Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VS Code VS RunsOn

Compare VS Code VS RunsOn and see what are their differences

VS Code logo VS Code

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

RunsOn logo RunsOn

Access the fastest and cheapest self-hosted runners on the market with a one-line change. Easily installable in your own AWS account. x64 and arm64 architectures supported.
  • VS Code Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-10-09
  • RunsOn 10x cheaper GitHub Action runners
    10x cheaper GitHub Action runners //
    2024-01-23
  • RunsOn Cheaper AND faster than BuildJet / Warpbuild / GitHub
    Cheaper AND faster than BuildJet / Warpbuild / GitHub //
    2024-01-23

Cheap runners are just one part of the equation: nobody likes slow runs, even if it's cheap.

RunsOn gives you access to some of the fastest machines on the market, thanks to AWS extensive hardware selection.

Which makes RunsOn the fastest provider of self-hosted, fully ephemeral runners on the market.

We automatically build and publish copies of the official runner images at most 24h after their official release, so that you can be certain that your workflows will always work on either GitHub runners, or your own RunsOn runners.

VS Code

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

RunsOn

$ Details
freemium €300.0 / Annually
Platforms
AWS GitHub
Release Date
2024 January

VS Code features and specs

  • Cross-platform
    VS Code works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing a consistent development experience across different operating systems.
  • Extensibility
    A vast library of extensions allows users to add functionalities like debuggers, linters, and themes, making it highly customizable.
  • Integrated Git
    Built-in Git integration makes it easy to manage version control tasks directly within the editor.
  • Performance
    Lightweight compared to full-fledged IDEs, ensuring good performance even on systems with limited resources.
  • IntelliSense
    Advanced code completion and refactoring tools help improve coding efficiency and reduce errors.
  • Community Support
    A strong and active community provides extensive support, tutorials, and third-party extensions.
  • Debugging
    Robust debugging tools for various languages and frameworks are available out of the box.
  • Free and Open-Source
    VS Code is completely free to use and open-source, which is beneficial for both individual developers and organizations.

Possible disadvantages of VS Code

  • Limited IDE Features
    While extensible, it may lack some advanced features found in dedicated IDEs out of the box.
  • Extension Management
    Managing and configuring a large number of extensions can become cumbersome and sometimes lead to performance issues.
  • Learning Curve
    Although user-friendly, it has a steeper learning curve for beginners due to its numerous features and customization options.
  • Memory Usage
    Despite being lightweight, it can consume a significant amount of memory when multiple extensions are installed.
  • Update Frequency
    Frequent updates may sometimes introduce bugs or require users to adapt to new changes quickly.
  • Internet Dependency
    Some features and extensions may require an internet connection to function optimally.
  • Telemetry
    By default, VS Code collects usage data, which might be a concern for users sensitive about data privacy. However, this can be disabled.

RunsOn features and specs

  • Ephemeral self-hosted runners
  • Autoscaling
  • Pricing
    10x cheaper than competition

VS Code videos

My New Favorite Text Editor - Visual Studio Code

More videos:

  • Review - 7 reasons why I switched to Visual Studio Code from Sublime Text

RunsOn videos

No RunsOn videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VS Code and RunsOn)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
98 98%
2% 2
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
GitHub
0 0%
100% 100

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing VS Code and RunsOn.

What makes your product unique?

RunsOn's answer:

10x cheaper than GitHub official runners. Runs in your own AWS account. More secure than sharing your secrets with other third-party tools like BuildJet or Warpbuild.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

RunsOn's answer:

Cheap, fast, on-premise alternative to maintaining self-hosted runners.

How would you describe your primary audience?

RunsOn's answer:

CTO / Senior developers

What's the story behind your product?

RunsOn's answer:

Built a similar product for one of my clients, reduced CI build cost by 10 times, and improve build speed from 1h to 20min.

User comments

Share your experience with using VS Code and RunsOn. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VS Code and RunsOn

VS Code Reviews

  1. dksinden
    · Working at SpeechKit ·

Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
Visual Studio Code, commonly known as VS Code, is a powerful and extensible code editor developed by Microsoft. With its rich ecosystem of extensions and features like IntelliSense, debugging, and Git integration, VS Code enhances your coding productivity.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
Finally, the Visual Studio Code website has numerous tabs for you to learn about the software. The documentation page walks you through steps like the setup and working with different languages. You’re also able to check out some tips and tricks and learn all of the Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts. Along with a blog, updates page, extensions library and API...
Source: kinsta.com
Jupyter Notebook & 10 Alternatives: Data Notebook Review [2023]
Previously, VS Code was more suited to developers or engineers due to its lack of data analysis capabilities, but since 2020, the VS Code team has collaborated with the Jupyter team to create an integrated notebook within VS Code. The end result is a fantastic IDE workbook for data analysis.
Source: lakefs.io
The Best IDEs for Java Development: A Comparative Analysis
Overview: Although not a traditional IDE, VS Code has gained popularity as a lightweight code editor.
Source: dev.to
20 Best Diff Tools to Compare File Contents on Linux
Visual studio code is a code editor made by Microsoft. It supports several development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It works on Linux, macOS and Windows operating systems.
Source: linuxopsys.com

RunsOn Reviews

We have no reviews of RunsOn yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VS Code seems to be a lot more popular than RunsOn. While we know about 1141 links to VS Code, we've tracked only 6 mentions of RunsOn. 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.

VS Code mentions (1141)

  • What's Happening in Developer Tools? (OpenAI Just Bought Windsurf for $3B)
    Microsoft's Visual Studio Code is a free code editor that relies on community plugins for support across various languages and frameworks. It also has an AI offering, Copilot, that provides code completion and it just added its own agent. VSCode supports multiple LLMs, but initially, there seemed to be a preference for ChatGPT, in part given its early lead and no doubt influenced by the fact Microsoft was an early... - Source: dev.to / about 19 hours ago
  • Your first MCP Server (quick)
    Explore different MCP Clients too! You can continue using ollmcp as we did earlier, or try other clients like Claude Desktop, Visual Studio Code, and more to see how different environments interact with your server. - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
  • An Introduction to TypeScript for JavaScript Developers
    Better Tooling – Enhanced autocompletion, refactoring, and navigation in IDEs like VS Code. - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • Why Understanding, Not Just Generating Code, Still Matters
    To do this, I used VS Code, an extension called Cline configured in Act mode, and Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview 03-25, which is amazing. I made two attempts. The first one using a simple and very generic prompt, and a second one using a more detailed prompt. Let’s talk about them. - Source: dev.to / 6 days ago
  • 🚀 Your First Setup Win: Python and VS Code on Mac (Beginner Friendly)
    I visited code.visualstudio.com and clicked the big, inviting "Download for Mac" button. After downloading, I opened the .zip file, dragged the VS Code app into my Applications folder, and launched it. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
View more

RunsOn mentions (6)

  • Managed, self-hosted Arm runners for GitHub Actions using AWS Graviton Processors
    RunsOn is a self-hosted runner manager for GitHub Actions that you can install in your own AWS account. It will automatically spawn EC2 VMs as self-hosted runners for your GitHub Actions workflows. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
    I'm working on https://runs-on.com, a self-hosted solution to get 10x cheaper GitHub Actions runners with support for Linux x64 and arm64. This month I've been refining Windows support and hopefully this gets fully shipped before Aug 31st! - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Ask HN: Any CI/CD SaaS Solutions for ARM?
    You could also be interested in https://runs-on.com. Must be installed in your AWS account (1-click cloudformation template), and then you can use any instance type offered by AWS. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • GitHub now provides Arm-based runners
    > We were using self-hosted runners which were not as efficient as we thought so we spawned EC2 instances and connected them to the github network to be runners, but we had such an amount of issues that we wanted to go back to non-self hosted For those hitting that same kind of issue (and you are many), you should check out my product https://runs-on.com. 1-click install, 1-click upgrades, and from 7x to 16x... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Making EC2 boot time 8x faster
    > while we can boot the Actions runner within 5 seconds of a job starting, it can take GitHub 10+ seconds to actually deliver that job to the runner This. I went the same route with regards to boot time optimisations for [1] (cleaning up the AMI, cloud-init, etc.), and can boot a VM from cold in 15s (I can't rely on prewarming pools of machines -- even stopped -- since RunsOn doesn't share machines with multiple... - Source: Hacker News / 12 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VS Code and RunsOn, you can also consider the following products

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.

BuildJet for GitHub Actions - We provide users with managed high-performance runners for Github Actions.

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

Cirun.io - GitHub Actions on your Cloud!

Notepad++ - A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.

GitHub Actions - Automate your workflow from idea to production