MonoDevelop Alternatives Now That the IDE Is Discontinued

MonoDevelop is dead. The mono/monodevelop repository was archived by its owner on October 4, 2021, and its notice says the project has not been built nor maintained since January 2020. The last stable release, per Wikipedia, was 7.6.9.22 on September 21, 2018, and it cannot be installed on Ubuntu 22.04 or later.

Its descendants are gone too. Visual Studio for Mac, a rebranded MonoDevelop, lost support after August 31, 2024, per Microsoft's retirement page. On August 27, 2024 Microsoft handed the Mono project to WineHQ and told active Mono users to migrate to modern .NET, Phoronix reported. So the real job is moving to a .NET IDE or editor that is maintained today.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

JetBrains Rider

Rider is now the main full .NET IDE for Linux, which was MonoDevelop's home turf. The installation guide lists Windows 10 and 11, macOS 15 and 26, and Linux distributions such as Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04, Fedora 43 and 44 and Debian 13, on x86_64 or arm64. It bundles its own runtime, so no Java or Mono install is needed.

You get what MonoDevelop offered and much more: solution management, a debugger, unit testing, refactorings and NuGet tools in one window. Hobby, learning and open source use is free on the Rider store. Our Rider alternatives page compares it with the other options below.

Best for: Former MonoDevelop users on Linux or macOS who want a complete IDE rather than an editor with extensions.

Pricing:

• Non-commercial: free (learning, open source without commercial benefit, content creation, hobby)
• Individual commercial: $169 first year, $135 second, $101 from the third year
• Organizations: $519 per user per year

Watch out for:

• It is heavy. The system requirements ask for 8 GB of RAM with 3 GB free for the IDE, a 4-core CPU and 10 GB of disk.
• The free licence collects anonymous usage data, and detailed code-related data is on by default until you disable it, per the store page.

Official site: JetBrains Rider.

VS Code with C# Dev Kit

When Microsoft retired Visual Studio for Mac, the first replacement it named was VS Code with C# Dev Kit. The extension runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and adds a solution view, Roslyn-based IntelliSense and a test explorer for xUnit, NUnit, MSTest and bUnit, per its Marketplace listing.

It assumes modern .NET. The listing asks for the .NET 10 SDK, which fits Microsoft's advice to move off Mono. VS Code itself is free, and version 1.145 shipped on November 4, 2026, per Microsoft's release notes.

Best for: Developers porting Mono-era projects to .NET 10 who want Microsoft-supported tools on any desktop.

Pricing:

• VS Code: free
• C# Dev Kit: free for individuals, academia and open source, on Visual Studio Community terms; included with Visual Studio Professional and Enterprise subscriptions for organizations

Watch out for:

• Old projects may not load. The listing says .NET Framework, WPF and Windows Forms projects are not supported.
• Telemetry is on in VS Code by default until you set telemetry.telemetryLevel to off, per the FAQ.

Official site: VS Code with C# Dev Kit.

ReSharper for VS Code

This is JetBrains' C# engine packaged as an extension for VS Code, Cursor and other compatible editors. It left public preview in March 2026, and the launch post lists inspections, quick-fixes, C#, Razor, Blazor and XAML refactorings, a Solution Explorer and unit testing.

A debugger followed in 2026.2, built on the same engine as Rider, according to JetBrains. For a MonoDevelop user that means a lighter setup than Rider with much of its code analysis.

Best for: People who want Rider-grade analysis but prefer a small editor, or who already live in VS Code.

Pricing:

• Free for learning, hobby and non-commercial projects
• Commercial: paid, included in ReSharper, dotUltimate and All Products Pack licences

Watch out for:

• The debugger is early. JetBrains says legacy .NET Framework launches such as WPF can fail, and only one C# debugger can be active, so C# Dev Kit's must be disabled.
• Rider-only features such as its database and profiling tools are not included.

Official site: ReSharper for VS Code.

VSCodium

MonoDevelop was LGPL software that shipped in Linux distributions. VSCodium is the closest thing in spirit today: MIT-licensed builds of VS Code with telemetry disabled, available through Snap, Flatpak and distro repositories, per vscodium.com. Release 1.143.17232, based on VS Code 1.143.1, came out on October 28, 2026, per GitHub.

Extensions come from the Open VSX Registry, and heise reported that JetBrains publishes ReSharper for VS Code there too, which gives VSCodium a C# engine with refactorings and tests.

Best for: Linux users who want an open source C# setup with no Microsoft licence or telemetry.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (MIT-licensed binaries)

Watch out for:

• The extensions doc says Microsoft's C# debugger only works with the official VS Code build, so debugging depends on a third-party engine such as ReSharper's.

Official site: VSCodium.

Visual Studio 2026 Community

Windows users who used MonoDevelop or Xamarin Studio should move to Visual Studio. It handles .NET Framework, WPF and Windows Forms projects, which C# Dev Kit does not support, and that matters for old Mono-era code. The Community page describes a free, fully featured IDE for students, open source and individual developers.

Small companies can use it too. Non-enterprise organizations may run it for up to five users, and unlimited users are allowed for classroom learning, academic research and open source contributions.

Best for: Windows developers maintaining older .NET Framework or WinForms projects first written in MonoDevelop.

Pricing:

• Community: free within the licence terms
• Professional: $45 per user per month on a monthly plan
• Enterprise: $250 per user per month on a monthly plan

Watch out for:

• It runs only on Windows. Mac users must use a Windows VM or Microsoft Dev Box, per the retirement page.
• Enterprises with more than 250 PCs or over $1 million in annual revenue cannot use Community for commercial work, per the pricing and Community terms.

Official site: Visual Studio 2026 Community.

Zed

Zed suits developers who used MonoDevelop mostly as a C# text editor. It is a native Rust editor on a GPU-rendered UI, per zed.dev,, without the project system of a full IDE. Its C# extension runs roslyn-language-server by default, with csharp-ls or OmniSharp as options.

The editor is open source and the Personal plan costs nothing. AI features work with your own API keys.

Best for: Linux and Mac users who want fast C# editing and build from the terminal with dotnet build.

Pricing:

• Personal: $0 forever, with your own API keys
• Pro: $10 per month with $5 of tokens included
• Business: $30 per seat per month

Watch out for:

• The C# docs mention no debugger, so you still need another tool to step through code.
• Zed needs a Vulkan GPU on Linux, which can be a problem on older machines that ran MonoDevelop fine.

Official site: Zed.

How to choose

Can you still use MonoDevelop

Only on an old system you do not want to update. MonoDevelop has had no maintenance since January 2020, Wikipedia notes it cannot be installed on Ubuntu 22.04 or later, and the Mono runtime under it now sits with WineHQ. Keep an old VM if you must open a legacy project once, but plan the move to modern .NET and one of the tools above.

Frequently asked questions