---
title: "Visual Studio Code"
category: "Code editors"
tagline: "Microsoft's popular code editor, with a huge library of extensions."
source: "Flathub"
package: "com.visualstudio.code"
website: "https://code.visualstudio.com/"
---

## What it is

Visual Studio Code is a code editor from Microsoft. It has syntax highlighting, code completion and debugging for most languages, a built-in terminal and Git support, and a marketplace of extensions that add languages, themes, linters and tools.

It sits between a plain text editor and a full IDE: light enough to open a single file, capable enough for large projects.

## Why it's here

- **The extension marketplace.** Almost every language, framework and service has a VS Code extension.
- **Familiar.** Many developers already know it, and many tutorials assume it.
- **Microsoft's own build.** Some extensions, such as Live Share and the remote development tools, work only in Microsoft's release.

## On CoreDesktop

VS Code is installed from Flathub. Open it from the app menu. It runs in Flatpak's sandbox, so its built-in terminal and extensions don't see every tool installed on the system. If you'd prefer the same editor without Microsoft's telemetry and licensing, CoreDesktop also installs [VSCodium](/software/vscodium/).

`update` keeps VS Code current with the rest of the Flatpaks.