Altova XMLSpy vs. Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Altova XMLSpy
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
The XMLSpy JSON and XML Editor from Altova is designed to give developers the tools they need to build the most sophisticated applications with its graphical schema designer, code generation, file converters, debuggers, and profilers for working with XSD, XSLT, XQuery, XBRL, and SOAP.N/A
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft offers Visual Studio Code, a text editor that supports code editing, debugging, IntelliSense syntax highlighting, and other features.N/A
Pricing
Altova XMLSpyMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Altova XMLSpyMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Altova XMLSpyMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
User Ratings
Altova XMLSpyMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Altova XMLSpyMicrosoft Visual Studio Code
Likelihood to Recommend
Altova XMLSpy is an excellent tool for creating/designing new XML schemas (XSDs) using a visual layout tool and helps developers and architects work with XML and JSON documents, understand and validate and diagnose issues with XML and JSON documents. It is not well suited for working with other data formats, such as YAML or CSV.
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If your Source Control Software is Team Foundation Server then skip Visual Studio Code. If you're using GitHub and are creating small projects Visual Studio Code is the way to go. If you need to create a large, enterprise-level application, Visual Studio Code makes it easier to set up interactions between related projects (client & server). If you're interested in getting back to the old way of using the command line to create projects and you know what to enter in the console window then Visual Studio Code is great. Visual Studio Code is a better choice if you don't know the console commands and prefer to make selections from a menu.
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Pros
  • XML schema (XSD) design and maintenance
  • XML document validation
  • XML and JSON document reformatting and pretty-printing
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  • Robust plugin architecture replete with fantastic add-ons that make developer life delightful.
  • Integrated Terminal window allows you to stay in one application to perform most required tasks.
  • Customization options are robust. It is easy to modify VS Code to your own specifications.
  • It's free! Hard to believe such a well made, well maintained, robust software is a free download.
  • Command+P/Command+Shift+P key commands will improve your workflow dramatically.
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Cons
  • Application performance could be improved, especially initial load speed
  • Better support for large document handling (documents hundreds or thousands of megabytes in size)
  • Remove all nagging popups to upgrade
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  • Unlike for most languages I have used, Ruby and Rails support available for Code users isn't great. The most popular Ruby extension is unofficial, and leaves much to desire. As an example, code navigation even with language server Solargraph installed isn't as good as IntelliJ's RubyMine.
  • Even there is quite good support for a language or a framework, it is almost never as good as a dedicated IDE for it. In terms of the sheer number of features available, IntelliJ IDEs handily beat Code.
  • Microsoft has close-sourced some of the extensions it develops for Code itself, e.g. Pylance for Python, and that has not been perceived as a good move for open-source.
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Likelihood to Renew
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Solid tool that provides everything you need to develop most types of applications. The only reason not a 10 is that if you are doing large distributed teams on Enterprise level, Professional does provide more tools to support that and would be worth the cost.
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Usability
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Looking at our current implementation, Microsoft Visual Studio Code is perfect for writing code and performing debug operations. Integration with SVN repository is easy and changes can be tracked effectively. Microsoft Visual Studio Code supports developers to write code productively using syntax check and easy customization. Microsoft Visual Studio Code also provides support for IntelliSense which prompts suggestions for code completion. It is easy to step through code using interactive debugger to inspect the root cause of error quickly.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Active development means filing a bug on the GitHub repo typically gets you a response within 4 days. There are plugins for almost everything you need, whether it be linting, Vim emulation, even language servers (which I use to code in Scala). There is well-maintained official documentation. The only thing missing is forums. The closest thing is GitHub issues, which typically has the answers but is hard to sift through -- there are currently 78k issues.
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Alternatives Considered
XMLSpy does not have many capable competitors, it is the market leader and other alternatives do not provide the tools we rely on.
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All the previously listed are incredible development environments that perfectly fulfill this function, but [Microsoft] Visual Studio Code goes one step ahead by providing flexibility, customization and adaptability to development environments with its own methodology, for all this productivity. of the work team is greatly increased helping to achieve the objectives set in the organization.
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Return on Investment
  • XMLSpy has made us much more efficient when designing new integrations
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  • Saves money by replacing suites of tools such as Visual Studio, IntelliJ, etc.
  • Speeds development time and developer environment setup time
  • Strengthens code quality with integrated autoformatting and linting
  • Strengths Git practices by keeping version control tightly connected with the code
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ScreenShots