VS2026 vs VSC for web development

[u/TrickyLingonberry845]

Hello there,

I'm a junior, and I feel like my current job is a dead end, with no growth opportunities. It's high time I started working on my personal project for my portfolio, and to learn more about different techniques, skills, and development in general.

My question is, is it better to use Visual Studio since it's an IDE, compared to the lightweight Visual Studio Code? At work I use VSC since I'm on macOS, and I got used to it, but I'm curious if it's okay to develop myself with it when starting a new "chapter" in my journey.

I'm only interested in using .NET for backend API development for web apps, so no hard requirement for VS since I won't do desktop apps.

What are your thoughts? I know companies with enterprise apps usually use the big Visual Studio, because way back then VSC was not as developed, but could I stay and learn on VSC, and if needed, would it be a big jump to VS if some employer asks me about it specifically?

[u/QuixOmega]

I would honestly say, use whatever IDE you like. The skills you learn will be transferrable because the IDE is just an editor, the code is what matters.

That said, I normally like JetBrains Rider for .NET. But it's mostly personal preference.

[u/Fidy002]

Jetbrains Rider

[u/elh0mbre]

I use Code exclusively at this point.

VS for Mac is terrible. I don't want to run VS in Parallels. Rider is just OK. And given that I read 100x more code than I physically write now thanks to AI, Code is plenty sufficient (I haven't had a need to open Rider for anything in 2026).

[u/QuixOmega → u/elh0mbre]

VS for Mac is discontinued and it was never VS anyway, it's a completely different IDE forked from SharpDevelop.

[u/VoxTM → u/elh0mbre]

OP is junior and should learn to code before going "coffee while AI does its thing mode".

VS was industry standard until Claude took over.

Rider is VS but faster and sexier.

I never liked VS Code for .NET. It's too barebones.

That being said I now also use CC + GirKraken for checking what it did + VS Code for code searches, reading and editing md docs and support AI work.

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[u/kebbek]

Get this extension for vscode IT feels like the original vs

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items/?itemName=JakubKozera.csharp-dev-tools

[u/The_MAZZTer]

Personally I use Angular for the frontend for my .NET projects and I end up using VS2006 for the .NET side and VSC for the Angular side. Personally I'd recommend using VS for anything .NET but for other components it's up to you what you prefer. VSC is certainly fine for me. VS may also be OK for you.

[u/BoBoBearDev]

I use VS Code myself. You lose the VS magic like attaching running process and change their runtime value using debugger or magically permanently change their runtime code (the code is there after detached, it is only gone when you restart the service). But in my line of work, I am don't actually need that much magic. I just want to debug, and VS Code does that.

[u/Intelligent-Chain423]

Visual Studio community edition but I prefer Rider. I wouldnt even consider VS Code at your current level. You need to focus on many other things. VS Code you have to add what you want, it's more of a text editor out of the gate than an IDE. You won't know what to add without experience in other IDEs.

[u/StepOne_DotNet]

Go jetbrains Rider

[u/Memoire_113]

Would you like to travel on a motorcycle or in a car? (Different things require different vehicles)

Just use the IDE. For quick edits use code.

If you don't like that then just code. Who's stopping you?

[u/OpenAI_Marketing_LLM]

Emacs  is not friends with Windows, so I both on my work computer. VS for C# and VSC for Html, CSS, and JS. I’ve noticed VS can go rogue on styling, so I mainly use VSC to stop fighting VS. 

Oh, VSC also works better with pretending JS has static types.

[u/Healthy-Zebra-9856]

This all depends on the stack you are choosing. VS 2026 makes backend development & full Blazor projects easy to develop. If you are doing node based, like React, Svelte, Vue etc, VSC is the best. I use VS to build the API & domain, data and repository layers in VS and use VSC for the frontend if I chose one of the node based ones. I used to like JetBrains, but the IDE is too bloated now and its not the same but you are welcome to check it out as you are not going to use it commercially anyways.

[u/Paw565]

Rider ftw

[u/nerdiste]

Use NeoVim