Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Visual Studio Community VS Neovim

Compare Visual Studio Community VS Neovim and see what are their differences

Visual Studio Community logo Visual Studio Community

Try our free, fully-featured, and extensible IDE for creating modern developer apps for Windows, Android, & iOS. Download Community for free today!

Neovim logo Neovim

Vim's rebirth for the 21st century
  • Visual Studio Community Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-24
  • Neovim Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-23

Visual Studio Community features and specs

  • Free Access
    Visual Studio Community is available for free for students, open-source contributors, and small teams, making it accessible to a large group of users without financial burden.
  • Rich Feature Set
    It offers a comprehensive suite of development tools for various programming languages and technologies, which includes code editing, debugging, and testing tools.
  • Extensive Language Support
    Supports a wide range of programming languages such as C#, VB.NET, F#, C++, Python, JavaScript, and more, providing versatility for different projects.
  • Integrated GitHub Support
    Seamlessly integrates with GitHub, which facilitates version control and code collaboration directly from the IDE.
  • Strong Community Support
    Being part of the larger Visual Studio ecosystem, it benefits from a vast community of developers who provide support, resources, and extensions.

Possible disadvantages of Visual Studio Community

  • Limited to Smaller Teams
    The free version is restricted for use by small teams and non-enterprise organizations, which can limit usage for larger enterprises.
  • Performance Overhead
    Visual Studio Community can be resource-heavy, requiring substantial system resources, which might affect performance on less capable machines.
  • Complex Interface
    The interface can be overwhelming for new users due to its complexity and myriad of features, potentially leading to a steep learning curve.
  • Lacks Some Advanced Features
    While it offers many features, it lacks some of the more advanced capabilities and tools available in the enterprise versions of Visual Studio.
  • Limited Technical Support
    Users of the Community edition have limited access to official technical support compared to the paid versions, which could be a drawback for resolving critical issues.

Neovim features and specs

  • Extensibility
    Neovim is designed to be highly extensible with a robust API that allows for the development of custom plugins, making it easy to tailor the editor to individual workflows.
  • Asynchronous Plugins
    Support for asynchronous plugins enables smoother and faster performance by allowing tasks like linting and autocomplete to run in the background without freezing the editor.
  • Modern Codebase
    The refactored codebase improves maintainability and introduces new features more efficiently compared to the original Vim.
  • Compatibility
    Neovim maintains compatibility with existing Vim plugins and configuration, making it easier for users to transition from Vim.
  • Improved User Interface
    Neovim provides better support for modern terminal features, GUI interfaces, and offers features like an embedded terminal emulator.

Possible disadvantages of Neovim

  • Lack of Official GUI
    Neovim does not come with an official graphical user interface (GUI), which means users who prefer a graphical experience may need to rely on third-party options.
  • Smaller Community
    Although growing, Neovim’s community is smaller compared to Vim, which means fewer community-created resources and plugins.
  • Learning Curve
    New users might find Neovim’s highly customizable nature and reliance on configuration files challenging, especially if they are not familiar with Vim-type editors.
  • Potential Instability
    Frequent updates and changes can sometimes introduce bugs or instability, which may affect users who rely on a stable environment for their work.
  • Plugin Compatibility
    While most Vim plugins work, some could have compatibility issues or require modification to work with Neovim, necessitating additional effort from the user.

Analysis of Visual Studio Community

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Visual Studio Community is generally regarded as a good IDE, especially for developers looking for a robust, versatile, and feature-packed environment to build applications. Its wide adoption in the industry and consistent updates from Microsoft ensure it remains a strong choice for developers.

Why this product is good

  • Visual Studio Community is a feature-rich, fully integrated development environment (IDE) that provides a comprehensive set of tools for developers. It supports a wide range of programming languages and platforms, making it a versatile choice for many types of projects. Its intuitive interface, powerful debugging capabilities, and support for extensions contribute to an enhanced development experience. Being free for individual developers, open-source projects, academic use, and small professional teams makes it accessible and cost-effective.

Recommended for

    This IDE is recommended for individual developers, small teams, and students who are engaged in software development. It's especially suitable for those working on Windows applications or who need to work with a variety of Microsoft services. Open-source contributors, learners, and small startups with limited budgets will also find it particularly beneficial.

Analysis of Neovim

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Neovim is considered good by many developers, especially those who appreciate Vim's modal editing capabilities but seek a more modern and extensible platform.

Why this product is good

  • Neovim is a highly configurable text editor built to be an improved version of Vim. It offers enhanced performance, extensibility through plugins, and better integration with modern development tools. Its user-friendly Lua configuration system makes customization easier.

Recommended for

  • Developers who like Vim but want more features and flexibility
  • Programmers seeking a lightweight and fast code editor
  • Individuals interested in customizing their development environment through plugins
  • Users who prefer using the command line
  • People looking for an editor with a strong and active community support

Visual Studio Community videos

Introducing Visual Studio Community 2015

Neovim videos

What is Neovim, and why should you care?

More videos:

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Visual Studio Community and Neovim)
Text Editors
30 30%
70% 70
IDE
22 22%
78% 78
Open Source
100 100%
0% 0
Software Development
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Visual Studio Community might be a bit more popular than Neovim. We know about 146 links to it since March 2021 and only 108 links to Neovim. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Visual Studio Community mentions (146)

  • An Animated Introduction to Programming in C++ [Full Course]
    There are practice problems in each section so that you can practice while learning from the content. These are in the 'Hands-On Practice' section in each section. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) are tools that allow you to write your own programs. There are some great, free C++ IDEs out there like Visual Studio, Xcode, and CLion. The simplest way to get started is to use a web-based IDE. Replit works... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Getting Started with .NET and Docker Tutorial
    You also need Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition which you can get from visualstudio.microsoft.com. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Visual Studio vs. Visual Studio Code: An In-depth Comparison
    Visual Studio has multiple versions and are priced differently based on your development needs. Visual Studio Community Edition is the free version recommended by Microsoft for individual needs. Other versions with more advanced features are paid for through subscriptions. These versions include Visual Studio Professional and Enterprise Edition. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Visual Studio Community — Fully-featured IDE with thousands of extensions, cross-platform app development (Microsoft extensions available for download for iOS and Android), desktop, web and cloud development, multi-language support (C#, C++, JavaScript, Python, PHP and more). - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Writing and Running Swift Code without Xcode on Mac and Windows
    First, you'll need Visual Studio Community (at the time of writing this blogpost, Visual Studio 2022 is the most recent version). Get it via winget install --id=Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.Community -e , or directly via Visual Studio Community if you don't have winget installed. Winget (winget) is a package manager for Windows like chocolatey and scoop. They have been compared numerous times. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

Neovim mentions (108)

  • My Tech Stack in 2025
    PDE (Personalized Development Environment): Neovim. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Optimizing My Dev Workflow in 2025
    I've used VSCode for years. It's great, no doubt. But when you have to juggle up to 5 projects daily, you'll find that it's going to block you away. Mine feels heavy, especially with multiple windows and extensions. This is why I decided to find an alternative, until I started using NeoVim instead. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Setting Up Neovim for Automad Theme Development
    As the developer of the Automad flat-file content management system, I wanted to make working with Automad themes in Neovim as smooth as possible. Automad has its own templating syntax, so I created tree-sitter-automad to provide proper syntax highlighting. Since it’s not yet an official parser, you need to manually register it in Neovim. To speed up template writing, you can also add custom snippets using... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • How to turn NEOVIM into an IDE-like code editor in NIXOS?
    Welcome to my optimized Laravel development setup featuring Nvim with LazyVim integration. This configuration is tailored to enhance productivity and streamline the development workflow for Laravel projects. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Dear (Rust) Devs: Article Request
    You want to customize your Neovim config but you don't know Lua. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Visual Studio Community and Neovim, you can also consider the following products

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

vscode.dev - Now when you go to https://vscode.dev, you'll be presented with a lightweight version of VS Code running fully in the browser.

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

Ionide - Visual Studio Code & Atom plugins for F# development

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

Microsoft .NET Framework - Microsoft.