> Microsoft has a fork of VS Code called Azure Data Studio

It's pretty buggy, and they haven't made much progress on fixing the bugs. I've used it pretty much since it came out - I do Microsoft SQL Server & Postgres work on my Mac - and the thousands of open issues on a relatively new product say something:

https://github.com/microsoft/azuredatastudio/issues

I've also had queries (usually really large ones) run without issue in SSMS but crash Azure Data Studio. The only advantages that Azure Data Studio really has over SSMS is that it's a lot snappier (unless you're working with really large queries) and it has a dark mode. Other than that SSMS seems better in just about every way still.

SSMS is also a multi-GB install full of stuff not useful to anyone who isn't a 100% fulltime DBA versus Azure Data Studio is barely more than the usual Electron app install footprint and leaves the lesser needed functions to plugins/extensions, and ADS supports cross platform work (the above commenter mentions working on macOS) where SSMS is not cross platform at all. Azure Data Studio has plenty of advantages over SSMS.

As a developer, I understand my need to have all 20-120+ GBs of Visual Studio installed, but between SSDT in Visual Studio and Azure Data Studio, I am happy to avoid spending all that hard drive space on SSMS for features I don't need as a developer.

I've been using Azure Data Studio for a few tasks over the last year or so, and it's worked fine. Just another data point. I'm running it under Linux, because SSMS is not available for Linux.

>and the thousands of open issues on a relatively new product say something:

That's generally a good thing. If a product had no issues that would mean that there's no uptick in usage.

Followup: Is there a VSCodium equivalent for that (reproducible build, no tracking)

I think there isn't, and if there is it would be illegal:

> You may not sublicense the Software Code or any use of it

https://github.com/microsoft/azuredatastudio/blob/main/LICEN...

To publish a version of Azure Data Studio with open-source binaries would fall under copy/modification rules, which are explicitly allowed in the license:

> Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") grants you a nonexclusive, perpetual, royalty-free right to use, copy, and modify the software code provided by us ("Software Code").

It would not be a sublicense.