The short answer
If you’re developing on Windows for the Microsoft ecosystem — ASP.NET Core, MAUI, WPF, WinForms, Azure — Visual Studio 2026 Professional is the right IDE. It’s a one-time purchase, it runs natively on everything your stack depends on, and it’s been the standard tool for this kind of work for three decades for good reason.
Rider is worth considering if you work across operating systems, your team is split between Windows and Mac, or you’re already heavily invested in JetBrains tooling. It’s a genuinely good IDE. But it’s subscription-only for commercial use, and the pricing has moved upward since the October 2025 increase. Over three years, the gap widens considerably.
The rest of this article goes through the specifics.
.NET support — what both IDEs actually cover
Both tools have comprehensive support for the current .NET stack. Neither is behind.
| Capability | Visual Studio 2026 Pro | JetBrains Rider |
|---|---|---|
| .NET 10 / C# 14 | ✔ Full support | ✔ Full support |
| ASP.NET Core | ✔ | ✔ |
| Blazor | ✔ | ✔ |
| MAUI | ✔ | ✔ |
| Entity Framework Core | ✔ | ✔ |
| NuGet / package management | ✔ | ✔ |
| Git integration | ✔ | ✔ |
| Integrated debugger | ✔ | ✔ |
| Unit test runner | ✔ xUnit, NUnit, MSTest | ✔ xUnit, NUnit, MSTest |
| AI coding assistant | ✔ Copilot Free built-in | △ JetBrains AI (subscription) |
| Code coverage | ✔ Included in Professional | ✔ Included |
| Profiler | ✔ Built-in | ✔ dotTrace integrated |
| Windows (WPF / WinForms designers) | ✔ Native drag-and-drop designers | △ Code-only, no visual designers |
| Azure / Azure DevOps integration | ✔ First-party, native | △ Third-party plugins |
| Windows (OS) | ✔ | ✔ |
| macOS | ✘ Windows only | ✔ |
| Linux | ✘ Windows only | ✔ |
| ReSharper-equivalent analysis | △ Requires separate ReSharper licence | ✔ Built into Rider |
| Licence model | ✔ Perpetual — buy once | △ Subscription (annual or monthly) |
Where Visual Studio 2026 has the clear edge
Windows UI designers
If any part of your work involves WPF or WinForms — drag-and-drop layout designers, property grids, XAML split-view editing — Visual Studio is the only serious option. Rider handles WPF code perfectly well, but there are no visual designers. That’s fine for developers who write XAML by hand, but for teams doing anything design-collaborative or building internal Windows tooling with complex UI, the VS designers save real time.
Azure and Azure DevOps
Visual Studio has first-party integration with the entire Azure stack — App Service deployment, Azure Functions, Service Bus connections, and Azure DevOps work items are all accessible from within the IDE without leaving your context. Rider supports Azure development, but through third-party plugins. On a primarily Azure-hosted .NET project, the native tooling in VS 2026 is noticeably more integrated.
GitHub Copilot Free — no extra subscription
VS 2026 ships with GitHub Copilot Free built into the IDE. You get code completions, chat, and the Agent Skills framework without a separate AI subscription. Rider’s AI assistant — JetBrains AI — requires an additional subscription on top of the IDE licence. That’s another recurring cost to factor in, and it makes the total-cost comparison even more one-sided.
Perpetual ownership
A retail licence key from Software Supplies activates Visual Studio 2026 Professional permanently on one PC with no expiry and no annual renewal. You receive all VS 2026 monthly updates within the release cycle at no extra cost. When Microsoft releases VS 2027, you choose whether to upgrade — VS 2026 Professional keeps working indefinitely either way.
That’s not a minor point. Over a three-to-five year horizon, the licensing economics are substantially different. See the cost comparison below.
Where Rider has the genuine edge
Cross-platform development
Rider runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Visual Studio 2026 Professional is Windows-only. If your team includes Mac or Linux users — or if you’re a freelancer who moves between machines on different operating systems — Rider is the practical choice. There’s no Visual Studio for Mac any more; Microsoft discontinued it in 2024. For cross-platform .NET teams, Rider is currently the only full-IDE option that works natively on all three platforms.
ReSharper built in
Rider incorporates ReSharper — JetBrains’ long-established .NET analysis and refactoring toolset — as a core part of the IDE rather than an extension. You get solution-wide analysis, deep refactoring, and code inspections without any additional licence. Visual Studio users who want equivalent analysis typically buy ReSharper separately, which is its own annual subscription. If you already pay for ReSharper, Rider’s pricing looks different in the comparison.
Solution-wide analysis on load
Rider runs its code analysis across the entire solution as a background process when you open it, surfacing issues across all projects simultaneously. Visual Studio’s analysis is more editor-focused — it processes as you navigate. On large solutions with multiple projects, the Rider approach can catch cross-project issues earlier, though it does mean a heavier initial load time.
Licensing and cost — the honest comparison
Rider is subscription-only for commercial use. JetBrains raised prices in October 2025 — the first increase since 2017 — by 10–18% depending on the tier. New commercial licences purchased from January 2025 no longer qualify for continuity (loyalty) discounts, which previously reduced renewal costs over time. What you pay in year one is what you’ll pay in subsequent years unless pricing changes again.
Visual Studio 2026 Professional from Software Supplies is a one-time purchase. The table below uses the live price for VS 2026 Professional alongside the approximate Rider individual commercial subscription cost at current rates. Rider pricing is set in USD — verify the current sterling equivalent at jetbrains.com/rider/buy before purchasing, as the exchange rate moves.
| Year | VS 2026 Pro (perpetual) | Rider (commercial individual, ~£135/yr) |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | £280 | ~£135 |
| Year 2 | £0 | ~£135 |
| Year 3 | £0 | ~£135 |
| 3-year total | £280 | ~£405 |
| Year 4 | £0 | ~£135 |
| Year 5 | £0 | ~£135 |
| 5-year total | £280 | ~£675 |
VS 2026 Pro price fetched live. Rider figure is approximate — verify at JetBrains.com. Does not include JetBrains AI subscription (~$10/month) or ReSharper if purchased separately for VS.
VAT reclaim for UK businesses
If you’re VAT-registered — as most UK contractors and limited companies are — you can reclaim the VAT on a VS 2026 Professional purchase from Software Supplies. On a one-time purchase, that’s a meaningful reduction in net cost. We provide a full VAT invoice with every order. On a Rider subscription billed by a Czech company, the VAT treatment depends on your registration status and how the invoice is handled — worth checking with your accountant.
Which should you choose?
There are four reasonably clear scenarios:
Windows-only .NET development: Visual Studio 2026 Professional. It’s the native tool for this environment, the Azure integration is first-party, the XAML and WinForms designers are there when you need them, and the perpetual licence is cheaper by year two. There’s no meaningful IDE advantage to paying an annual Rider subscription when your entire stack runs on Windows and Azure.
Cross-platform team (Windows + Mac + Linux): Rider is the practical choice for the team members on Mac or Linux. Visual Studio doesn’t exist on those platforms. If your team needs a consistent IDE experience across operating systems, Rider solves that problem in a way VS 2026 simply cannot.
Freelance or sole trader, Windows-only work: The perpetual key wins on cost from year two onwards. Rider’s per-year cost adds up quickly. Unless you have a specific reason to need what Rider offers — cross-platform, or deep investment in the JetBrains ecosystem — the maths favour VS 2026 Professional as a one-off purchase.
Already using ReSharper or other JetBrains tools: If you’re already paying for ReSharper, Rider is the more logical move — you’re replacing two costs with one. The All Products Pack similarly makes sense for teams already using multiple JetBrains IDEs across different languages. In those situations, the subscription model already has a foothold and Rider fits naturally into it.
Visual Studio 2026 Professional — Perpetual Licence Key
Common questions
Yes. Both IDEs open standard .NET solution (.sln) and project (.csproj) files — there’s no proprietary project format that locks you in. Your code, solution structure, and NuGet dependencies transfer directly. The main adjustment is IDE-specific settings, keybindings, and any Rider-specific run configurations, which you’ll need to recreate in Visual Studio. Most developers complete the transition in an afternoon.
Neither is objectively better — they make different trade-offs. Rider has deeper out-of-the-box static analysis and more aggressive refactoring suggestions without additional tooling. Visual Studio 2026 Professional has native platform integration for Windows UI, Azure, and Azure DevOps that Rider handles via plugins. For pure C# logic work, most experienced developers perform equally well in either. The meaningful differences are in ecosystem integration, platform support, and licensing cost.
No. Rider is free only for non-commercial use — personal projects, learning, and open-source contributions. Any development where you receive commercial advantage or monetary compensation requires a paid commercial subscription, either individual or organisational. JetBrains is clear on this in their licence terms: if a client or employer benefits from the work, a commercial licence is required. The non-commercial tier also enables more detailed telemetry collection by default, which you need to opt out of manually in settings.
No. Visual Studio 2026 Professional is Windows-only. Microsoft discontinued Visual Studio for Mac in August 2024. For .NET development on macOS, your options are Rider (the only full IDE for .NET on Mac) or VS Code with the C# Dev Kit extension. The C# Dev Kit in VS Code provides IntelliSense, debugging, and basic test support, but is not the same as a full IDE — it’s closer to a well-configured editor than a complete development environment.
Yes, without any conflict. They’re completely independent applications and don’t interfere with each other. Some developers run both — VS 2026 Professional for Windows-specific work and UI design, Rider as an alternative for projects where the cross-project analysis is useful. There’s no technical reason not to, though running a 30-day Rider trial before committing to a subscription is the sensible approach if you’re evaluating both.
Download and install VS 2026 Professional from Microsoft, then open the IDE. Go to Help → Register Product (or File → Account Settings depending on your build version), select Unlock with a Product Key, and enter the key delivered to your email. Activation completes immediately — no Microsoft account is required. Your installation upgrades to the Professional edition in place, and all monthly updates within the 2026 release cycle are included at no extra cost. If you hit any issues, our UK support team is available 9am–6pm, 7 days a week.
Gary Walsh is the Head of Tech Support at Software Supplies, with more than 20 years in the IT industry. Fully Microsoft-certified and experienced across the full business software stack — from Windows and Office to cloud infrastructure and device management — Gary delivers practical, no-nonsense advice that helps users and businesses get the most from their technology.
