Android Studio vs Visual Studio Code

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Android Studio

23.4K
18.4K
+ 1
361
Visual Studio Code

157K
140.5K
+ 1
2.3K
Add tool

Android Studio vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

What is Android Studio? Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides new features and improvements over Eclipse ADT and will be the official Android IDE once it's ready.

What is Visual Studio Code? Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft. Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

Android Studio can be classified as a tool in the "Integrated Development Environment" category, while Visual Studio Code is grouped under "Text Editor".

"Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet " is the top reason why over 164 developers like Android Studio, while over 237 developers mention "Powerful multilanguage IDE" as the leading cause for choosing Visual Studio Code.

Visual Studio Code is an open source tool with 79.4K GitHub stars and 11.1K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Visual Studio Code's open source repository on GitHub.

Asana, Microsoft, and Intuit are some of the popular companies that use Visual Studio Code, whereas Android Studio is used by Google, Lyft, and 9GAG. Visual Studio Code has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1134 company stacks & 2381 developers stacks; compared to Android Studio, which is listed in 928 company stacks and 692 developer stacks.

Advice on Android Studio and Visual Studio Code

The problem I have is whether to choose Android Studio or Visual Studio? I have to develop a simple app for a school project that can work on both iPhone and Android.

The most important factors for me are Android and iOS compatibility. Although note that i would like to become a Software Engineer when i finish my course. (I'd like to work for Apple, just saying!)

After that id like easy integration for Google Ads and such if i do develop another app that people actually use to support development. (I'd also like to stick with one easy programming language that's compatible with a wide variety of platforms since i'm a beginner and have only ever used Pascal)

See more
Replies (1)
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

First of all - Android Studio and Visual Studio are IDE's. Tools to create code. What you are asking is programming framework. I assume that when you are talking about Android Studio you mean Native Android Development and by Visual Studio you mean Xamarin.

If you want to create crossplatform app then Native Android Development is NOT a way to go. Xamarin might work for you, BUT - you'd rather recommend you to go with Flutter. It's much more performant than Xamarin, programming model is friendlier for developer and technology seems just more refined. It's also officially supported by google, so no worries about support.

See more
Decisions about Android Studio and Visual Studio Code
Kamaleshwar BN
Senior Software Engineer at Pulley · | 12 upvotes · 1.2M views

Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.

Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.

See more
Simon Ibssa
Student at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo · | 2 upvotes · 1.1M views

I decided to choose VSCode over Sublime text for my Systems Programming class in C. What I love about VSCode is its awesome ability to add extensions. Intellisense is a beautiful debugger, and Remote SSH allows me to login and make real-time changes in VSCode to files on my university server. This is an awesome alternative to going back and forth on pushing/pulling code and logging into servers in the terminal. Great choice for anyone interested in C programming!

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Android Studio
Pros of Visual Studio Code
  • 176
    Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet
  • 103
    Google's official android ide
  • 37
    Intelligent code editor with lots of auto-completion
  • 25
    Its powerful and robust
  • 5
    Easy creating android app
  • 3
    Amazing Layout Designer
  • 3
    Great Code Tips
  • 3
    Great tool & very helpful
  • 2
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Built in Emulator
  • 2
    Keyboard Shortcuts are Amazing Out of the box
  • 336
    Powerful multilanguage IDE
  • 304
    Fast
  • 193
    Front-end develop out of the box
  • 158
    Support TypeScript IntelliSense
  • 142
    Very basic but free
  • 125
    Git integration
  • 106
    Intellisense
  • 77
    Faster than Atom
  • 53
    Better ui, easy plugins, and nice git integration
  • 44
    Great Refactoring Tools
  • 43
    Good Plugins
  • 41
    Terminal
  • 37
    Superb markdown support
  • 36
    Open Source
  • 34
    Extensions
  • 26
    Large & up-to-date extension community
  • 26
    Awesome UI
  • 23
    Powerful and fast
  • 21
    Portable
  • 18
    Best code editor
  • 17
    Best editor
  • 16
    Easy to get started with
  • 15
    Crossplatform
  • 15
    Built on Electron
  • 15
    Good for begginers
  • 15
    Lots of extensions
  • 14
    Extensions for everything
  • 14
    All Languages Support
  • 14
    Open, cross-platform, fast, monthly updates
  • 13
    Easy to use and learn
  • 12
    "fast, stable & easy to use"
  • 12
    Extensible
  • 11
    Git out of the box
  • 11
    Useful for begginer
  • 11
    Ui design is great
  • 11
    Faster edit for slow computer
  • 11
    Totally customizable
  • 10
    Great community
  • 9
    Fast Startup
  • 9
    Powerful Debugger
  • 9
    Great language support
  • 9
    It has terminal and there are lots of shortcuts in it
  • 9
    SSH support
  • 9
    Works With Almost EveryThing You Need
  • 8
    Can compile and run .py files
  • 8
    Python extension is fast
  • 7
    Great document formater
  • 7
    Features rich
  • 6
    Awesome multi cursor support
  • 6
    She is not Rachel
  • 6
    He is not Michael
  • 5
    VSCode.pro Course makes it easy to learn
  • 5
    Extension Echosystem
  • 5
    Very proffesional
  • 5
    Language server client
  • 5
    Easy azure
  • 5
    SFTP Workspace
  • 4
    Has better support and more extentions for debugging
  • 4
    Excellent as git difftool and mergetool
  • 4
    Virtualenv integration
  • 3
    More tools to integrate with vs
  • 3
    Better autocompletes than Atom
  • 3
    Emmet preinstalled
  • 3
    Has more than enough languages for any developer
  • 3
    Supports lots of operating systems
  • 3
    'batteries included'
  • 2
    Fast and ruby is built right in
  • 2
    Customizable
  • 2
    VS Code Server: Browser version of VS Code
  • 2
    CMake support with autocomplete
  • 2
    Light
  • 2
    Microsoft
  • 1
    Big extension marketplace
  • 1
    Good

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Android Studio
Cons of Visual Studio Code
  • 4
    Huge memory usage
  • 4
    Slow emulator
  • 2
    Complex for begginers
  • 2
    No checking incompatibilities
  • 1
    Lags behind IntelliJ IDEA
  • 1
    Using Intellij IDEA, while Intellij IDEA have too
  • 1
    Slow release process
  • 45
    Slow startup
  • 28
    Resource hog at times
  • 20
    Poor refactoring
  • 15
    Microsoft
  • 13
    Poor UI Designer
  • 11
    Weak Ui design tools
  • 10
    Poor autocomplete
  • 8
    Microsoft sends telemetry data
  • 7
    Poor in PHP
  • 7
    Huge cpu usage with few installed extension
  • 7
    Super Slow
  • 5
    It's MicroSoft
  • 3
    No built in live Preview
  • 3
    No Built in Browser Preview
  • 3
    Poor in Python
  • 3
    Electron
  • 3
    No color Intergrator
  • 3
    Very basic for java development and buggy at times
  • 2
    Powered by Electron
  • 2
    Bad Plugin Architecture
  • 1
    Terminal does not identify path vars sometimes
  • 1
    Slow C++ Language Server

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Android Studio?

Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides new features and improvements over Eclipse ADT and will be the official Android IDE once it's ready.

What is Visual Studio Code?

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Android Studio?
What companies use Visual Studio Code?
See which teams inside your own company are using Android Studio or Visual Studio Code.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Android Studio?
What tools integrate with Visual Studio Code?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

What are some alternatives to Android Studio and Visual Studio Code?
IntelliJ IDEA
Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.
Visual Studio
Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.
Eclipse
Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.
Xamarin
Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Xcode
The Xcode IDE is at the center of the Apple development experience. Tightly integrated with the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, Xcode is an incredibly productive environment for building amazing apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
See all alternatives