View all IDE Alternatives
Best Free Alternatives to JetBrains Rider 2025.3
Stop paying $0 (Personal/Hobby) / $149/yr (Commercial Individual). Discover professional-grade tools that won't break your budget.
Category: IDEVerified for 2025
Top Recommended Replacements
VS Code (with C# Dev Kit)
FREETop Free Alternative
Why we like it
Industry-standard; lightweight and fast; the C# Dev Kit provides essential project management; the 2025 'Copilot Workspace' update offers highly competitive AI-assisted coding.
Keep in mind
Requires multiple extensions to match Rider's out-of-the-box 'Pro' features; refactoring on massive monorepos can be less 'intelligent' than JetBrains' engine.
Cursor
FREEBest AI-Native Alternative
Why we like it
An AI-first fork of VS Code; its 'Composer' feature can generate entire .NET microservices across multiple files; natively understands project context via a built-in RAG engine.
Keep in mind
The most advanced AI models (Claude 3.5/GPT-4o) require a monthly subscription; lacks the deep static analysis stability of Rider for enterprise-scale .NET codebases.
Zed
FREEPerformance King Alternative
Why we like it
Built in Rust for near-zero latency; natively supports 'Agentic Editing'; significantly faster indexing of large .NET solutions than Rider; utilizes 1/3 of the RAM.
Keep in mind
Still building out its .NET-specific ecosystem; lacks the advanced visual debugging and profiling tools (dotTrace/dotMemory) integrated into Rider.
MonoDevelop (Archived)
FREELegacy Choice (Not Recommended)
Why we like it
Historically significant for Linux development; open-source.
Keep in mind
Effectively discontinued; lacks support for modern .NET 8/9/10; significant security and stability risks in 2025 environments.