The absence of any mention of the VSCodium Marketplace is highly misleading.

[romanr]

VS Codium is presented as "Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VS Code"

That phrase and the entire website imply that it is just VS Code, only without telemetry. It comes with its own marketplace, which appears to be filled with plugins, yet it becomes confusing and difficult to realise that this is not the same marketplace when you have been led to believe that this is just VS Code without telemetry.

• The reason VSCode won the race against Atom and why it is popular lies in its architecture and plugin system in particular.
• It is unlikely that someone would use it without installing any additional plugins. Without plugins, it is a text editor, of which there are plenty available.
• The plugins found in the VSCodium default marketplace are mostly outdated and have names similar to those in the VS Code marketplace. Installing and using them leads to a frustrating experience; through trial and error, users must realise that these are not the same as those in VSCode.
• This has been an issue since at least 2020: #519, #1604, and even today people remain confused (#2255).
• You may argue that users should be aware of the marketplace differences before downloading, but this is not mentioned on the website.
• Not everyone upgrades and copies plugins from VSCode. You are more likely to switch to and try VSCodium when setting up a new computer from a clean state.

Personally, I have been trying to switch to VS Codium for a long time and found that web development plugins were not always working as they should or that some were unavailable, which made me switch back and forth between the two.

Then, after using Swift development in VS Code, I decided to do the same in VSCodium. In the Marketplace, I found a plugin that looked extensive, simply called "Swift," which was strangely last updated five months ago. I spent quite some time entering "Swift" and searching the Marketplace, puzzled as to why other plugins did not show up. As a last resort, I decided to copy the plugin ID from VS Code, but still couldn't find it. I Googled whether VSCodium uses a different marketplace and found #2255.

I don't see how else user may know about this difference. Some people have good memory or remember exact plugin names, and then they still have to make this "discovery" only after downloading, installing and trying to find plugins.

🧙

While VS Codium tries to bring "balance to the force" by being a clean alternative to VSCode, it wasting of countless hours kind of defeats that good.

[daiyam]

You may argue that users should be aware of the marketplace differences before downloading, but this is not mentioned on the website.

I've never released that there was no mention of it on the website. I'm currently testing a new one (https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/discussions/2358). There is mention of it, but is it enough? And the documentation found on this repo can be directly browsed on the new website. It includes the Extensions + Marketplace section.

I agree that the different marketplace can be confusing for new users but there is nothing we can do since it's a licensing issue. The Visual Studio Marketplace is limited to only MS products and even some of there extensions.

Then, after using Swift development in VS Code, I decided to do the same in VSCodium. In the Marketplace, I found a plugin that looked extensive, simply called "Swift," which was strangely last updated five months ago. I spent quite some time entering "Swift" and searching the Marketplace, puzzled as to why other plugins did not show up. As a last resort, I decided to copy the plugin ID from VS Code, but still couldn't find it.

About the Swift extension, on OpenVSX, it has be published by open-vsx so not by the author, because they don't support OpenVSX, yet. There a big version difference 1.11.4 vs 2.3.20250501, I can see the problem. There is an old issue about that https://github.com/swiftlang/vscode-swift/issues/90

I agree with you @romanr that the experience isn't as good as Visual Studio Code, sorry about that. But it is mostly out of hand (license issue, author support). If you can add a comment on how to improve the new website, it would be great ;)

I've added the new subsection Using the "VSIX Manager" Extension, it might be able to help you.

[romanr]

I didn't know what VSIX is and looking at linked page about extension it's similar story again. Burden on knowledge. Known to someone so good they think it's as clear to whole world.

The VSIX Manager extension provides a powerful and user-friendly interface for managing .vsix files directly within VSCodium. Its author is the main maintainer of VSCodium ;)

It is particularly beneficial for:

Support for Multiple Marketplaces: Seamlessly install and manage extensions from several marketplaces at the same time, allowing access to a broader range of extensions.

It should be something like this instead:

Use VS Code marketplace and any others with this extension.

[romanr]

In case it sounds like it, I'm not being a spiteful critic and truly wish for VSCodium to flourish.

The new website looks much better and allows for clearer messaging. I fail to see how it informs visitors about the extension store difference. Was anything changed in copy or presentation specifically to address the store difference?

The big question is, is it possible to have the VS Code Store configured as the default? Is it a legal issue or an existential one? Otherwise, can it be presented as an option during the first run? Similar to how, during an OS installation, the user is asked to choose or confirm the default browser.

[daiyam]

The big question is, is it possible to have the VS Code Store configured as the default? Is it a legal issue or an existential one? Otherwise, can it be presented as an option during the first run? Similar to how, during an OS installation, the user is asked to choose or confirm the default browser.

It's a license issue. (https://www.gitpod.io/blog/open-vsx) Last year, I have been contacted to remove the full configuration on how to switch to MS marketplace (it's Visual Studio Code license issue since the config is taken from there). Now, even if you switch to MS marketplace, some extensions will check the editor that they are running into (especially MS extensions).

[daiyam]

The new website looks much better and allows for clearer messaging. I fail to see how it informs visitors about the extension store difference. Was anything changed in copy or presentation specifically to address the store difference?

The documentation pages aren't there on the old website but were available on this repo in the docs folder. I've made them more accessible. There is a whole section about extensions and marketplace (Extensions + Marketplace)

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