Visual Studio Code remains one of the clearest-scale stories in developer tooling. In the latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 75.9% of respondents said they used VS Code regularly, and Microsoft said 50 million developers are actively using Visual Studio and VS Code each month.
Those numbers matter because VS Code is now more than a text editor: it is a global development platform, an extension marketplace with 100,000+ extensions, and a growing AI workflow surface tied to GitHub Copilot.
(For GitHub Copilot statistics, check out report on them)
This article looks at the latest public figures on users, adoption, revenue signals, market share, developer activity, geography, and growth trends.
VS Code Key Insights and Takeaways
- 75.9% of Stack Overflow respondents used VS Code in 2025, making it the top IDE for the fourth year in a row.
- Microsoft said 50 million developers use Visual Studio and VS Code each month as of May 15, 2025.
- The VS Code ecosystem included over 100,000 extensions in Microsoft’s May 2025 milestone post.
- The repo has 184k stars, 39.6k forks, 156,239 commits, and 210 releases on GitHub. The latest listed GitHub release is 1.118.1, dated Apr. 30, 2026.
- In Stack Overflow’s 2025 survey, VS Code beat Visual Studio by 46.9 percentage points.
- Among developers using AI, VS Code still led at 77.7% for professionals and 80.4% for learners.
VS Code At a Glance
| Metric | Figure |
| Regular VS Code usage in Stack Overflow 2025 | 75.9% |
| Monthly developers across Visual Studio + VS Code | 50 million |
| Marketplace extensions | 100,000+ |
| GitHub stars | 184k |
| GitHub forks | 39.6k |
| Commits | 156,239 |
| Releases | 210 |
| Latest public release listed on GitHub | 1.118.1 on Apr. 30, 2026 |
| GitHub Copilot users | 15 million developers |
| Survey coverage | 49,000+ responses, 177 countries |
VS Code Statistics: Deep Dive
1. VS Code User Statistics
In 2025, 75.9% of respondents said they used VS Code regularly, up from 73.6% in 2024. That makes VS Code the dominant IDE in the survey for the fourth straight year.
| Year | VS Code usage share |
| 2024 | 73.6% |
| 2025 | 75.9% |
The growth is not explosive, but it is durable. VS Code gained 2.3 percentage points year over year from 2024 to 2025, which is a meaningful increase at this scale.
Microsoft’s own ecosystem numbers reinforce the same story. In May 2025, the company said the VS Code marketplace had crossed 100,000 extensions, showing that user growth is being matched by ecosystem depth.
2. VS Code Usage & Adoption Statistics
VS Code is widely used because it spans beginners, professionals, and AI-assisted workflows. In the 2025 survey, 78% of respondents learning to code used VS Code, compared with 76.2% of professional developers and 77.7% of professional developers who use AI.
| Audience segment | VS Code usage |
| Learning to code | 78% |
| Professional developers | 76.2% |
| Professionals that use AI | 77.7% |
| Learners that use AI | 80.4% |
The platform’s extension ecosystem explains much of that adoption. Microsoft’s May 2025 milestone post said the marketplace included 36,000 language extensions, 19,000 snippet collections, 13,000 formatters, 13,000 linters, 9,400 debuggers, and 8,700 themes.
| Extension category | Count |
| Language extensions | 36,000 |
| Snippet collections | 19,000 |
| Formatters | 13,000 |
| Linters | 13,000 |
| Debuggers | 9,400 |
| Themes | 8,700 |
That ecosystem density makes VS Code more than a generic editor. The practical result is that developers can keep the same core UI while adding language tooling, debugging, formatting, and AI features through extensions.
3. VS Code Demographics Statistics
In Stack Overflow’s 2025 survey, VS Code usage was 78% for people learning to code, 76.2% for professional developers, and 80.4% for learners using AI.
| Audience group | VS Code usage |
| Learning to code | 78% |
| Professional developers | 76.2% |
| Learners using AI | 80.4% |
| Professionals using AI | 77.7% |
The narrow spread between learners and professionals suggests that VS Code is one of the few developer tools with near-universal reach across experience levels. The difference between learners and professionals in 2025 was just 1.8 percentage points.
4. VS Code Revenue & Financial Statistics
VS Code itself is still a free product, and Microsoft continues to position it as open source and available at no charge. The monetization story is therefore indirect: the editor is free, while adjacent AI and enterprise services provide the commercial layer.
| Financial signal | Figure |
| VS Code price | Free |
| Repository license | MIT |
| Copilot Free completions in VS Code | 2,000/month |
| Copilot Free chat requests in VS Code | 50/month |
| GitHub Copilot users | 15 million developers |
Therefore, VS Code functions as a free distribution layer for a much larger Microsoft developer ecosystem. The editor is free to use, but the AI experience around it is increasingly quota-based and subscription-adjacent.
5. VS Code Market Share & Competitive Statistics
VS Code’s competitive lead is still large in 2025. In Stack Overflow’s latest survey, it led with 75.9%, followed by Visual Studio at 29%, Notepad++ at 27.4%, IntelliJ IDEA at 27.1%, and Vim at 24.3%.
| Tool | 2025 usage share | Position |
| VS Code | 75.9% | 1st |
| Visual Studio | 29% | 2nd |
| Notepad++ | 27.4% | 3rd |
| IntelliJ IDEA | 27.1% | 4th |
| Vim | 24.3% | 5th |
That means VS Code led Visual Studio by 46.9 percentage points in 2025. In practical terms, VS Code was used by about 2.6 times as many survey respondents as Visual Studio.
The newest competition is coming from AI-native editors, but the gap is still large. In 2025, Cursor reached 17.9%, Claude Code reached 9.7%, and Windsurf reached 4.9%, while VS Code remained well above them all at 75.9%.
| AI-enabled editor/tool | 2025 usage share | Notes |
| Cursor | 17.9% | Main AI-native challenger |
| Claude Code | 9.7% | Rapidly emerging tool |
| Windsurf | 4.9% | Smaller but visible share |
| VS Code | 75.9% | Clear leader overall |
The key point is not that AI editors are irrelevant; it is that they are still competing inside a category VS Code already dominates. The 2025 survey explicitly says subscription-based, AI-enabled IDEs did not topple VS Code’s position.
6. VS Code Developer / Platform Statistics
VS Code’s project-level metrics remain unusually strong for an open-source tool. The GitHub repository shows 184k stars, 39.6k forks, 156,239 commits, and 210 releases. The latest listed public release is 1.118.1 from Apr. 30, 2026.
| Platform metric | Figure |
| GitHub stars | 184k |
| GitHub forks | 39.6k |
| Commits | 156,239 |
| Releases | 210 |
| Latest listed release | 1.118.1 |
Microsoft also says the repository is where the company develops VS Code with the community and that the editor is updated monthly with new features and bug fixes. That monthly release rhythm is one reason the platform stays current despite its size.
The extension ecosystem remains one of the clearest signs of platform maturity. Microsoft’s May 2025 milestone post described over 100,000 extensions and noted that contributions come from thousands of developers worldwide.
7. VS Code Regional / Geographic Statistics
Public country-by-country usage data for VS Code is limited, but the latest Stack Overflow survey gives a strong global signal: it collected 49,000+ responses from 177 countries. That makes the 2025 VS Code figures unusually broad in geographic scope.
| Geographic signal | Figure |
| Countries represented in Stack Overflow 2025 | 177 |
| Microsoft’s monthly developer base across Visual Studio + VS Code | 50 million |
| Global contributor base referenced by Microsoft | Thousands of developers |
Microsoft also says the broader Visual Studio and VS Code community is used “in every corner of the world,” with examples spanning San Francisco, Bangalore, Africa, and Latin America. That is qualitative rather than numeric, but it matches the survey’s 177-country footprint.
8. VS Code Market Trends & Industry Growth
The biggest VS Code trend in 2026 is still AI integration. In the 2025 survey, VS Code led among AI-using professionals at 77.7% and among AI-using learners at 80.4%, showing that the editor’s audience is adopting AI workflows without abandoning the platform.
| Trend signal | Figure |
| VS Code among professionals using AI | 77.7% |
| VS Code among learners using AI | 80.4% |
| GitHub Copilot users | 15 million developers |
| Copilot Free completions | 2,000/month |
The second major trend is competitive pressure from AI-native editors. Cursor at 17.9%, Claude Code at 9.7%, and Windsurf at 4.9% show that the category is widening, but VS Code’s 75.9% share means it still anchors the market.
The third trend is ecosystem scale. Microsoft’s May 2025 milestone post put the marketplace at 100,000+ extensions, with 36,000 language extensions and 9,400 debuggers alone. That kind of modular depth is difficult for newer competitors to replicate quickly.
Conclusion
VS Code’s latest public numbers still point to category dominance: 75.9% usage in Stack Overflow 2025, 50 million monthly developers across Visual Studio and VS Code, and 100,000+ extensions in Microsoft’s ecosystem.
The latest listed GitHub release is 1.118.1 from Apr. 30, 2026, which shows the product is still moving quickly. Thus, the bigger takeaway is that VS Code’s lead is no longer just about editor features.
It is about ecosystem scale, monthly release cadence, and AI integration, all of which make the platform difficult to displace even as other AI-native platforms gain traction.
FAQs
Q: How many users does Microsoft Azure have?
A: Microsoft does not publish a consumer-style MAU figure for Azure. The strongest public adoption markers are 95% of Fortune 500 companies, 60,000+ Azure AI customers, and 68,000+ partners.
Q: How much revenue does Microsoft Azure generate?
A: Microsoft said Azure surpassed $75 billion in FY2025 revenue, growing 34% year over year.
Q: How fast is Azure growing in 2026?
A: In the latest reported quarters, Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 40% year over year in Q1 FY2026, 39% in Q2 FY2026, and 40% in Q3 FY2026, indicating sustained high growth.
Q: What is Azure’s market share?
A: Synergy Research Group estimated Azure had 21% of enterprise cloud infrastructure spending in Q4 2025, compared with AWS at 28% and Google Cloud at 14%.
Q: What are the biggest Azure use cases?
A: Microsoft highlights enterprise cloud infrastructure, AI model hosting, and Linux workloads. It says 60%+ of customer cores run Linux and that Azure AI Foundry supports 11,000+ models for enterprise AI builds.
Q: Where is Azure strongest geographically?
A: Azure operates across 70+ regions and 400+ datacenters, which Microsoft says gives it more regions than any other cloud provider.
Q: How much is Microsoft investing in Azure infrastructure?
A: Microsoft expects roughly $190 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, reflecting continued investment in AI and cloud capacity.sco
