Finding the ideal IDE for .NET work is rarely a straightforward journey. As .NET developers, I invest... Tagged with dotnet, productivity.

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A detailed comparison of JetBrains Rider versus Visual Studio for .NET development, highlighting Rider's cross-platform support, performance advantages, and built-in tooling like ReSharper-level code inspections, integrated Git support, HTTP client, and database explorer. Covers practical workflow improvements, hidden features like dynamic code analysis and .editorconfig integration, GitHub Copilot support, and honest drawbacks including licensing costs and extension ecosystem limitations.

Why I Use JetBrains Rider for .NET Development

In my opinion JetBrains make the best IDEs period - and once you’ve learned one you know at least 90% of the rest of them. I’ve paid for my own “All Products Pack” license pretty much since it came out and JB’s terms are very friendly on using your license on home and work machines (if your company is okay with it that is). I regularly use Rider, WebStorm, and PyCharm - and my yearly renewal is less expensive than carrying those three separately.

I have used both personally and professionally. I’ll take Visual Studio for .NET development over Rider any day of the week.

I use Rider alongside VS 2026. Will take Visual Studio any day

Kudos on the comparison. You nailed it perfectly.
I personally don’t use the Git options because I prefer GitKraken. I wish they would add Gitlens to Rider. Then Rider IMO would be perfect.

I use both of them together (and sometimes vscode) but mainly rider (95% of time). Sometimes I’ve noticed it can bungle a proj ref or two, but VS and rectify those issues pretty painlessly. I also find it to be a bit more intuitive and responive w/ the shortcuts, etc. They are both good - but when I swap over to my linux machine - Rider runs there which just makes my day a whooooole lot better.