Microsoft Visual Studio vs RStudio Desktop

Visual Studio Code

Sublime Text

IntelliJ IDEA

PyCharm

Apache NetBeans

Wing Python IDE

Compare Microsoft Visual Studio and RStudio Desktop based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

IntelliJ IDEA is the JetBrains IDE for pro development in Java and Kotlin. Built for your comfort, it unlocks productivity, ensures quality code, supports cutting-edge tech, and protects your privacy.

Apache NetBeans is an open-source IDE that provides code editors, wizards, and templates. It can help developers create apps in Java, PHP, and other languages. Apache NetBeans can be installed on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and BSD operating systems.

Sublime Text is an application development software that helps businesses manage code refactoring, debugging, multi-monitor editing, syntax highlighting, and more from within a unified platform. It allows staff members to utilize the auto-completion functionality to generate code suggestions and automatically provide links to definitions.

Microsoft Visual Studio Online is a web based collaboration and project management application designed for software shipping and building. The  Online platform enables you to create software projects as well as track and manage programming processes to help identify bugs, new features and more.

2D Drawing

3D Games

Animation

Code Development

Code Editing

Collaboration Tools

Data Modeling

Debugging

Deployment Management

For Developers

Game Development

Graphical User Interface

In-App Purchase

In-Game Analytics

Integrated Development Environment

Multi-player Gaming Network

Web/Mobile App Development

Website Development

Microsoft Visual Studio

Android

Web-based

Windows

iPad

iPhone

Project Supervisor

It is one of the best if not the best development environment for almost every type of programming language. Especially if you want to program in any of Microsoft's proprietary programming languages.

I have had very good programming experience with this solution. The view and layout is nice and comfortable for when you have a lot to work with.

Director of IT

I love all of the out of the box capabilities, but also love how quickly you can add in great tools from others (like custom controls).

Senior software Engineer 

Overall it provided me ease of coding , useful utilities ,  testing tools and easy deployments. It is one window solution for a software Engineer and best environment a developer can have.

Software Developer

Before it didn't support python, and I write code in python, and I used to hate VS for this, but now with the new version of V2017 and VS2019. This problem is catered for.

Software Engineer

What I always loved about Visual Studio is it had an IDE for so many different languages and projects like Win32, WPF, Xamarin, Unity, Cordoba plus so much more in one product.

Engenheiro de software

Best IDE so far, not  only for Microsoft-related development but with a high price and need for great hardware to give a good experience.

Trainer

Often the launch of the application is very slow, and due to bad logs, it can be difficult for me to find the problem that has arisen.

Senior Software Engineer

I've been using visual studio for around 10 years, it's the best for csharp programming and also for other languages like nodejs or even python. The linter is great, the way to scaffold the projects.

Student

In my opinion, Visual Studio is the best coding software ever due to it's ease of use, and it is affordable to everyone.

freelancer

This software has helped me gain so much money with little help. I recommend this software to be used by many people as well as freelancers if you want to make money online.

Architect 

Easy to use and integrates with most languages also acts great in CI/CD. Also great with auto deploy.

Front End Software Engineer 

Beginners will definitely be intimidated by how hard learning everything is.

Programmer

I love the interface, the ease of use, and the functionality.

Senior Technical Architect

Huge user base and strong community. At any point of time, you have someone who can help you giode when needed.

Founder

Best for teams to work together with. Integration with GitHub has now become much better.

Manager

The thing I like most about this software is that its community edition is free and it can compile almost any programming language just with the edition of the plugins.

Senior Developer

It can be sometimes unresponsive or crash, and font rendering could be better. But I guess these are both problems that come with it being an Electron-based app.

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Book1

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Excel

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online User Story

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Backlog

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Create Project

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Login

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Demo

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Dashboard

Microsoft Visual Studio screenshot: Microsoft Visual Studio Online Create Team Project

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Public Administrations

Small Business

PyCharm is an on-premise Python integrated development environment (IDE) designed to help professional developers write code, create a virtual environment, and maintain quality control using PEP8 checks, refactoring, and testing assistance. Its code editor supports Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and other languages.


Wing Python IDE is an on-premise Python development environment designed to help developers increase their productivity. The platform provides a wide range of features such as an editor, debugger, unit testing, error checking, and code refactoring tools. Additionally, it supports many popular frameworks and provides seamless integration with Git, Mercurial, Subversion, or CVS.

Visual Studio Code is a source code editor, which helps businesses build and debug web applications running on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Features include syntax highlighting, code refactoring and navigation, snippets, Emmet abbreviations, command-line interface (CLI), and text wrap.

RStudio is a data science program that enables users to develop, collaborate, manage, and share data in R and Python.

Code Review

Continuous Integration

Version Control

RStudio Desktop

Free Lancer

Its debugging tool helps to scrutinize the code and moreover it has a great graphical user interface which I personally find heartwarming. It price is high but I think that it is worth it.

PhD student

You can create and modify your codes with a user friendly interfase, making your work more efficient and fun.

Marine biologist student

I can analyze and get beautiful and explanatory graphics in a few minutes. The coding part is very handy and it can be editing and saved so you do not lose any code or project for the future.

Software

RStudio makes coding in R easy, helpful, and powerful, with a friendly interface and plenty of tools.

Consultant

The problem of backwards compatibility of different versions of R and R packages is not an RStudio problem, and RStudio works with all versions of R and R packages.

Data Analytics Manager

I like the completeness of RStudio as an IDE. It has lots of useful features and integrations with R packages that just boosts my productivity.

Data Science Manager

The best IDE for R programmers. Overall great functionality and easy of use.

Mathematics Teacher

Overall R studio is an excellent product and a great tool to supplement teaching statistics and algebra II at the high school level and any statistics and data science class at the college algebra.

Research Assistant

I typically use RStudio to solve research issues such as data analysis of growth mindset. I would highly recommend it for free, convenient data analyses.

Temporary Instructor

It's a great software which generate outputs very easily using a coding system. And also it includes thousands of useful packages.

R-studio allows a much more user friendly use of R. It integrates four basic screens (script, console and 2 support screens for help, environment, etc) and features like markdown.

Technology Specialist

R is one of the simplest programming languages and R-studio makes full use of its capabilities. The R community is amazing and provides immense support where needed.

Management

Being able to manipulate large datasets and perform complex calculations with ease has greatly improved efficiency in the company.

Postdoctoral Scholar

There are no major dislikes about R studio, being a free software it does depend on the open source community for continuing development, which can be arguably not beneficial to the software.

It's hard to work in team as is not an online platform.

It is the swiss army tool of a data-scientist. Thanks to its huge community any doubt you may have can be replied easily by a simple search on internet, or by asking in forums.

Statistician

There is a learning curve at first, and do to the amount of information available and packages that can be used, it can be hard to narrow down at first what functions to use when.

R Studio - larger learning curve than SPSS but will save you money.

Microsoft Visual Studio vs RStudio Desktop Comparison (2026)

Microsoft Visual Studio

RStudio Desktop

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives