VS Code Pricing

open sourceopen source · MITlast verified September 6, 2026official site ↗

At a glance

Free and open source core (Code - OSS under the MIT license). The official Microsoft Visual Studio Code binary distribution is free ($0) for commercial and personal use under the Microsoft Software License Terms, with optional paid subscriptions for services like GitHub Copilot or cloud extensions.

Self-hosting cost

VS Code is open source under the MIT license. Self-hosting does not add a software license fee, but you still pay for infrastructure, operations, and any external model or API usage.

Free & cheaper IDEs & Code Editors

same category, free plan or open-source license

CursorCursor offers a free Hobby tier with core editor access, Composer, and Tab completions. Paid individual plans start with Cursor Pro at $20/month ($16/month billed annually) featuring a $20 third-party model allowance and unlimited Cursor models, followed by Pro+ at $60/month and Ultra at $200/month for high-volume developers. Team plans include Teams Standard at $40/user/month ($32/user/month billed annually) and Teams Premium at $120/user/month (5x usage). Enterprise tier provides custom pricing with SAML SSO and SCIM, and on-demand usage is available for pay-as-you-go model overage.DevinDevin offers a Free tier for evaluation, a Pro tier at $20/month for individual developers, a high-capacity Max tier at $200/month for power users, and a Teams plan starting at $80/month plus $40/seat/month. Custom Enterprise plans are billed based on Agent Compute Units (ACUs).Google AntigravityGoogle Antigravity Individual is free with basic weekly limits. Paid quota rides Google AI Pro (~$20/mo) and Google AI Ultra ($100/mo or $200/mo top tier, per Google’s May 2026 plan change). Organizations use Google Cloud / Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.Orcaopen source100% free and open source under the MIT license ($0 software cost). Orca by Stably AI is an open-source Agent Development Environment (ADE) for running fleets of parallel coding agents across isolated Git worktrees with zero software licensing fees.

VS Code overview →alternatives →review: 90/100 →

FAQ

How much does VS Code cost?

Does VS Code have a free plan?

Yes — VS Code is open source and free to use.

Can you self-host VS Code for free?

VS Code is open source under the MIT license. Self-hosting does not add a software license fee, but you still pay for infrastructure, operations, and any external model or API usage.

What are free or cheaper VS Code alternatives?

Cursor, Devin, Google Antigravity are in the same category with a free plan or open-source license.

pricing is editorial catalog data (last verified September 6, 2026) — vendors change plans; confirm on the official site before you buy. Reuse this data under CC-BY 4.0 via /data.