# Microsoft Visual Studio 165 Hacker News commenters recommended Microsoft Visual Studio and 165 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 10 years (10 owners). **Verdict:** A full Windows IDE praised for its powerful C++ and C# debugger, code navigation and productive WinForms tooling, though many find it slow, bloated and pushy with Copilot. ## Why people recommend it - Best-in-class debugger (8 comments): "Debugging tools and code navigation in a proper IDE like Visual Studio or JetBrains Rider is totally different development experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48569956)) "I could straight-up call functions from the Visual Studio debugger Watch window instead of editing and recompiling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46825396)) "If you haven't programmed in Visual Studio or used WinDbg then you have not used a serious, high-end debugger." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260214)) - Great for C# and Windows apps (3 comments): "Visual Studio as the IDE for building windows client apps, especially WinForms, was and still is a genuinely incredible and productive experience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49100910)) "IMHO opinion, if you you want to develop using c# you are best of using windows because of better tooling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45989331)) "going from C# with full visual studio (having a compiler with a lot of information about your code)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46018077)) - Integrated, consistent, everything included (4 comments): "visual studio used to be great back in the day because it was really thoughtfully designed and everything was nicely integrated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499845)) "I've been able to build up two decades worth of muscle memory because the product has been very consistent over my career." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478186)) "everything you needed to move forward with development was available from the moment you opened Visual Studio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658416)) - Strong code navigation and completion (3 comments): "Debugging tools and code navigation in a proper IDE like Visual Studio or JetBrains Rider is totally different development experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48569956)) "Having the ability to have things like method auto-completion, go-to-definition and symbol renaming is a net productivity gain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46412206)) "going from C# with full visual studio (having a compiler with a lot of information about your code)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46018077)) ## What people warn about - Slow and laggy (3 comments): "It's still the slowest IDE, but I suppose they deserve props for making it better than the Windows 95 speeds of the last version." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45976019)) "VS, for comparison, lags a few seconds when searching files, and it misses files that are not imported into the workspace." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46715963)) "Visual Studio around 2010 was absolutely horrible for building web based applicatons, with common freezes and input lags." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48591926)) - Rushed, inconsistent UI (3 comments): "It has some neat UI features (like CLI arguments in the toolbar) but I dislike the Windows 11 UI design and this is just... more of that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45898866)) "It was so rushed out, that many of the dialog windows on the new settings pane show tiny VS 2022 settings dialogs as popups." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46289655)) "They made many other apps that ignored or duplicated core UI paradigms too. Visual Studio, Encarta, Windows Media Player" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47741843)) - Unwanted Copilot AI push (2 comments): "I am all good for nice completion on VS, or help decypher compiler errors, but lets do this AI push with some contention." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823919)) "my licensed Visual Studio 2026 that's supposed to be for serious-face commercial development is rife with Copilot." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47592952)) - Painful installs and upgrades (2 comments): "every time, the new version of VS has a bug in the install somewhere that changes something that breaks old projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47023597)) "navigate a maze of checkboxes, hunting for which “Workloads” or “Individual Components” contain the actual compiler" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47025079)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [JetBrains IDEs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-ides.md): 233 recommend - [IntelliJ IDEA](https://hackerapproved.com/p/intellij-idea.md): 206 recommend - [Delphi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/delphi.md): 126 recommend - [Xcode](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xcode.md): 100 recommend - [JetBrains Rider](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-rider.md): 68 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Microsoft Visual Studio", https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).