Member Avatar for fhau013

what ide can i use for c# programming? except for visual studio?

thank you :)

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A quick, up-to-date summary for anyone reading this years later: earlier replies here (for example , and ) pointed out lightweight editors and a few alternative IDEs. Those ideas still apply, but the ecosystem has shifted — today the practical non-Visual-Studio choices fall into two paths: a powerful editor plus the .NET SDK (editor-first), or a full commercial cross-platform IDE. (learn.microsoft.com)

Editor-first: Visual Studio Code plus the C# tooling (C# Dev Kit / C# extension) gives a fast, cross-platform workflow. The extension ecosystem and language-server pieces (OmniSharp / Roslyn foundations) supply IntelliSense, go-to-definition, debugging and test discovery for most projects, so VS Code behaves very much like an IDE while staying lightweight. This is the most common choice for modern .NET development. (github.com)

Full IDE: JetBrains Rider is a mature, cross-platform commercial IDE that bundles ReSharper-style refactorings, deep debugging and project tooling. Rider is a good fit when you want an all-in-one environment and advanced code-analysis out of the box. (jetbrains.com)

A couple of important status notes relative to the 2013 replies: SharpDevelop was discontinued and MonoDevelop (the basis for older Xamarin/Visual Studio for Mac tooling) has been archived/retired in recent years, so those projects are no longer actively maintained as primary choices. For cross-platform build/run you can use the dotnet CLI (create, build, run) together with your editor of choice:

dotnet new console -n MyApp
cd MyApp
dotnet run

These commands are part of the official .NET SDK tooling. (en.wikipedia.org)

Practical picking rule: for modern, cross-platform work pick VS Code + .NET SDK (low cost, flexible); if you want the deepest IDE features and are willing to pay, try Rider. If you must target legacy Windows-only designers or very old .NET Framework-only workflows, Visual Studio on Windows remains the most complete option.

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Member Avatar for C#Jaap

Notepad, Notepad++

Member Avatar for Ketsuekiame

C# is a Microsoft specific language and relies on the Microsoft compiler, so your options are very limited.

I believe there are only three different IDEs;
1. Visual Studio (You can use the Express editions for free)
2. SharpDevelop
3. MonoDevelop

If you are dead against using Visual Studio (which I personally think is the best IDE for C# and one of the best in general) then SharpDevelop (also known as #develop) is your best alternative.

You can use MonoDevelop but I wouldn't unless you were building for Linux.

Member Avatar for ddanbe

Totaly agree with Ketsuekiame, VS is very good!
But if you insist you could use an editor of your liking(see C#Jaap perhaps) and use this

Member Avatar for deceptikon

C# is a Microsoft specific language and relies on the Microsoft compiler, so your options are very limited.

.NET is a Microsoft specific implementation of the CLI that includes C#. C# is an internationally standardized language whose evolution is driven solely by Microsoft presently, but there's nothing stopping someone from writing a compiler for it. If nothing else, the existence of Mono belies your statement that C# relies on the Microsoft compiler.

I'm curious why the OP wants to exclude Visual Studio.

Edited by deceptikon
commented: Good point about C#, was just trying to simplify. As you say, it's pretty much solely driven by MS. +9
Member Avatar for Ketsuekiame

I was just trying to keep it simple ;)

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

I just installed SharpDevelop. It looks almost identical to Visual Studio IDE.

Member Avatar for fhau013

THANK YOU FOR THE HELP!! GOD BLESS

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