
• Writing documentation.
• Any task where I want to open a folder, make changes, and get out without waiting for an IDE to wake up and index the known universe.

It launches in seconds, runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux without complaint, and its extension marketplace lets you bolt on support for virtually any language or framework. And it’s genuinely free.

Catch: VS Code doesn’t inherently understand your project the way Visual Studio does. It’s a smart text editor with excellent extensions. Want IntelliSense for C#? Install an extension. Need debugging? Extension. Linting? Extension. It can handle serious development work, but you assemble the experience yourself.

The Actual Differences That Matter

• Size and performance: Visual Studio occupies multiple gigabytes and uses significant system resources. VS Code is a few hundred megabytes and stays light.
• Built‑in vs extensible: Visual Studio includes most of what you need out of the box for its target scenarios. VS Code assumes you’ll customize it for your workflow.
• Project model: Visual Studio works with solutions and projects with deep integration. VS Code works with folders and files—it’s project‑agnostic by design.
• Cost: Visual Studio has paid tiers (Professional, Enterprise) with a free Community edition that has licensing restrictions for larger organizations. VS Code is free for everyone.
• Platform: Visual Studio is Windows‑first (the Mac version is a different product under the hood). VS Code runs identically everywhere.

My Setup

In today’s age of cheap storage, I keep both installed:

• Visual Studio handles my .NET work where the integrated tooling genuinely saves time.
• VS Code handles everything else—and honestly, that’s most of my day: frontend work, scripting, config files, quick fixes, and writing articles like this one.

There’s no wrong answer here—just different tools for different jobs. The only wrong move is assuming they’re interchangeable because Microsoft couldn’t resist putting “Visual Studio” in both names.

Now you know. Go forth and download the right one.