VS Code fork

Programmers don’t write their code in Word, but in special programs called editors. By far the most popular editor is called Visual Studio Code, VS Code for short, and comes from Microsoft. Its source code is freely accessible and may be copied and modified by anyone. That is exactly what some companies do: they take the complete copy, build in their own features, and sell the result under a new name. Such a spin-off is called a fork in the software world, meaning a branching. A VS Code fork is thus a standalone program that nevertheless stands on someone else’s foundation.

Why nobody builds their own editor from scratch

VS Code contains ten years of work by hundreds of developers. The editor handles dozens of programming languages, catches errors as you type, manages project folders, and connects to servers. Anyone wanting to build this from the ground up would be busy for years before even the first idea of their own could emerge. A fork saves these years entirely.

Even more important is user habit. Millions of programmers know every keyboard shortcut and have their extensions set up. A fork feels familiar to them from day one. A completely new program would first have to convince them to relearn everything, and that almost never succeeds.

Economically, this explains the boom of recent years. Startups like Cursor reached valuations in the billions within a short time, even though their own share of the program is relatively small. They don’t sell the editor, but the AI features within it. The foundation is free; the intelligence built on top of it costs subscription fees.

What happens technically during a fork

The source code of VS Code is publicly available on the platform GitHub. A company downloads the entire codebase and from then on continues working on its own version. Typically, deep modifications are then made: an AI assistant that rewrites entire files, or a sidebar that chats with the model. Such interventions go further than ordinary extensions would allow.

After that, the real problem begins, which developers call drift. Microsoft, after all, continues developing VS Code and regularly releases new versions. The fork must regularly incorporate these changes into its own, by now altered, version. The more the two sides differ, the more laborious this catching-up becomes.

A common misconception is that a fork may simply use everything alongside it. The open code is called Code – OSS; the finished Microsoft product additionally contains closed-source parts. The official extension marketplace is one of them, as are some debugging tools. Forks have to find substitutes for these, and Microsoft has in the past blocked competitors' access to these services.

Cursor, Windsurf, and Microsoft’s own competition

The best-known examples are called Cursor and Windsurf. Both look like VS Code but add an AI that independently writes and edits code. Older forks such as VSCodium pursue a different goal: they remove the parts with which Microsoft collects usage data. So a fork doesn’t always have to involve artificial intelligence.

In business news, the term usually comes up when money is involved. Acquisition offers for Windsurf or large funding rounds for Cursor are regularly reported. This always raises the same question: how stable is a business model whose foundation belongs to a direct competitor? After all, Microsoft sells its own AI tool for the very same editor with GitHub Copilot.

For you as a user, the difference is barely noticeable in everyday use. You install a program that looks and feels like VS Code, just with more AI features. Anyone learning to program themselves can try out all these variants for free. It is usually only the forks' extended features that cost a monthly fee.