VSCodium for Windows

VSCodium is a community-built distribution of Visual Studio Code that ships without Microsoft's telemetry, branding, and proprietary licensing. The editing experience is the same one millions of developers already know, because the project compiles the same publicly available source code Microsoft uses. What changes is everything wrapped around that source: the binaries VSCodium publishes are licensed under MIT, and telemetry is disabled.

The distinction matters more than it first appears. Microsoft's vscode source code is MIT-licensed, but the Visual Studio Code product available for download is covered by a separate, non-free license and includes telemetry and tracking. Building a clean copy yourself is possible but tedious, and it has to be repeated with every release. VSCodium exists so that step isn't necessary: its build scripts clone Microsoft's repository, apply patches, run the build, and publish the resulting binaries to GitHub releases.

For Windows users, VSCodium is a practical option if you want a full-featured code editor without a vendor analytics pipeline attached, or if you work in an environment where outbound data from developer tooling has to be justified. It is free in both senses — no cost, no account, no paid tier — and it runs on the same hardware that runs Visual Studio Code.

VSCodium Review

The first thing worth setting straight is what VSCodium is not: it is not a fork with its own roadmap, its own feature set, or its own opinions about how a code editor should behave. It is a rebuild. Open it after using Visual Studio Code and the layout, keyboard shortcuts, command palette, settings schema, and workflow are identical, down to the muscle memory. The visible differences amount to the logo and the application name.

That fidelity is the project's main strength and also the source of its main constraint. Because VSCodium is built from the same source without Microsoft's customized configuration file, it also loses the pieces that configuration file provides — chiefly, access to the Visual Studio Marketplace. Microsoft's Marketplace terms permit extensions to be installed and used only with Visual Studio products and services, so VSCodium points to open-vsx.org instead, an open source registry for VS Code extensions. Open VSX is hosted by the Eclipse Foundation and provides a vendor-neutral alternative to Microsoft's marketplace, and it has grown into serious infrastructure — the registry passed 300 million downloads per month in early 2026, serving VSCodium alongside tools like Cursor, Windsurf, and Ona.

In practice, that means most mainstream extensions are available, but not all of them, and some that are available lag behind their Marketplace counterparts. A handful are effectively off-limits. The debugger bundled with Microsoft's C# extension and the Windows debugger in their C++ extension are licensed to work only with official Visual Studio Code builds, and some extensions — the Remote Development family among them — are similarly restricted. Workarounds exist, including editing the extensionAllowedProposedApi list in product.json, though in some cases an extension is hard-coded to refuse anything but the official product. If your daily work depends on remote SSH development or the Microsoft C# debugger, this is the point where VSCodium stops being a drop-in substitute.

The privacy claim also deserves a measured reading rather than a headline. VSCodium sets telemetry.enableCrashReporter and telemetry.enableTelemetry to false by default, and its build replaces Microsoft's update endpoint with the project's own update server. But telemetry from the editor is not the only telemetry that exists. The project's own documentation notes that some extensions send data to Microsoft independently — it cites the C# extension as an example — and recommends reviewing every setting tagged as using online services, since search queries, extension update checks, and background app updates all reach out by default unless disabled. VSCodium reduces the surface area considerably; it does not make the editor silent.

Performance is essentially a non-question. Same Electron base, same rendering, same extension host — the resource profile matches Visual Studio Code, and any slowdowns you encounter will come from the extensions you install rather than from the distribution itself. Migration is equally undramatic, though not automatic: VSCodium stores extensions in a separate directory from Visual Studio Code, so extensions won't carry over on their own, and settings.json and keybindings.json need to be copied from %APPDATA%\Code\User to %APPDATA%\VSCodium\User.

Development is active and follows upstream closely. Releases are numbered to match the VS Code version they're built from, with mid-2026 builds tracking VS Code 1.126. The maintainers also make small deliberate departures from upstream, such as removing the onboarding screen and disabling the built-in Copilot entry points — decisions consistent with the project's premise that the editor should stay out of the way.

The realistic audience is narrower than "everyone who uses VS Code." If you want Microsoft's integrated AI tooling and the full Marketplace catalog, the official build is the better fit. If you value a genuinely MIT-licensed binary, work under a policy that restricts telemetry, or simply prefer tooling you can audit, VSCodium delivers that with almost no learning curve.

Key Features of VSCodium

The Same Editor Core, Without the Proprietary Layer

VSCodium is compiled from Microsoft's open source vscode repository, so IntelliSense, multi-cursor editing, the integrated terminal, task running, and the debugging interface all behave exactly as documented for Visual Studio Code. Anything you've learned about VS Code transfers directly, and any tutorial written for it applies here — a meaningful practical benefit, since the ecosystem of guides and community answers is enormous.

Telemetry Off by Default

Rather than asking you to hunt through settings after installation, VSCodium ships with crash reporting and telemetry switched off. The project also recommends filtering settings by the usesOnlineServices tag to review what else reaches the network — including natural-language search, extension auto-updates, and background app updates — all of which can be turned off. For Windows users on managed or air-gapped machines, that combination makes the editor considerably easier to justify to a security team.

Extensions via the Open VSX Registry

VSCodium's extension panel is wired to Open VSX rather than the Visual Studio Marketplace. Searching, installing, and updating work the same way, and the catalog covers the majority of widely used language servers, themes, formatters, and linters. When something you need isn't published there, the usual fallback is downloading the .vsix file directly and installing it from disk. Expect occasional gaps rather than a wholesale absence.

Flexible Windows Installation Options

The Windows release includes a user installer that doesn't require administrator rights, a system installer for machine-wide deployment, and a plain .zip for running the editor from a folder without installing anything. There are also MSI packages in two variants — one with automatic updates enabled and one with updates disabled, which is useful for controlled corporate rollouts. ARM64 builds are published alongside the x64 versions, and the editor is available through Windows package managers including winget and Chocolatey.

Portable Mode

VSCodium supports the same portable mode as Visual Studio Code, following the standard instructions on Windows. Placing your data folder alongside the extracted application keeps settings, extensions, and state self-contained, which is convenient for USB drives, shared workstations, or keeping separate configurations for separate projects.

Interface Font Controls Not Found Upstream

One of the few places where VSCodium adds rather than removes is typography. Recent builds introduced experimental settings for adjusting workbench font size globally and setting the font family and size independently for the sidebar, status bar, editor tabs, bottom panel, and activity bar. It's a small addition, but a long-requested one, and it's genuinely useful on high-resolution Windows displays where the default interface text can feel undersized.

VSCodium makes the most sense for developers who already like Visual Studio Code and want the same tool under an unambiguously open license with data collection reduced to a minimum. The trade-off is real and worth weighing honestly: a smaller extension registry, no Microsoft-licensed debuggers or remote development extensions, and a manual step or two when migrating an existing setup. If those constraints don't touch your workflow, there is very little friction in switching, and the cost of finding out is a few minutes with a portable build.

How to Download and Install VSCodium on Windows

VSCodium is distributed as free, open source software with no account, license key, or subscription involved. Windows builds are published as EXE installers, MSI packages, and portable ZIP archives, and the project is also listed with package managers such as winget and Chocolatey. Choose the format that fits how you work: the user installer for a standard personal setup, the MSI for managed environments, or the ZIP if you would rather not install anything at all.

How to Download VSCodium

1. Select the download button on this page.

2. Continue to the verified download source.

3. Choose the package that matches your setup — the user installer for a per-account install, the system installer or MSI for a machine-wide install, or the ZIP for portable use.

4. Select the build matching your processor architecture, x64 or ARM64, if both are offered.

5. Save the file to an accessible folder and wait for the download to finish before opening it.

How to Install VSCodium

1. Open the downloaded installer.

2. Approve the Windows User Account Control prompt if it appears. The user installer generally does not require administrator rights; the system installer and MSI packages do.

3. Review the license terms and the installation options presented by the setup.

4. Adjust the installation location or optional shortcuts and file associations if you want something other than the defaults.

5. Complete the setup and open VSCodium.

If you downloaded the ZIP instead, no installation takes place. Extract the archive to a folder you intend to keep, then run the application executable from inside it. Place the folder somewhere permanent if you plan to store settings locally.

Getting Started with VSCodium

1. Bring over your existing setup. If you are moving from Visual Studio Code, copy settings.json and keybindings.json from %APPDATA%\Code\User to %APPDATA%\VSCodium\User. Extensions are stored separately and need to be reinstalled.

2. Reinstall your extensions. Search for them in the extensions panel, which is connected to Open VSX. For anything missing, obtain the .vsix file from the publisher and install it from disk.

3. Review the online-service settings. Filter the settings page with the usesOnlineServices tag to see what still connects outward, including update checks and search, and disable anything you would rather keep offline.

4. Enable the terminal command if you use one. Running the shell command installation from the command palette lets you open files and folders in the editor directly from a terminal window.