# Is Rider worth it as a .NET IDE for a development team that needs measurable productivity gains within the first 12 months, or does Visual Studio cover enough ground?

<p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">Hoping to hear from the .NET reviewers here, especially anyone who has switched a whole team from one IDE to the other.</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">The question is simple to ask and hard to answer: is<a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/products/rider/reviews"> </a><a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/products/rider/reviews"><strong>Rider</strong></a> worth it for a team that needs to show real productivity gains within 12 months, or does<a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio/reviews"> </a><a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio/reviews"><strong>Visual Studio</strong></a> already cover enough ground? Both sit in the<a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/categories/net-integrated-development-environments-ide"> </a><a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/categories/net-integrated-development-environments-ide">.NET IDE</a> category, and both are serious tools, so this is not a case of one being bad.</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">What they share: full .NET support, strong debugging, AI assistance, and Azure workflows.</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">Where each pulls ahead:</p><ul>
<li>
<a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/products/rider/reviews"><strong>Rider</strong></a>: runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Covers .NET, MAUI, Blazor, and game engines like Unity and Unreal. Reviewers give it the category's best scores for ease of use and file management.</li>
<li>
<a class="a a--md" elv="true" href="https://www.g2.com/products/visual-studio/reviews"><strong>Visual Studio</strong></a>: the default for a reason. Deep debugging and profiling, visual designers for WinForms and WPF, tight GitHub Copilot integration, and by far the largest review base in the category as a Leader on the Grid.</li>
</ul><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">Money matters here too:</p><ul>
<li>Rider is free for personal use, but a team needs paid subscriptions.</li>
<li>Visual Studio Community is free, though most companies end up on paid Professional or Enterprise anyway.</li>
</ul><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">The simplest way I can frame it:</p><ul>
<li>Windows-only team, deep in the Microsoft stack: Visual Studio probably covers enough.</li>
<li>Cross-platform team, or a codebase large enough that editor speed and refactoring quality show up in delivery time: Rider has a real case.</li>
</ul><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true">That is my reading from the outside. Do the productivity gains actually show up in 12 months, and is there a third option you’d consider?</p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true"></p><p class="elv-tracking-normal elv-text-default elv-font-figtree elv-text-base elv-leading-base elv-font-normal" elv="true"></p>

##### Post Metadata
- Posted at: 20 days ago
- Author title: Tech Consultant
- Net upvotes: 1


## Comments
### Comment 1

&lt;p&gt;From engineering teams I&#39;ve talked to, the 12-month gains are real but conditional on codebase size. On a large solution, editor responsiveness and solution-wide refactoring stop being comfort features and start showing up in delivery time, and that&#39;s where Rider pays for itself. On a modest Windows-only codebase the delta mostly disappears and Visual Studio covers it. The third option is VS Code with the C# Dev Kit, but that&#39;s a different bargain: you trade the IDE&#39;s built-in depth for lightness and assemble the rest yourself.&lt;/p&gt;

##### Comment Metadata
- Posted at: 19 days ago





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