Visual Studio Pro vs Premium vs Ultimate

Question

_{Saturday, February 8, 2014 12:14 PM}

Hi, I am a new bee to Visual Studio

Exploring possibility to develop an application that will show customer locations on a map (probably using Google Visualization APIs) based on some filtered data.

Just to give some background, my users will select parameters (like customer city, customer size, etc, which is stored in a database) and the application should be able to show customer locations on a map using specified parameter and the detailed related to the selected customers in a different section.

I am aware that something similar was done within our organization using Visual Studio ultimate version... but the licensing cost for ultimate is a little over our budget. 

can we do something similar using VS 2013 Pro edition? and would you be able to tell me (in a layman's term) what are the main differences b.w ultimate/premium/pro versions? and what will I be missing if we go with Pro version?

Thanks again for your assistance

All replies (4)

_{Tuesday, February 11, 2014 6:36 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote}

Hi,

About the main differences between VS2013 Ultimate/Premium/Pro, please check this page:

http://www.visualstudio.com/products/compare-visual-studio-products-vs

In my opinion, you  can do something similar on developing applications using VS2013 Pro edition if you can do that in VS2013 Ultimate.

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_{Friday, September 12, 2014 4:13 PM | 3 votes}

The link provided  in previous answer is a good resource to look at when comparing Visual Studio versions.  But below are the main  reasons you might want to get Ultimate.  The Ultimate have more tools for testing and debugging code.

IntelliTrace (locally and in production):  The IntelliTrace in production allows you to duplicate bug in production, then opening the intellitrace file that is generated you can step through the code as if the code was running locally when the bug was reproduces.

CodeMap: Allows you to create a visual map of an application and all it's dependencies. This is especially good if you work with a lot of complex systems (aka: Enterprise applications)

Load and Performance Testing Tools: Nice to be able to do some of this testing before it is sent off for QA.

Architecture tools:  These tools are nice for planning out application architecture and can also be use to enforce an applications design.

CodeLens: Shows you information about each functions right within the editor (how many functions call it, how many test are written for it and how many passed/failed last run, who made the last changes, etc).  And you can hover over each of these to get more information and link directly to other areas.

Code Peek: If you have a function that is called by a function you are currently working on you can look at the code of the function that is being called without ever leaving the current edit window.

So there are benefits of  Ultimate, you just have to decide whether the cost is worth if for you.  Most people who have Ultimate work for companies and the company is buying the licenses so cost is not as big of issue.  Most individuals cannot afford an MSDN Ultimate license.

_{Friday, May 22, 2015 6:52 PM | 1 vote}

Code Peek is a feature with Pro and Premium too - not just Ultimate

_{Friday, August 5, 2016 1:55 PM}

Thanks for detailing out , I am having tough time deciding between VS 2013 or VS 2015 version if I choose ultimate.

do you have anything on this one for SharePoint development.

Thanks in advance

Prashanthsparks