#17 in Code AssistantsUpdated 2026-08

VSCodium

by VSCodium · Free/libre binary builds of VS Code with telemetry disabled

48.5 — BenchRank score out of 100

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Overview

VSCodium is a community-driven binary distribution of Microsoft's VS Code editor. Its build scripts clone the MIT-licensed vscode repository, run the build commands and upload the resulting binaries to GitHub releases without Microsoft's product.json customisations, so telemetry is disabled. Downloads are offered for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Best for: Developers who want VS Code's editor as MIT-licensed prebuilt binaries with telemetry disabled.
Pricing: No prices are shown; the binaries are published under the MIT licence and downloaded free.
Runs on: macOSWindowsLinuxCLI

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

MIT-licensed binaries, so no building from source yourself
Telemetry is disabled in the published builds
Builds available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux
Installs via Brew, WinGet, Scoop, snap, Flatpak, AUR and Nix

Trade-offs

Community-driven; the pages state no support or release commitments
Microsoft's gallery endpoints are absent from the clean build
Migrating from Visual Studio Code has documented quirks
Package-manager builds are third-party; issues go to those repos

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support: 60 out of 100
API quality: 10 out of 100
Documentation: 60 out of 100
Agent friendliness: 33 out of 100
Customer sentiment: 82 out of 100
Changelog: 100 out of 100
Marketing site structure: 40 out of 100
Operational trust: 0 out of 100

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness: 60 out of 100
Maintenance: 100 out of 100

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