Open-source Visual Studio alternatives

This repository, known as Code - OSS, is where Microsoft develops Visual Studio Code together with the community. Visual Studio Code is a code editor that pairs the simplicity of a lightweight editor with the tools developers need to edit, build and debug, and it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Roadmap and iteration plans are published alongside the code.

Main capabilities include code editing, navigation and code understanding support, lightweight debugging and integration with existing tools. A rich extension model lets people add languages, themes and tooling. The editor is built with TypeScript on Electron and is updated monthly, with a daily Insiders build for those who want the newest changes.

The source code is available under the MIT license. The downloadable Visual Studio Code product is a distribution of this repository that adds Microsoft-specific customizations and ships under a traditional Microsoft product license. That distinction matters for anyone who wants to build a fully open-source editor straight from the repository.

code-server is an open-source project that runs VS Code on a server and makes the editor available in a web browser. It lets developers keep their development environment on a remote machine and reach it from any device with a browser. The project is maintained by Coder, is written in TypeScript and is released under the MIT license.

Because the editor runs remotely, heavy work such as builds and language tooling happens on the server rather than on a laptop or tablet. Its GitHub topics highlight remote work, VS Code Remote and browser-based IDE use. Coder, the company behind it, also sells a commercial platform for self-hosted cloud development environments, while code-server is the simpler open-source editor-in-a-browser project.

It suits individuals who want a consistent coding environment across devices, remote teams working on shared servers, and users who want a browser-based IDE on their own hardware or a cloud instance they control.

VSCodium is a repository of scripts that automatically build Microsoft's open-source vscode source code into freely licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration. The maintainers stress that it is not a fork. The result is a code editor and IDE that feels like Visual Studio Code but drops the Microsoft branding, telemetry and the licensing terms of Microsoft's own distribution.

Releases come as stable and insiders builds and can be installed through Homebrew, WinGet, Chocolatey, Scoop, Snap, Flatpak, the Arch User Repository, or apt, dnf and zypper repositories, as well as deb, rpm and tar downloads. The build scripts are written in Shell and published under the MIT license, so anyone can inspect how the binaries are produced. Extensions are a common area of difference, so review the project's notes before relying on a specific one.