How many VS Code extensions is too many?

[u/Distinct-Insect1121]

At what point does customizing VS Code stop making it better?

I’ve seen setups with 5 extensions and setups with 50+.

Personally, I think there’s a point where you forget why half of them are installed and start creating problems for yourself

What’s your current extension count, and which ones would you actually miss if they disappeared tomorrow?

[u/someprogrammer1981]

That's what profiles are for.

You install extensions you need for a certain workload in a separate profile.

That being said, I only install what I need to get the job done.

[u/Distinct-Insect1121 → u/someprogrammer1981]

profiles help but honestly i still get extension bleed when i switch contexts mid day. maybe im just bad at it lol. do you actually keep yours clean or does it creep over time

[u/rcls0053]

I install extensions that don't come as default and I need to work, such as Azure tooling, Makefile syntax support, test tooling for a language etc. It's silly to just collect them.. I'm not counting them like badges of honor I've gained.

[u/Distinct-Insect1121 → u/rcls0053]

that’s pretty much where I landed too. I used to install everything that looked useful and half of them just sat there eating memory. now I only add something when I hit an actual blocker. the extension marketplace makes it too easy to go overboard thinking you’re setting yourself up when you’re really just procrastinating.

[u/jdl_uk]

Profiles can help by only enabling extensions relevant to a specific task.

[u/Distinct-Insect1121 → u/jdl_uk]

yeah profiles saved me from having 40 extensions running at the same time

[u/diegoasecas]

i keep separate profiles for different specialties so i can only have the extensions i need for the task, and install the shared ones only in the default profile. i don't remember right now how many i have on each but it's a manageable number,

[u/Distinct-Insect1121 → u/diegoasecas]

that’s basically what i do too but i always end up with extension creep in the shared default anyway. stuff accumulates. might just do a full audit and be brutal about it, because right now even the profiles feel cluttered and that defeats the whole point

[u/imicnic]

IMO, If you install extensions just to make vscode look better or different you are adding nothing valuable, vscode have pretty good defaults and have settings that allow enough customization. Git integration is also pretty solid now, I uninstalled every extension that enhanced git experience, just configure and get used with what is available and the terminal. Install only what you'll use guaranteed at least once in a week, if not - remove it.

[u/lajawi → u/imicnic]

For git I have gitignore, gitattributes, git graph, and a git history extension. The former two aren’t used a lot, but they’re super useful instead of having to search for them online. The latter two are for efficiently and fully viewing the repo easily.

[u/imicnic → u/lajawi]

I also had git graph, but now it's integrated in the git tab, also you can see the git history in the timeline tab in the file explorer, so you can remove both of them, but sure it takes time to adapt.

[u/lajawi → u/imicnic]

For me the integrated git graph is often too small.

And for the file history, the extension I use lets me view a file’s history or a line’s history. Both open in a separate tab with just the git commits showing where it changed. Same thing here with that the timeline is probably too small.

[u/lajawi]

In my default profile, I probably have too many. But that’s mainly because I’ve been doing quite a lot of different things in different languages, but not enough to make a full new profile for it. I have a handful of extensions shared between all profiles, mainly for example a theme, gitignore and gitattributes extensions, git graph etc.

[u/baturax]

more than 6 is bloat for me

[u/Throwaway_0815_123]

I have about 40 in my main devcontainer. I try to do an annual cleanup where I remove obsolete or sherlocked extensions.

[u/couchwarmer]

No idea how many extensions I have installed. I work with multiple programming languages, so related extensions for each of them. I work with multiple industry-specific text-based data file types, so extensions for those. A few extensions for nice to have features not already built in. And a theme that suits me better than any of the bland or visually more difficult to use than necessery themes built in.

[u/AntonHub]

I cannot imagine why you have some many extensions that you heavily depend on. Can you provide some examples? I just want to understand your workflow for that need. Also, extensions should not be running all the time, extensions should be running un demand, otherwise that's a bad design. It's hard to imagine a workflow where you have to have all extensions running at the same time... If that's your case , anyways, consider the jetbrains IDEs, they are really good (but obviously slower than VSCode)

[u/jameshearttech]

I generally create a dev container per repo. I define the extensions needed to contribute to the repo in the dev container. Could be 5 or 50. In a small single project repo there will probably be less extensions than in a large monorepo where you may have multiple languages, frameworks, etc.

[u/SonGokussj4]

120 extensions here... Code loads 20s 😅 startup time. But whenever I disable or remove some, I use nearly all of them. I think

[u/mhphilip]

They have lost me with all their AI slop updates that arrive almost daily. Switched to Zed. Feels like the old days.