Once a simple text editor, Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code has transformed into a community-driven open source platform under the MIT license.
Visual Studio Code (VS Code) has grown from a lightweight text editor into a fully open source platform that now anchors modern software development. Built on Code OSS, an MIT-licensed open source project maintained publicly on GitHub, VS Code allows anyone to clone, inspect, and contribute to its core. While Microsoft continues to manage the official releases, the underlying engine remains community-driven, enabling transparency and innovation.
This open foundation means the real VS Code experience extends far beyond Microsoft’s ecosystem. Community projects such as VSCodium offer telemetry-free builds, while organisations including the Eclipse Foundation have developed tools like Eclipse Che and Eclipse Theia using VS Code’s core components. Theia now powers cloud-based IDEs such as Gitpod and Google Cloud Shell, which mirror the VS Code interface and functionality.
The platform’s open Extension API has further expanded its reach. Over 20,000 extensions—from Python and Live Server to Prettier—enhance development workflows. With Remote Development and Dev Containers extensions, developers can code seamlessly across local and cloud environments. These same APIs form the foundation of GitHub Codespaces, delivering ready-to-code workspaces directly in the browser.
In keeping the ecosystem decentralised, the Eclipse Foundation launched Open VSX, a vendor-neutral registry for VS Code-compatible extensions that ensures accessibility beyond Microsoft’s marketplace.
From education and data science to documentation and AI-assisted coding, VS Code’s evolution reflects a broader truth: open source collaboration has turned it from a Microsoft-led editor into a global, decentralised development platform shaping how software is created and shared.
