Oh woah this looks great.
Quite amazing they put the effort into this for Postgres instead of SQL Server. The demand must be a lot higher.
There is already a Microsoft SQL server extension for VS Code and this looks to effectively be a clone of it. After giving this a quick spin, it looks and feels the same as the SQL server extension, with the same menus, dialogs, etc. The SQL server extension I believe is what formed the basis of the now-deprecated Azure Data Studio (which was a VS code fork).
See here for the SQL server extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-mssql...
That’s correct—I’m the lead PM for the SQL extension in Visual Studio Code. We’ve been working closely with the PostgreSQL team; in fact, their extension is essentially a fork of ours, as you pointed out correctly.
Just to clarify on the Azure Data Studio (ADS) point: the MSSQL extension includes many of the core features from ADS, but our strategy is slightly different and focused on a modern, developer-first experience.
Here’s the link to our open roadmap—would love to hear your thoughts: https://aka.ms/vscode-mssql-roadmap
Since most databases expose similar schema views it shouldn't be too complicated. Feels like JetBrains has been doing this for a long time
I'm a developer advocate at Microsoft, and from my perspective, both teams have been putting in a bunch of effort improving their extensions. I participated in usability studies with both the teams behind the SQL Server extension and new PostgreSQL extension, and then once they were ready, I participated in bug bashes.
Both teams seem to very much want developers to enjoy their tools, so please do send them feedback on what you need out of the tools.
Follow Carlos Robles if you want SQL server extension news: https://www.linkedin.com/in/croblesm/
Follow Joshua Johnson for PostgreSQL server extension news: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsonjoshuae/
Thank you so much, Pamela! You’ve been an amazing and key partner in our journey—your feedback and support have truly made a difference.
The problem customers have with these Shiny New Things that Microsoft keeps trying get us to switch to is that they drop features and entire product suites on the floor, even those that aren't officially deprecated and have no equivalent replacements. It's common to see SSRS, SSIS, SSAS in multidimensional mode, etc... simply forgotten about like they no longer exist.
Not to mention that SQL "SDK-style" projects only work properly in VS Code, so Visual Studio users are left out in the cold having to deal with an incomplete, half-baked solution.
Thanks for your feedback! I’m a PM on the SQL Experiences team, and if you’re open to it, I’d be happy to connect you with the PM leading the SSDT (VS) effort.
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, and we can go from there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/croblesm/
I totally agree and I beg you to consider this feedback if you are reading @pamelafox.
The biggest problem with the usability of Microsoft products today is short-sighted thinking. New features, platforms, frameworks etc are launched and then forgotten about just a few years later with no effort to tie into the groundwork of what came before.
You might think this is only a problem for old customers who are already accustomed to the old technologies, but that's not true: it burdens new customers too. There's a few reasons for this that I can think of.
1) It's hard for new customers to know what technologies they should be reaching for in what situations when there's so many different choices.
2) It's hard to find the right documentation for the technology you've picked because you have to browse through a ton of out-of-date documentation that wrongly refers to the deprecated technologies and it's not clear what the current recommendations are.
3) The new stuff is often built without consideration for the ways of thinking that the underlying platform was built with. Thus, you end up with weird idiosyncrasies as you move from one technology to another, which make it hard to learn and hard to use.
4) When you replace the old technologies you lose the benefit of community knowledge on platforms like Stack Overflow, you lose the ability to look at existing open-source projects for guidance, etc. You are basically going into uncharted territory where there are no clearly established patterns in the wild.
So, even new users coming on to your platform suffer from these deficits. That's not to say I don't appreciate all the work on these new powerful technologies like VS Code and .NET Platform and so on, but I think a more long-sighted vision for these products would go a long way. And it's not just a matter of looking forward, since you never know what's going to happen in the future with a product as organizational priorities change. It's also a matter of looking backwards at what came before, at what groundwork was laid by previous efforts, and how it can be best taken advantage of and re-used for future efforts. That is the biggest missing piece at Microsoft today in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing this thoughtful feedback.I’d be happy to connect you with the PM leading that area, so your insights can be heard directly—feel free to reach out if you’re interested.
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, and we can go from there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/croblesm/
I speculate that it's because the MSSQL tools have been maintained as part of Azure Data Studio, and were in better shape.
ADS is being sunset, and I was surprised when trying to install the Postgres extension on VS Code to find that it had its last meaningful contribution 6 years ago [0]. It couldn't work on newer VS Code versions.
I use ADS with both Postgres and MSSQL, prior to this announcement, I kept using ADS because there was nothing to migrate to.
[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-postgresql/commits/maste...
You’re right—the old PostgreSQL extension was outdated. The team recently forked our modern MSSQL extension (I’m the Lead PM) to build a new one for PostgreSQL. It’s a fresh start, built on the same foundation we’re actively improving.
We’re still working on bringing over some Azure Data Studio features to the VS Code extension, especially around import/export (like flat file and DACPAC). I’d love to hear what else you think is missing.
If you’re interested, here’s our open roadmap: https://aka.ms/vscode-mssql-roadmap
They built the postgres plugin in a way that nobody could usefully contribute to unless they worked at msft - like the rest of ADS the level of control they tried to maintain meant nobody wanted to work on it.
That is seemingly true of a bunch of tools. I am using an official Microsoft Python library - the repo is public on GitHub, but all of the CI or other backend integration is behind the Microsoft curtain, so it is impossible for the public to actually participate. The cherry on top is that the team that used to support the tool was impacted, so now nobody can maintain the thing.
I am curious: Which library?
The SQL Server driver for Django. Originally maintained by someone from Nebraska, Microsoft then took ownership of the project (now lives under the Microsoft GH organization). The last commit was 11 months ago. Has not supported a current release of Django for over a year now. There are almost certainly security implications for sticking on the now deprecated Django 5.0. The issues are begging for anyone at Microsoft to do something. Several pull requests sitting there with the ostensibly required updates to make it compatible with the latest Django LTS.
You can find workarounds, but it is an awful situation. Now the community is probably going to have to re-fork the library back to the public for maintenance.
I am clearly not a bean counter, but if Microsoft wants its database to win against the free options, they could do their best to ensure popular libraries can seamlessly connect.
https://github.com/microsoft/mssql-django/issues/418#issueco...
Microsoft also loves to sideline some author so some PM can say "look at this OSS project we now control!!!!" and then add controls and processes that nobody gets to even know about except for MSFT and then weird, inevitably a few years later its just a disaster area.
They already have the SQL Server Management Studio[1], which seems to cover similar ground?
I'm assuming they might want to move SSMS to VSCode in time, so trying it out by covering new ground, PostgreSQL, makes sense to me.
[1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ssms/sql-server-management...
No, it has a different purpose; VS Code extension and the former ADS are targeted for development, while SSMS is for server and database administration. I am a heavy user of SSMS and can do everything I ever need there, I don't use the VS Code extension for MS SQL even if I have it installed and I use VS Code quite a lot. This is because I am also acting as a backup and supervisor for our DBA team, so I am involved in DBA work.
SSMS is also for Development, I've been using it for that for 20 years
Same here, much better than the VS tooling for SQL Server, including all the Transact-SQL support.
I still miss the tool it replaced, SQL Query Analyzer/Profiler. To this day it's my favourite SQL 'IDE'.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2005...
Those features/tools are still part of SSMS today.
Yeah, it's specifically the old applications I miss.
They were really well designed, incredibly snappy and responsive. When SSMS was launched it was really slow and clunky on my computer.
I switched to Postgres around that time so I'm 20 years out of touch at this point.
I just said what Microsoft is targeting the tools for, not how they can be used.
I agree, I work on an application with a lot of business logic in SQL and SSMS ends up being my primary development IDE because of that.
Lead PM for SQL in VS Code here. I’m glad to hear SSMS is working well for you! I’d love to better understand why VS Code doesn’t meet your needs in the same way.
We’re actively working to improve the experience, and learning what works for you in SSMS would be incredibly valuable.
But it's only for Windows
In my experience, MSSQL shops are far more likely to be using Windows already than PGSQL shops, so that's just yet another reason for why PGSQL was a good first choice for a VSCode plugin IMHO.
I wish there was something similar for SQLite.
There are several sqlite vs code extensions and this one's my favorite: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=yy0931.v...
SQL server is in "cash cow mode" at this point. Investing more into tooling is unlikely to increase revenues at this stage.
I can think of several improvements for Transact-SQL, starting with stored procedure packages.
The copilot integrations look sweet, as does the schema view. The MSSQL extension doesn't have those, but the rest of it looks similar to the Postgres one.
Lead PM for MSSQL extension in VS Code here. I’m glad to share that we have both features (Schema Designer, GitHub Copilot) into the MSSQL extension for VS Code. You can check out this end-to-end demo showcasing those capabilities: https://aka.ms/vscode-mssql-copilot-demo
As I’ve mentioned in a few other threads, the PostgreSQL team recently forked our MSSQL extension to kick off a fresh implementation for Postgres. It’s built on the same foundation we’re actively improving and evolving for both extensions.
Microsoft seems to be going all in on open source over the past 10-15 years.
From a consumer perspective, we're almost all benefiting.
From a business perspective, they get unpaid help and community brownie points.
> going all in on open source over the past 10-15 years.
Given that there are many Microsoft closed source extensions for VS Code, that cannot legally be used with the open source Version of VS Code, I would say they are not going all in. Knee deep maybe.
Because of the closed extensions situation, the open source part feels insincere. Sort of like a free plan up to 10 users and then pretty expensive situation. The purpose isn't the free plan, it's just an advertising measure to get people to where you really benefit eventually.
I recently called this (and other Microsoft behavior) out as being "fake" open source. The comment was highly controversial with quite a battle of up and down votes - so clearly not everyone agrees.
In my opinion, Microsoft wants the good vibes and PR that comes with open source, but they don't actually want to be open source. Its why many people still don't trust them in this arena.
Regarding fake open source, WSL2 comes to mind. It is entirely useless that it's open source except in one way, people can help Microsoft to replace Linux with Windows - for free.
At least they are making windows so bad that the incentive to go the other way around with Linux and wine looks better by the day. I personally made the transition last year. I have been playing with Linux since late 90s with dual boot, vms, wsl etc. But Linux never stuck as my main driver. I still don’t love it, but they managed to make me hate the windows experience so much that it feels natural to switch. I also have Mac, which I am using less and less for some other unidentified reason. Probably, that experience has degraded too but in more subtle ways.
Like Android for example?
Yes, Microsoft has an history, yet it isn't as if there is any big corporation doing full open source across all their products, the large majority only does the part that somehow brings good vibes, cuts down their own R&D costs, or is a kind of suble way to find out about possible new employees.
You're mixing up ideas.
Microsoft isn't "sincere" because it's just a business doing what businesses do, making money. They're not trying to be altruistic or principled. They're just doing business.
But I have personally benefited from this deal by having TypeScript and VS Code at my disposal.
I don't believe that all business is "just business". You have tobacco companies and Purdue Pharma on one end of the spectrum and, let's say, Mozilla Corporation and Valve (debatable but I think they're cool) on the other end. And, of course, large companies are kinda many different entities, really. Microsoft has a long history of dishonest behavior, some of it pretty sophisticated and with a long-term view. That makes it very hard to trust them, generally. Why is part of VS Code not FOSS anyway?
> Microsoft has a long history of dishonest behavior
Can you point out such recent behavior that isn't just echoing other peoples opinions from the anti-trust case from over two decades ago? It's been my experience that many people seem to "borrow" their opinion about Microsoft from things they've read rather than personal experience so we keep getting the same low-effort criticism ad nauseam.
VSCode's marketing was that it is an open source editor you could rely upon, complete with open source extensions for popular languages like Python. Then when once it became popular and vscodium was growing in popularity (a vscode fork), MS locked things down. Now the Python extensions are closed source, and MS has artificially prevented vscode forks from using those extensions. A bait and switch if I've ever seen one.
> VSCode's marketing
Point to this marketing. Here's the blog announcement on the 1.0 releases - what I can't find are any examples of Microsoft over-promising.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160422123116/https://code.visu...
> MS locked things down... and MS has artificially prevented vscode forks from using those extensions
Or like any growing and maturing project they established boundaries - one of which was that the plugin marketplace was proprietary, which is a perfectly reasonable position. Their existing and continued contributions to vscode are significant, so I think they can be allowed to keep some cards up their sleeves like the plugin marketplace or their Python extension. I'm just flabbergasted at this idea that somehow we're entitled to everything vscode-adjacent "just because", or that Microsoft is obligated to subsidize other billion-dollar business by giving them free features for their vscode forks.
> A bait and switch if I've ever seen one.
Where's the bait? Where's the switch? If the best you have is that they released a closed source plugin I'm going to bucket this as another borrowed opinion.
> Their existing and continued contributions to vscode are significant, so I think they can be allowed to keep some cards up their sleeves like the plugin marketplace or their Python extension.
It would have been fine if MS had started with their Python extension being proprietary, that would have been up front and transparent. Instead, they lured folks in (no small part due to open source), and once it became popular, they started turning the screws and making things proprietary and locking it down.
> I'm just flabbergasted at this idea that somehow we're entitled to everything vscode-adjacent "just because"
You're not arguing in good faith at this point. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask someone to make their intentions known up front do you? Instead MS waited until vscode became popular (partly because everything was open source) and then altering the deal Vader style closing off parts of vscode and extensions that were open. That doesn't feel particularly transparent.
> or that Microsoft is obligated to subsidize other billion-dollar business by giving them free features for their vscode forks.
I have no idea what you're talking about here. Vscodium is an entirely free and open source fork, no one makes any money from it afaik.
> Where's the bait? Where's the switch? If the best you have is that they released a closed source plugin I'm going to bucket this as another borrowed opinion.
They released the Python stack as fully open source. Then released the proprietary one, deprecating the open source one. Then made double certain that vscodium or any of the other forks could not use it at all, even if the use manually downloaded the extension. How is that not a bait and switch?
> It would have been fine if MS had started with their Python extension being proprietary
Except that never happened. Pyright was released first and was and continues to be open source. Pylance was built on Pyright but has never been open source. No promises or commitments were made otherwise. Deprecating the open source Python Language Server in favor of Pylance is also a perfectly reasonable and valid decision - the community was more than welcome to continue maintaining it, but most people I know continue to rely on Pylance.
> Instead, they lured folks in
Saying this doesn't make it true.
> Instead, they lured folks in (no small part due to open source), and once it became popular, they started turning the screws and making things proprietary and locking it down.
Microsoft has not once backtracked on anything vscode-related that's been open sourced. Trying to villianize them for not making everything open source is an argument with no legs.
> I don't think it is unreasonable to ask someone to make their intentions known up front do you?
They have. Point me to a single actual example of Microsoft operating in bad faith, that isn't them deciding to keep some parts of the ecosystem proprietary while 99% remains FOSS.
> Vscodium is an entirely free and open source fork
Microsoft and the vscode team is not making long-term decisions with vscodium in mind. But they are probably worried about Windsurf and Cursor, the latter of which (a billion-dollar company) was caught violating MS's TOS around the plugin ecosystem.
Microsoft has spent over a decade investing in, curating, and improving the vscode first-party plugin ecosystem and being a rather good steward. I think they're perfectly reasonable in keeping it to themselves. Creators are free to upload their plugins to any alternative marketplace. I don't see any arguments being made that can diminish the open source contribution they've made with code - oss just because parts of the branded vscode are proprietary.
> They released the Python stack as fully open source.
Again, no they didn't. Pyright open source. Pylance always closed source. PLS deprecated. But you're entitled to what you borrowed.
> Pyright was released first and was and continues to be open source. Pylance was built on Pyright but has never been open source.
No, the first Python extension that shipped with vscode 1.0 in 2016 was called the "Microsoft Python Language Server" and was based on the Jedi LSP. Below is the deprecation announcement of the Jedi language server in the Pylance launch post below.
> In the short-term, you will still be able to use the Microsoft Python Language Server as your choice of language server when writing Python in Visual Studio Code. > Our long-term plan is to transition our Microsoft Python Language Server users over to Pylance and eventually deprecate and remove the old language server as a supported option. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/python/announcing-pylance-fas...
> But they are probably worried about Windsurf and Cursor, the latter of which (a billion-dollar company) was caught violating MS's TOS around the plugin ecosystem.
If that were so, I would certainly understand. However, MS started closing vscode and the extensions years before Windsurf and Cursor (initial release in 2023). This was their business model all along get adoption in partly by leveraging the open source community, and then close things off slowly once they have a choke hold (similar to Android/AOSP). I could scarcely agree more that Windserf and Cursor are supremely sketchy and generally scummy companies.
Consider MS launch announcement that focuses on open source, extensibility, open community, and a promise to be transparent with their intentions (i.e., vision) and roadmap...
> From the beginning, we’ve striven to be as open as possible in our roadmap and vision for VS Code, and in November, we took that a step further by open-sourcing VS Code and adding the ability for anyone to make it better through submitting issues and feedback, making pull requests, or creating extensions.
https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2016/04/14/vscode-1.0/#_...
Except they weren't open and did a u-turn on the community a few years later. MS started closing sources and locked things down a few years later despite touting the benefits of being open and open source in the announcement above. Now they have architected the Python extension so it only runs on vscode, and will not run at all on any fork, which is pretty shady after promising transparency and openness.
You forgot to quote this important part:
> The new, free language server
Pylance isn't the same extension as what was originally shipped, it's an entirely different product. Your link backs up my argument, not yours. Releasing an open source project doesn't not obligate them to continue supporting that project indefinitely, and the decision to migrate to a closed-source plugin is a perfectly valid and reasonable decision. Disagreeing with it doesn't mean they've somehow magically violated some implicit obligation you think they owe "the community".
> MS started closing vscode and the extensions years
They never "started". The plugin marketplace and vscode - the proprietary version of "Code - OSS" - has always been proprietary and closed. At no point did they give you something and take it away. Deciding to release a closed-source replacement for an open-source tool is not the same thing, and it's bad faith to argue otherwise to fit your fundamentally flawed argument.
> This was their business model all along get adoption in partly by leveraging the open source community
>Consider MS launch announcement that focuses on open source, extensibility, open community
You're relying on hand-wavy assertions without any evidence to back it up.
> Except they weren't open and did a u-turn on the community a few years later.
Where's the u-turn? I don't see anything in this post that's not true in 2025. Microsoft offers a curated plugin marketplace that's proprietary to vscode, and they provide distribution and hosting for free without requiring anything from creators and users. Pylance continues to be free but closed, Code - OSS continues to be FOSS, vscode continues to be a proprietary version of Code - OSS, plugin authors continue to upload products free-of-charge, and users continue to benefit from that community that Microsoft has fostered.
They've firmly established what their role is in this relationship. There's never been ambiguity between what's vscode closed-source and what's code - oss, unless you've not put in the effort to find out.
Point to an actual, concrete example of where they've acted in bad faith, did a "u-turn", or reneged on a public statement rather than hand-wavy generalizations. It's on you if you've relied on second-hand HN comments and news headlines to build your opinion, and relying on misunderstanding of context isn't a convincing argument.
If eight years is recent enough, Microsoft moved its German office to Munich and got the city of Munich to shut down its Linux migration in return. Not exactly dishonest, but a power move to destroy the competition that I happen to be rooting for.
Personal experience is irrelevant if the facts are not in doubt. One of these is that Microsoft was a pretty bad actor when nobody reigned them in, and I was around at the time.
How can this be described as anything other than business? Local governments making concessions to businesses generating jobs and SALT is par for the course and Microsoft isn't special here.
> One of these is that Microsoft was a pretty bad actor when nobody reigned them in, and I was around at the time.
So was I (was working in Redmond at the time), and their behavior was no worse than what Apple or Google are up to today. The anti-trust case itself was 90% theater, Microsoft was let off with a slap on the wrist but somehow popular culture has decided it was much more devastating than it really was because it reinforces their "M$ bad" bias. It's hard for me not to chalk comments like this to the "borrowed" bucket rather than researched and well-informed opinion, and it just convinces me further than when it comes to Microsoft people are borrowing their opinions rather than earning them.
Yes, Microsoft made some dick moves over 25 years ago and paid for it. They continue to operate like every other business in 2025 despite being the largest company in the world by market cap. At some point folks can't keep pulling up this card like it's a wildcard-win-all.
It's a huge public company, it doesn't deserve sympathy. I don't trust them, for which I have reasons past and current, and I don't need to, there is no moral obligation. Won't anybody think of the poor highest valued company in the world?
It's not about "thinking of the poor company". It's about lazy low-effort, low-quality comments from people that are sharing their "opinions" that are really just regurgitated interpretations from other low-quality comments. Turtles all the way down.
It's the contemporary version of the second E [0], if you will.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
Also, given that they recently bought github, they have financial incentive to keep people there, who might upgrade to pro accounts or grow to need enterprise.
And most of us are invested in MSFT, so we benefit that way as well. (I don't hold any positions)
> Quite amazing they put the effort into this for Postgres instead of SQL Server.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
MS SQL server is a legacy system. I don't think any business would create a new database using SQL server unless, for some technical reason, they don't have any other option.
Azure SQL Database for a long while has been the most cost-effective way of running SQL Server as a PaaS database, and still is if you choose the DTU-based modes, making it a very attractive option. Combined with the rich feature set and maturity and reliability of SQL Server, it is hardly legacy; in fact it's very capable and continues to get new updates like vector operations.
I've helped create apps that support millions to hundreds of millions of revenue on Azure SQL Databases that cost at most a few hundred dollars per month. And you can get started with a S0 database for $15/mo which is absolutely suitable for production use for simple apps.
Unfortunately, I think Microsoft realized how good of a value the DTU-based model was, and has started pushing everyone to the vCore model, which dramatically increases the barrier to entry for Azure SQL Database, making PostgreSQL a much more attractive option. If Microsoft ever kills off the DTU purchasing model of Azure SQL Database, I likely won't be recommending or choosing Azure SQL Database at all going forward. It'll 100% be PostgreSQL.
Yeah, I remember that option - basic tier of DTU DB with 250GB of storage - free for one year, then continue for $15/m.
When the client brought some 3rd party expert and he advised rewriting to MySQL, I quickly did the math and it was like $60/m, without a free year.
We continued with DTU MSSQL with Prisma ORM and never regreted.
There is a parallel world, called enterprise. The enterprise people in this world, like enterprise software. They were born to be enterprise oriented. This is fine. Not everyone is like you and it's ok to use a robust product like MSSQL.
SQL Server is technically very, very good.
But they charge you an arm and a leg for the pleasure, but it can be worthwhile for enterprise.
I spent the early part of my career in MSSQL and the current part in Pg.
MSSQL is extremely, extremely capable as a database engine.
But it also costs an arm and a leg. People who haven't used it don't know just how capable it is.
The Express Edition is a SQL database engine with some limitations on CPU count and memory and missing SQL agent. It is free. I installed the version 2017 on some servers 7 years ago and they still run some supplier portal on it, that team was too lazy to even upgrade to newer versions.
I have worked with multiple ex-SQL Server engine devs and holy shit are they good.
SQL Server, like Oracle, is technically fantastic. They were both ahead of Postgres for a long time and many people would argue they still are.
The reason people don't use them more often is that they're not free or even inexpensive.
I mean they should be, they backed by huge corporation
plus they can take notes from Open source DB like postgress and improve their system better
The MS SQL Server engine is an improvement over the years of a branch that was always more technically advanced than Postgres. I don't think there is anything to steal from it.
You have it backwards. FOSS projects are still currently learning from SQL Server and Oracle. That may change in the next 5-10 years as Postgres has already become the lingua franca of the DB world.
Legal, compliance, high performance, and familiarity are all valid reasons. (I'm actually not a fan, but less opposed now that it can run on Linux)
SQL Server and Oracle are as actual as ever, regardless of the hate they get on FOSS circles.
>MS SQL server is a legacy system
that's every SQL server out there included Postgres. Is NoSQL considered as none-legacy?