Visual Studio Code (or VSCode for short) and VSCodium may look like twins, but there are several important differences between the two popular code editors that you should know about. Find out what are their differences and which one you should use.
Content
- What Is Visual Studio Code?
- What Is VSCodium?
- What Are the Main Differences Between VSCode and VSCodium?
- Should I Use VScode or VSCodium?
What Is Visual Studio Code?
Developed by Microsoft and first announced at their 2015 Build conference, Visual Studio Code has since become the most popular source code editor in the world. It does a great job of addressing the needs of modern developers, who rely predominantly on web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
VSCode is much lighter (and easier to understand) than integrated development environments (IDEs) like Microsoft’s venerable Visual Studio, yet it offers all essential features, such as IntelliSense for intelligent code completion, built-in debugging support, and Git integration for version control.
These features are complemented by a vast marketplace of extensions that allow users to customize and enhance the editor’s functionality to suit their specific needs.
Whether you’re working on web development with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, analyzing data with Python, or building high-performance applications in C++, VSCode can be customized to provide the ideal development environment.
What Is VSCodium?
VSCodium is a community-driven, free and open-source software (FOSS) fork of Visual Studio Code.
The primary motivation behind the VSCodium project is to address concerns related to the licensing and telemetry present in the official Visual Studio Code distribution. While Microsoft’s source code for Visual Studio Code is open source and licensed under the MIT license, the downloadable product is licensed under a different, non-FOSS license and includes telemetry and tracking features.
To offer a privacy-respecting alternative that can be installed without any hassle, the VSCodium project provides pre-built binaries of Visual Studio Code that are entirely free of any telemetry or tracking. These binaries are built automatically using scripts that clone Microsoft’s source code, compile it, and make the resulting binaries available for download on GitHub.
What Are the Main Differences Between VSCode and VSCodium?
As we’ve explained above, the main difference between VSCode and VSCodium is that the latter doesn’t include any telemetry or tracking features, which are present in the official VSCode distribution. In other words, the application won’t monitor how you’re using it and report this information to Microsoft.
Another significant difference is the availability of extensions because Microsoft’s official extensions for Visual Studio Code are not available in the VSCodium extension marketplace due to licensing restrictions. Instead, it uses open-vsx.org, an open-source registry where community members publish extensions. Notable extensions that are abstent from open-vsx.org include:
- Microsoft Edge Tools for Visual Studio Code: A collection of tools for developing and debugging web applications using the Microsoft Edge browser.
- Microsoft Kiota: A library for building clients that interact with RESTful APIs, generated from OpenAPI definitions.
- Remote Development: A collection of extensions that enable remote development using containers, WSL, or SSH.
However, it’s possible to configure VSCodium to use Microsoft’s marketplace. To do this, you need to create a custom product.json file in your VSCodium installation directory, as described in the official docs.
Unfortunately, even after changing the marketplace, some extensions may still not function with VSCodium because they are hard-coded to work only with the official Visual Studio Code. In some cases, you can work around this by adding the extension’s internal ID to the extensionAllowedProposedApi property in your VSCodium’s product.json file, but this trick doesn’t always work.
Apart from these differences, VSCodium maintains feature parity with VSCode.
Should I Use VScode or VSCodium?
VSCode is ideal for users who prefer a straightforward setup and aren’t concerned about telemetry, while VSCodium is a better choice for privacy-conscious developers who don’t like the idea of Microsoft looking over their shoulders.
If you’re currently using VSCode and have decided to switch to VSCodium, the migration process is relatively simple. First, download and install VSCodium from their official website. Next, manually reinstall or copy your extensions from “~/.vscode/extensions” to “~/.vscode-oss/extensions.” Finally, migrate your settings.json and keybindings.json files from:
- Windows:
%APPDATA%\Code\User - macOS:
$HOME/Library/Application Support/Code/User - Linux:
$HOME/.config/Code/User
to the corresponding VSCodium directory (VSCodium instead of Code in the same paths). You can then open your project directory and start coding.
If you’re still exploring your options, you might want to check out our list of best cross-platform text editors for programmers to see how these two stack up against other popular alternatives. Mac users, in particular, might be interested in our roundup of the best code editor apps for Mac, which includes several other excellent options.
Cover image and screenshots by David Morelo.
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David Morelo –
Staff Writer
David Morelo is a professional content writer in the technology niche, covering everything from consumer products to emerging technologies and their cross-industry application. His interest in technology started at an early age and has only grown stronger over the years.
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