VSCodium
Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VS Code
This is not a fork. This is a repository of scripts to automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely-licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration.
Table of Contents
Download/Install
More info / helpful tips are here.
Install with Brew (Mac)
If you are on a Mac and have Homebrew installed:
brew install --cask vscodiumNote for macOS users: if you can't open the App, please read the following troubleshooting.
Install with Windows Package Manager (WinGet)
If you use Windows and have Windows Package Manager installed:
winget install vscodiumInstall with Chocolatey (Windows)
If you use Windows and have Chocolatey installed (thanks to @Thilas):
choco install vscodiumInstall with Scoop (Windows)
If you use Windows and have Scoop installed:
scoop bucket add extras
scoop install vscodiumInstall with snap (GNU/Linux)
VSCodium is available in the Snap Store as Codium, thanks to the help of the Snapcrafters community. If your GNU/Linux distribution has support for snaps:
snap install codium --classicInstall with Package Manager (GNU/Linux)
You can always install using the downloads (deb, rpm, tar) on the releases page, but you can also install using your favorite package manager and get automatic updates. @paulcarroty has set up a repository with instructions here. Any issues installing VSCodium using your package manager should be directed to that repository's issue tracker.
Install on Arch Linux
VSCodium is available in AUR as package vscodium-bin, maintained by @binex-dsk. An alternative package vscodium-git, maintained by @cedricroijakkers, is also available should you wish to compile from source yourself.
Flatpak Option (GNU/Linux)
VSCodium is (unofficially) available as a Flatpak app here and the build repo is here. If your distribution has support for flatpak, and you have enabled the flathub repo:
flatpak install flathub com.vscodium.codium
flatpak run com.vscodium.codiumBuild
Build instructions can be found here
Why Does This Exist
This repository contains build files to generate free release binaries of Microsoft's VS Code. When we speak of "free software", we're talking about freedom, not price.
Microsoft's releases of Visual Studio Code are licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contain telemetry/tracking. According to this comment from a Visual Studio Code maintainer:
When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.
When you clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a "clean" build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license
This repo exists so that you don't have to download+build from source. The build scripts in this repo clone Microsoft's vscode repo, run the build commands, and upload the resulting binaries to GitHub releases. These binaries are licensed under the MIT license. Telemetry is disabled.
If you want to build from source yourself, head over to Microsoft's vscode repo and follow their instructions. This repo exists to make it easier to get the latest version of MIT-licensed VS Code.
Microsoft's build process (which we are running to build the binaries) does download additional files. Those packages downloaded during build are:
- Pre-built extensions from the GitHub:
- From Electron releases (using gulp-atom-electron)
- electron
- ffmpeg
More Info
Documentation
For more information on getting all the telemetry disabled and tips for migrating from Visual Studio Code to VSCodium, have a look at this Docs page.
Extensions and the Marketplace
According to the VS Code Marketplace Terms of Use, you may only install and use Marketplace Offerings with Visual Studio Products and Services. For this reason, VSCodium uses open-vsx.org, an open source registry for VS Code extensions. See the Extensions + Marketplace section on the Docs page for more details.
Please note that some Visual Studio Code extensions have licenses that restrict their use to the official Visual Studio Code builds and therefore do not work with VSCodium. See this note on the Docs page for what's been found so far and possible workarounds.
How are the VSCodium binaries built?
If you would like to see the commands we run to build vscode into VSCodium binaries, have a look at the workflow files in .github/workflows for Windows, GNU/Linux and macOS. These build files call all the other scripts in the repo. If you find something that doesn't make sense, feel free to ask about it on Gitter.
The builds are run every day, but exit early if there isn't a new release from Microsoft.
Supported Platforms
The minimal version is limited by the core component Electron, you may want to check its platform prerequisites.
- macOS (
zip,dmg) OS X 10.10 or newer x64 - macOS (
zip,dmg) macOS 11.0 or newer arm64 - GNU/Linux x64 (
deb,rpm,AppImage,tar.gz) - GNU/Linux x86 (
deb,rpm,tar.gz) (up to v1.35.1) - GNU/Linux arm64 (
deb,tar.gz) - GNU/Linux armhf (
deb,tar.gz) - Windows 10 / Server 2012 R2 or newer x64
- Windows 10 / Server 2012 R2 or newer x86
- Windows 10 / Server 2012 R2 or newer arm64
Donate
If you would like to support the development of VSCodium, feel free to send BTC to 3PgjE95yzBDTrSPxPiqoxSgZFuKPPAix1N.
Special thanks to:
| @jaredreich | for the logo |
| @PalinuroSec | for CDN and domain name |
 |
for providing a Mac mini M1 |