Vscodium VS Code Fork

Vscodium is a community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft's VS Code editor without the proprietary telemetry, licensing, and branding. With over 26,000 stars as of 2026, Vscodium provides byte-for-byte identical functionality to VS Code but with MIT-licensed binaries built directly from the open-source VS Code repository (called vscode by Microsoft). The key difference between VS Code and Vscodium lies in the build process and included components: while the VS Code source code is open source under MIT, the official VS Code binaries distributed by Microsoft include proprietary additions (telemetry, tracking, brand assets, and extensions marketplace restrictions). Vscodium strips these proprietary elements and compiles clean binaries. Key features include: telemetry-free (no Microsoft telemetry, crash reporting, or usage tracking, respecting user privacy), MIT-licensed binaries (fully open-source binaries without proprietary components or licensing restrictions), open VSX registry (using the Eclipse Foundation's open VSX extension marketplace instead of the Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace, which has licensing restrictions for non-Microsoft VS Code builds), full extension compatibility (the vast majority of VS Code extensions work on Vscodium, with popular extensions like Python, Java, C++, Go, Rust, and themes available on open VSX), feature parity with VS Code (identical editor features including IntelliSense, debugging, Git integration, integrated terminal, and multi-cursor editing), cross-platform (Windows, macOS, and Linux with .deb, .rpm, .AppImage, Flatpak, Snap, and Homebrew packages), and update channels (stable and insider builds tracking VS Code releases).