Visual Studio Code — The Complete Guide: A Free Editor for Scripts, Python and LaTeX
Visual Studio Code is the most widely used code editor today, and it is free for private and commercial use. The editor itself is fairly light, and everything else comes from extensions: Python, Jupyter notebooks, LaTeX, G-code, CSV and JSON files and more. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Visual Studio Code
Microsoft
Free code editor with a huge extension library, built-in terminal, Git and debugger — for Python, scripts, CSV, LaTeX and more.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Completion and navigation — smart suggestions, go to definition and error checking through language servers.
- Built-in terminal — run scripts and commands without leaving the editor.
- Git and debugger — review changes, commit, and watch variables at run time.
- Remote work — edit files directly on a compute server over SSH.
- Extension library — covering almost every language and file format an engineer meets.
Telemetry, licence and security
Microsoft’s binary is distributed under a proprietary licence and sends telemetry by default; you can reduce it in the settings. If you want the same editor without Microsoft branding, use VSCodium. GitHub Copilot is a separate service with a limited free tier. Tip: extensions run with your own permissions, so install only from publishers you recognise.
Related tools
For a build without telemetry — VSCodium. For a faster, lighter editor — Zed. For large Python projects — PyCharm.
VSCodium
VSCodium project
The VS Code editor as a fully open build — Python, MATLAB, C, Markdown and more, without telemetry.
Get it from the vendor
Zed
Zed Industries
Very fast open-source code editor with built-in LSP, real-time collaborative editing and optional AI.
Get it from the vendor
PyCharm
JetBrains
Full Python IDE with debugger, testing, virtual environments and Jupyter — the core is free, including commercial use.
Get it from the vendor
Notepad++
Don Ho
A light text and code editor for Windows — input files for analysis programs, data files and scripts.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
If you need one editor for scripts, simulation input files and LaTeX reports, VS Code is the safest place to start.