10 Most Popular VS Code Extensions Of All Time

Following up on my other post (10 Visual Studio Code Extensions for Frontend Developers in 2020), VS Code Extensions make this editor the best one out there in my opinion. But rather than focussing on a specific area like frontend developers like the last time I want to provide you with an overview of the 10 most popular Visual Studio Code extensions according to official installation numbers. While some of them meet the expectations there are definitely some surprises. Please note that the ranking is based on installs, not downloads. An installation is only counted once whereas downloads also include updates.

Python

The official Python extension for VS Code leads this ranking by far. With almost 65 million downloads and counting it became the developers' number one extension available on the marketplace. It provides rich support for the Python language including features such as IntelliSense, linting, debugging, code formatting and much more. A must have for every Python developer!

C/C++

The C/C++ extension adds language support for C/C++ to Visual Studio Code and brings features like IntelliSense and debugging onto the table. I haven't tried this one out yet but the numbers speak for themselves.

ESLint

ESLint - what can I say. Many people love linting, many do not. But the value linting provides for clean code is hardly arguable and this extension with 24 million downloads is the best tool for it if you develop with JavaScript.

(C#)

The official C# VS Code extension is powered by OmniSharp and provides rich features such as lightweight development tools, C# editing support with syntax highlighting, IntelliSense support, debugging capabilities and a lot more. I'd say and the numbers support this assumptions that it is probably the best extension for C# devs in VS Code.

Debugger for Chrome

Chrome for many developers is the number one browser when it comes to developing, testing and debugging their code. With this official extension for VS Code you can do so directly from Visual Studio Code - how cool is that!

Language Support for Java(TM) by Red Hat

This one comes with a not so accessible name but is backed by Red Hat themselves and brings all the power of Java coding support to Visual Studio Code. While Visual Studio might be the better alternative for Java devs this extension is great if you like the lightweight features of VS Code.

vscode-icons

More than 20 million downloads and a 5-Star Rating. Those numbers speak for themselves and vscode-icons made by the VSCode Icons Team brings awesome icons right into the Visual Studio Code Editor. You should really give this one a try!

Prettier

Prettier from Esben Petersen is a pretty neat extension that has been downloaded close to 14 million times already. It helps you formatting your code and provides color keywords for more readable code.

Beautify

Last but not least in this collection comes Beautify, another great extension for code formatting much like Prettier. Almost 12 million downloads speak for themselves and you can format code written in JavaScript, JSON, CSS, Sass and HTML.

Eno Snippets

As already written in the introduction - this one comes a bit as a surprise to me. While it has less downloads (+3 million) the ratio of downloads to installs must be quite high in order for the extension to beat other favorite extensions like Vetur or Docker! It adds support for Omi.js to VS Code which is a Front End Cross-Framework Framework made by Tencent and has a huge support base in Asia.

GitLens - Git supercharged

Ok ok, you got me. I told you this was a top ten list and now we have another extension? But almost 30 million downloads and an impressive 5-Star Rating left me with no choice but to include this one as well. GitLens was made by Eric Amodio and it really supercharges the Git capabilities of VS Code. It helps with visualizing code authorship, seamlessly navigating and exploring repositories and provides you rich and valuable insights.

Conclusion

Alright, you made it to the end. I hope this list provides you with some insights into what is going on at the VS Code Extension Market Place at this very moment. Now this list is - compared to other curations - not biased and only reflects the current state of VS Code in terms of installation count. If this was helpful or you have other suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment and also follow me on DEV for more upcoming posts.