Visual Studio Code

What hackers pick instead

• ZedA fast, native Rust code editor that feels far more responsive and lighter on memory than VS Code, with optional AI agent features; expect rough edges and missing polish.700recommend
• GNU EmacsLong-time users praise Emacs as a deeply programmable Lisp environment you can reshape endlessly, with excellent built-in help, but it takes heavy configuration and its defaults feel dated.648recommend
• VimA free, lightweight terminal editor whose fast keyboard-driven editing and macros stay useful for decades on any machine, though critics cite poor defaults and cumbersome mode switching.513recommend
• NeovimA keyboard-driven, extensible Vim fork with built-in LSP, Lua scripting and a strong plugin ecosystem, though critics cite breaking changes and an upgrade that deleted old Vim undo files.295recommend
• VS CodeA free, extensible editor that handles almost any language well enough out of the box, with strong extensions and remote development; critics dislike Microsoft's Copilot push and weaker specialized tooling.273recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 1249 comments. Each links to the original.

1. You can use VSCode / Zed, run any CLI coding agent in the integrated terminal and review changes using the Git working tree diff view the IDE offers.

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Cursor removed cost information from the usage page and CSV export”

2. Great for when you need to run commands for the current project but still want to chat in the sidebar or edit something else while it runs.

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding”

3. It shows the engineering effort that the team puts into it, which is why it is one of the few Electron based apps that is bearable to use.

   Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Zed DeltaDB”

4. You get extensions, familiarity and most importantly, don't waste valuable time on the boring stuff which VSCode has already implemented.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Google Antigravity”

5. Getting all my python envs and configuring everything in VSCode took me much longer than the 15-20 minutes it takes to read vimtutor.

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “MaliciousCorgi: AI Extensions send your code to China”

6. they're probably missing a ton of useful capabilities and are incompatible with all the VSC extensions everyone's gotten used to

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Google Antigravity”

7. There can be some perf issues if you don't exclude node_modules and build outputs from search, but I've never seen it crash.

   Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Fine, I'll build my own text editor”

8. The only time VSCode gets slow is if you use a bunch of poorly written plugins, which hasn't been an issue for me in years.

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Zed is 1.0”

9. VSCode did help us get to the point where I can use it on Linux, MacOS, or Windows and have a lot interoperability.

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage”

10. VSCode is a breath of fresh air. The only things I’m not using it for are languages that don’t have extensions yet

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs”

11. Even then, I don't see why developers should be forced to have better computers just to run things like editors.

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Google Antigravity”

12. native menu bar, native save/open, but a core UI kind of unto itself that is consistent across Mac and Windows

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Deno Desktop”

13. There is just no reality in which vscode with electron running as user account on a bare machine can be secure

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

14. I'm personally switched from (n)vim to vscode for this reason, so I can now fiddle with a custom agent setup.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git”

15. I've had much more luck using opus 4.6 in vs studio to make more targeted changes, explain things, debug etc

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6”

16. the Microsoft team behind it seems to be rational and listening to the extension community about their needs

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “Google's Antigravity IDE Sparks Forking Debate”

17. When VS Code launched it wiped the floor with Atom & co precisely because it was incredibly tightly coded.

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “How employment is changing at Anthropic”

18. this kind of behavior is only going to ramp up as Microsoft seeks to get a return on their AI investments

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage”

19. VS code has a really simple extension you can run a full ide with file system control in a remote server

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Running Claude Code dangerously (safely)”

20. we have a top notch user experience that's consistent across operating systems and desktop environments

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Some software bloat is OK”

21. VS Code is free, cross-platform, many people already use it, and has a very good GUI interface for git.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need”

22. What's hostile is the VSCode (and Codex and Claude) makers developing tools that basically DoS a system because they assume it will operate only on single-user machines.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “VSCode's SSH Agent Is Bananas (2025)”

23. Nothing feels obvious or simple, and trying to work in Python or embedded C++ compared to using Jetbrains tools feels like I'm missing so much.

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “Let's compile Quake like it's 1997”

24. Microsoft's introduction of 2 hour latencies for vscode extension installations to mitigate the ongoing worm spread is absolutely bonkers.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers”

25. The Visual Studio code user experience is bad - in part because it is an electron app that is not as snappy as native GUI frameworks

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “Some software bloat is OK”

26. They marked it as low severity, fixed it silently, didn't acknowledge that it had security impact and did not provide me any credit

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “1-Click GitHub Token Stealing via a VSCode Bug”

27. I cannot stand VSCode - even if I configure it to my liking I am unable to make it look or feel the way that makes me feel at home.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Claude Code gets native LSP support”

28. It's not a in your face PopUp, where users get used to just pressing the blue, highlighted and glowing "I trust the authors" button

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

29. It is a shame that the team never prioritized extension permission issues despite their big boss said security is the top priority

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “MaliciousCorgi: AI Extensions send your code to China”

30. For at least a couple of years it's been nothing but AI, I am happy to ignore updates and should probably just turn them off now.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “VSCode rebrands as "The open source AI code editor"”

31. The grey bar at the top that says "this is an untrusted workspace" is really annoying & encourages users to trust all workspaces.

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

32. You have to ask whether your users really want or need some convenience that comes at the expense of an increased attack surface.

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

33. "May automatically execute files" suggests to me that at least code could execute without me taking any further explicit action.

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

34. It about the most perfect piece of software (to the point where now there aren't any user facing feature updates) I've ever used, and I use it all day everyday.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Rank the 50 best Apple products”

35. Easily jumping between files is one of the best features. I always have VS and vscode open simultaneously, doing about 99% of the work in vscode

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

36. as a code editor it works well and it's the first time I've ever actually found code completion that seems to work well with the way I think

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “I switched from VSCode to Zed”

37. It's an editor more than an IDE. It lets Webdev Andys create an empty directory, put an index.ts in there, and get started right away.

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

38. there's huge "for free" wins in the IDE space, which is exactly why everyone converges there, though it comes with its own constraints

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “You Don't Need a Better Chat Multiplexer for AI Agents”

39. VSCode doesn't really have QA. I'm not sure it even has tests, which makes it very surprising that it works as well as it does!

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage”

40. basic Emacs keybindings like C-n and C-a and C-k work pretty much everywhere, from the command palette to the code editor

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving”