15 Best VS Code Extensions That Will Make You a Faster Developer in 2026

I've been using VS Code since it launched in 2015. Over those 11 years, I've installed and uninstalled more extensions than I can count. The VS Code marketplace has over 50,000 extensions right now. Most of them are garbage. Some are duplicates of built-in features. Some haven't been updated since 2021 and will break your editor. A handful are genuinely great.

This list is the handful that survived my workflow. These aren't the extensions with the most downloads or the flashiest marketing pages. These are the ones that stayed installed after weeks of actual use. The ones where I noticed when they were missing on a fresh machine. The ones that saved me real minutes every single day.

I'm going to be opinionated here. Some popular extensions didn't make this list because they don't earn their resource consumption. Some smaller extensions did make it because they solve a real problem brilliantly. If you only install five extensions from this list, I'll tell you which five at the end. But read the whole thing first because your workflow is different from mine, and the right five for you might be different too.

1. Error Lens

What it does: Highlights errors, warnings, and info messages inline right next to the code that caused them. No more squinting at squiggly underlines.

Why it's number one: This extension changed how I write code. Before Error Lens, I'd write a chunk of code, glance at the Problems panel, see 3 errors, then hunt through lines trying to match error messages to code. With Error Lens, the error text appears right at the end of the offending line in bright, impossible-to-miss color. You see the mistake the moment you make it. Not after you save. Not after you check the problems panel. Immediately. The cognitive load reduction is enormous. I catch typos in variable names, missing imports, and type mismatches in real time. It works with every language server, every linter, every diagnostic provider. TypeScript errors, ESLint warnings, Pylint issues. All of them show up inline. This is the extension that makes the biggest difference for the smallest install cost.

Best for: Every developer. Seriously. I've never met someone who installed Error Lens and went back. It makes every language you work with feel more responsive.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Error Lens

Pro tip: The default colors can be aggressive. Go into settings and tone down the background highlight opacity to about 10-15%. You still see the messages clearly, but they stop competing with your actual code for visual attention.

2. GitLens

What it does: Supercharges the built-in Git integration with inline blame annotations, rich commit history, visual file history, and powerful comparison tools.

Why it made the list: VS Code's built-in Git support handles the basics fine. Staging, committing, pushing. GitLens handles everything else. The killer feature is the inline blame annotation. Hover over any line of code and you see who wrote it, when, and the commit message explaining why. This sounds trivial until you're debugging a production issue at midnight and you need to understand why someone changed the authentication logic six months ago. The file history view lets you scrub through every version of a file like a time machine. The comparison tools let you diff any two commits, branches, or tags with a couple of clicks. And the commit graph visualization helps you understand complex merge histories that would make your head spin in the terminal. GitLens has gotten some criticism for being too feature-heavy, and that's fair. But you can disable any feature you don't use. I run it with just blame annotations and file history, and it's still the most valuable Git tool in my setup.

Best for: Anyone working on a team. Solo developers who want to understand their own code history. Basically anyone who uses Git, which is everyone.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: GitLens

Pro tip: If GitLens feels heavy, disable the sidebar views you don't use (Settings > GitLens > Views). The inline blame and file history alone are worth the install, and disabling the rest cuts the resource usage significantly.

3. Prettier

What it does: Automatically formats your code on save according to a consistent style. Supports JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, HTML, JSON, Markdown, and more.

Why it made the list: I'm going to tell you something controversial: Prettier's actual formatting choices don't matter. What matters is that Prettier ends all formatting arguments forever. Tabs vs spaces? Prettier decides. Semicolons or not? Prettier decides. Single quotes or double? Prettier decides. Once your team agrees to use Prettier, nobody ever argues about code style again. That's worth more than any formatting preference. The VS Code extension makes it automatic. Set it as your default formatter, enable format on save, drop a .prettierrc in your repo, and forget about formatting. Your code looks consistent every time you save. Every team member's code looks the same. Code reviews stop wasting time on style nitpicks and focus on actual logic. Prettier supports almost every web technology: JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, TSX, CSS, SCSS, Less, HTML, Vue, Angular, GraphQL, Markdown, YAML, and JSON. There's a plugin ecosystem for things like Tailwind CSS class sorting too.

Best for: Every web developer. Every team that has ever had a formatting argument. Which is every team.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Prettier

Pro tip: Add "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode" and "editor.formatOnSave": true to your project's .vscode/settings.json and commit it. New team members get automatic formatting the moment they clone the repo. Zero setup friction.

4. GitHub Copilot

What it does: AI-powered code completion and chat that suggests entire functions, generates tests, explains code, and acts as an in-editor coding assistant.

Why it made the list: GitHub Copilot in 2026 is a different beast than the version that launched in 2022. The suggestions are more accurate. The chat is context-aware. The agent mode can handle multi-file edits. And the free tier that Microsoft introduced means there's no financial excuse not to try it. Here's what Copilot does well: boilerplate. Writing the same CRUD endpoint for the 400th time? Copilot writes it. Need a regex for email validation? Copilot knows the pattern. Writing unit tests for a function? Tab through the suggestions and you have a test file in 30 seconds. What Copilot doesn't do well: anything that requires understanding your specific business logic or architecture decisions. It will confidently generate code that looks correct but uses the wrong abstraction for your project. You still need to think. You still need to review every suggestion. Treat Copilot as a fast typist who knows patterns but doesn't understand context. That framing will keep you from over-relying on it. If you want a deeper look at how to use AI coding tools effectively, I wrote a whole guide on AI coding assistant productivity.

Best for: Developers who write a lot of repetitive code. Test writers. Anyone building standard web applications. Less useful for highly specialized or novel codebases.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: GitHub Copilot

Pro tip: Don't just accept full suggestions. Use Copilot's partial accept feature (Ctrl+Right Arrow) to accept one word at a time. You keep control of the code direction while still getting the speed boost for syntax you already know you want.

5. ESLint

What it does: Integrates ESLint directly into VS Code, showing linting errors and warnings in real time as you type.

Why it made the list: If you write JavaScript or TypeScript, ESLint isn't optional. It catches bugs that your compiler won't. Unused variables. Unreachable code. Functions that never return. Inconsistent equality operators. The VS Code extension surfaces all of these issues the second you type them. Not when you run the build. Not when CI catches it. Right now, in your editor, with a red squiggly line. The flat config system that ESLint v9 introduced made configuration way less painful. You write a single eslint.config.js file and you're done. No more cascading config files. No more confusion about which .eslintrc in which directory applies to which file. Pair ESLint with Prettier and you have a formatting and linting setup that catches problems and fixes style automatically. The VS Code extension supports auto-fix on save too, so many issues get fixed without you doing anything.

Best for: Every JavaScript and TypeScript developer. Non-negotiable.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: ESLint

Pro tip: Add "editor.codeActionsOnSave": { "source.fixAll.eslint": "explicit" } to your settings. ESLint fixes auto-fixable issues every time you save. Combined with Prettier's format-on-save, your code practically cleans itself.

6. Thunder Client

What it does: A lightweight REST API client built into VS Code. Test endpoints, manage collections, and handle environments without leaving your editor.

Why it made the list: I already covered Thunder Client in my API testing tools guide, but it deserves a spot here too because of how well it integrates with the VS Code workflow. You're writing a backend endpoint. You want to test it. Alt-tabbing to Postman, finding the right collection, updating the URL, and firing the request takes 30 seconds of context switching. With Thunder Client, you click the lightning bolt icon in your sidebar, type the URL, hit send. Five seconds. Same result, fraction of the friction. The collection and environment management is solid enough for daily work. It's not going to replace Postman for teams that need advanced collaboration features, but for individual developers testing endpoints during development, it's faster and more convenient than anything else.

Best for: Backend developers testing APIs during development. Anyone who finds switching to Postman disruptive. Full-stack developers who want API testing inside their editor.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Thunder Client

Pro tip: Enable Git sync in Thunder Client settings to store your collections as JSON files in your project. They become part of your repo. Other team members who use Thunder Client get the same collections when they pull.

7. Tailwind CSS IntelliSense

What it does: Autocomplete, syntax highlighting, and linting for Tailwind CSS class names. Shows you exactly what CSS each utility generates on hover.

Why it made the list: Tailwind CSS has become the default styling choice for a huge chunk of the web development world. The problem with Tailwind is memorizing hundreds of utility class names. Is it mt-4 or margin-top-4? Is the blue shade blue-500 or blue-600? This extension eliminates the guessing. Start typing a class name and you get autocomplete suggestions with a preview of the actual CSS. Hover over any class and see exactly what it compiles to. The linter catches conflicting classes (like applying both p-4 and px-2 on the same element). It reads your tailwind.config.js so custom colors, spacing, and breakpoints all show up in autocomplete. If you use Tailwind, this extension is mandatory. If you don't use Tailwind, obviously skip this one.

Best for: Anyone using Tailwind CSS. Makes the learning curve dramatically less steep for newcomers and keeps experienced users fast.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Tailwind CSS IntelliSense

Pro tip: Install the prettier-plugin-tailwindcss alongside this extension. It automatically sorts your Tailwind classes into a consistent order on save. No more arguing about whether responsive classes go first or last.

8. Docker

What it does: Manage Docker containers, images, volumes, and networks directly from VS Code. Includes Dockerfile and docker-compose syntax support, IntelliSense, and one-click container management.

Why it made the list: If Docker is part of your stack (and for most backend and full-stack developers, it is), this extension removes a lot of terminal juggling. Instead of running docker ps to see what's running, clicking through Docker Desktop's slow interface, or memorizing container IDs, you get a clean sidebar that shows every container, image, and volume. Right-click to stop, start, restart, view logs, or open a shell. The Dockerfile IntelliSense is surprisingly good. It catches syntax errors, suggests instructions, and validates your image references. The docker-compose support makes managing multi-service stacks visual instead of command-line-only. Microsoft maintains this extension, which means it's reliable, well-updated, and doesn't disappear overnight.

Best for: Backend and DevOps developers. Full-stack developers running databases and services in Docker. Anyone who manages containers as part of their daily workflow.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Docker

Pro tip: Right-click on a running container and select "Attach Shell" to get an interactive terminal inside the container without remembering docker exec -it container_name /bin/sh. It's the kind of small convenience that adds up over a workday.

9. Import Cost

What it does: Shows the size of imported JavaScript and TypeScript packages inline, right next to the import statement.

Why it made the list: Bundle size kills web performance. Most developers don't think about it until their Lighthouse score tanks. Import Cost makes the cost visible at the exact moment it matters: when you write the import. You type import moment from 'moment' and see "284.4K (gzipped: 71.1K)" appear right next to the line. That number makes you think twice. Maybe you reach for date-fns instead, which lets you import individual functions at a fraction of the size. Or maybe the large import is justified for your use case, and you make an informed decision instead of an ignorant one. This extension has saved me from shipping bloated bundles more times than I can count. It doesn't slow down your editor, it doesn't block your workflow, it just puts a number next to your imports and lets you make better decisions. That's what a good extension does.

Best for: Frontend developers building web applications. Anyone who cares about bundle size and performance. Teams working on performance-critical products.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Import Cost

Pro tip: Set a bundle size budget in your head. Anything under 10K gzipped is fine. 10-50K, think about whether you really need the whole library. Over 50K, actively look for a smaller alternative or a tree-shakeable import.

10. REST Client

What it does: Send HTTP requests and view responses directly in VS Code by writing them in plain text .http or .rest files.

Why it made the list: REST Client takes a completely different approach from Thunder Client. Instead of a GUI with forms and buttons, you write HTTP requests as plain text in a file. GET https://api.github.com/users/octocat. Click "Send Request" above the line. See the response. That's it. The brilliance is that these .http files are just text. They live in your repo. They're diffable. They're reviewable. They serve as documentation. When a new developer joins your team and asks "how do I test the user creation endpoint?", you point them to requests/users.http. The file is self-documenting. Variables, environments, authentication headers: all defined in the same file or in your VS Code settings. No separate app, no account, no cloud sync. Just text files and HTTP. This is my lesser-known pick for this list. It has about 6 million installs, which sounds like a lot but is tiny compared to the mega-popular extensions. Most developers don't know it exists, and that's a shame.

Best for: Developers who like keeping things simple and text-based. Teams that want API request examples committed to their repo. Anyone who thinks Postman is overkill for everyday testing.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: REST Client

Pro tip: Use ### to separate multiple requests in the same file. Create a requests/ directory in your repo with one .http file per API resource. It becomes living documentation that's always testable.

11. Todo Tree

What it does: Searches your workspace for TODO, FIXME, HACK, and other comment tags, then displays them in a tree view in the sidebar.

Why it made the list: Every developer writes TODO comments. "TODO: refactor this." "FIXME: race condition here." "HACK: temporary workaround until the API team fixes their schema." The problem is that these comments disappear into the codebase and nobody ever finds them again. Todo Tree surfaces every single tagged comment across your entire project in a neat tree view, organized by file. Click on any item and it jumps you straight to the line. You can customize which tags to track, what colors they get, and whether they trigger as warnings. I use it with custom tags: TODO, FIXME, HACK, NOTE, and PERF (for performance-related notes). During sprint planning, I open Todo Tree and scan through the FIXMEs to see if any should become tickets. It takes 30 seconds and catches issues that would otherwise accumulate until something breaks.

Best for: Teams that use TODO comments as a workflow tool. Developers who want visibility into technical debt. Anyone who's ever written a TODO and forgotten about it (so, everyone).

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Todo Tree

Pro tip: Add a custom regex tag like @debt for tracking technical debt specifically. Configure it with a yellow highlight. During code reviews, flag @debt comments so they're tracked separately from regular TODOs. It makes code reviews more actionable.

12. GitHub Pull Requests and Issues

What it does: Manage GitHub pull requests and issues directly inside VS Code. Review code, add comments, approve or request changes, create issues, and check out PR branches without opening a browser.

Why it made the list: Code review is one of the most important things developers do, and doing it in a browser is terrible. GitHub's web interface is fine for looking at small diffs, but for any serious review (multi-file changes, understanding context, testing locally) you need the code in your editor. This extension lets you check out a PR branch, see the diff in VS Code's diff viewer, add inline comments, and submit your review. All without leaving VS Code. You can also create and manage issues from the editor, link commits to issues, and see which PRs are assigned to you. For teams that live on GitHub, this extension eliminates constant context switching between your editor and the browser. It's maintained by GitHub (Microsoft), so it stays up-to-date with GitHub's features.

Best for: Teams using GitHub for version control. Developers who do frequent code reviews. Tech leads and senior developers who review more code than they write.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: GitHub Pull Requests and Issues

Pro tip: Set up the "Start Review" workflow. Instead of adding individual comments on a PR (which generates a notification for each one), batch your comments into a single review. It's less noisy for the author and more coherent feedback.

13. Path Intellisense

What it does: Autocompletes file paths as you type them in import statements, HTML attributes, CSS URLs, and anywhere else you reference file paths.

Why it made the list: This is one of those extensions you forget you have until you use VS Code on a machine without it. You type import, start typing the path, and Path Intellisense shows you every file and folder that matches. No more guessing whether it's ../utils/helpers or ../../utils/helpers. No more typos in file names that cause mysterious module-not-found errors. It works everywhere. JavaScript imports, HTML image tags, CSS url() values, require() calls, configuration files. Any time VS Code sees you typing a path, it kicks in with suggestions. The extension is lightweight and fast. It doesn't index your entire project upfront. It reads the filesystem in real time as you type. That means it works instantly on any project size and doesn't consume resources when you're not actively typing paths.

Best for: Every developer. This is a quality-of-life extension that removes friction from something you do dozens of times a day.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Path Intellisense

Pro tip: If you use TypeScript path aliases (like @/components), configure Path Intellisense mappings in your settings to match your tsconfig.json paths. The autocomplete will understand your aliases and suggest files correctly.

14. Better Comments

What it does: Color-codes your comments based on annotations. TODOs get one color, warnings get another, important notes get another, and deprecated code gets strikethrough.

Why it made the list: Not all comments are equal. A // TODO: implement caching is very different from // ! DO NOT MODIFY - regulatory compliance requirement. But in a standard editor, they look identical: gray text you train yourself to ignore. Better Comments makes different types of comments visually distinct. Alert comments get a red background. Question comments get blue. TODOs get orange. Deprecated sections get strikethrough. Highlighted comments get bright green. Suddenly your comments carry visual weight proportional to their importance. It works with every programming language VS Code supports. JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, Go, Rust, whatever you write. The color coding is fully customizable, so you can match your team's conventions. This extension pairs perfectly with Todo Tree: Better Comments makes your tags visible in the file you're editing, and Todo Tree gives you the project-wide view.

Best for: Teams that write meaningful comments. Developers who maintain large codebases with institutional knowledge embedded in comments. Anyone who wants their comments to actually get read.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Better Comments

Pro tip: Add a custom tag for // PERF: with a purple highlight for performance-sensitive code sections. When you're optimizing later, you can visually scan for the purple comments to find the hot paths.

15. Live Server

What it does: Launches a local development server with live reload for static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. Change your code, save, and the browser refreshes automatically.

Why it made the list: Live Server is the extension that deserves more respect than it gets. It has over 50 million installs, making it one of the most popular VS Code extensions ever, and for good reason. When you need to quickly prototype something in HTML and CSS, or test a vanilla JavaScript idea, or preview a static site, Live Server removes all the ceremony. Right-click an HTML file, "Open with Live Server," and you have a running local server with auto-reload in two seconds. No npm install. No webpack config. No build step. Just a working preview that updates when you save. For developers who primarily work in frameworks like React or Next.js, you might think this isn't relevant. But even framework developers occasionally need to test raw HTML. A quick landing page mockup. A documentation page. An email template. A quick proof of concept. Live Server handles all of these without the overhead of spinning up a full development environment.

Best for: Frontend developers. Anyone building static sites. Developers learning HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Quick prototyping without framework overhead.

Link: VS Code Marketplace: Live Server

Pro tip: Change the default port in Live Server settings if port 5500 conflicts with something. Also enable HTTPS in settings for testing features that require a secure context (like the Web Crypto API or Service Workers on localhost).

The Extensions That Almost Made This List

I want to mention a few that were close because they might be perfect for your specific situation.

Code Spell Checker catches typos in your variable names, comments, and strings. It's helpful, but it generates a lot of false positives with technical terms. If you write documentation-heavy code, install it. If you don't, skip it.

Auto Rename Tag automatically renames the matching HTML tag when you edit one. It's handy for HTML-heavy work, but VS Code recently added some of this functionality natively with the "Linked Editing" feature (editor.linkedEditing setting).

Peacock colors your VS Code window borders and title bar based on the project. Useful if you regularly have 3 or more VS Code windows open and mix them up. Not useful otherwise.

Remote - SSH lets you develop on a remote machine through SSH as if you were local. If you work with remote servers or GPU-heavy workloads, it's essential. For most developers working locally, it's not needed.

My "Install These Five Right Now" Picks

If you're starting fresh and want the highest impact with the fewest installs, here's what I'd recommend.

Error Lens because seeing errors inline changes how you write code. Prettier because automatic formatting eliminates an entire category of wasted mental energy. ESLint because it catches real bugs before they reach production. GitLens because understanding your code history makes you a better debugger. And GitHub Copilot because the free tier is good enough to save you meaningful time on repetitive code.

Those five extensions cover formatting, linting, error visibility, Git history, and AI assistance. Everything else on this list is a productivity bonus that targets specific workflows.

The extensions you install matter less than how well you learn the ones you keep. Spending 20 minutes reading the docs for GitLens or learning Prettier's configuration options will give you more returns than installing 30 extensions you never configure. Focus on depth over breadth. Master five extensions before adding a sixth. That's how tools actually improve your developer productivity.

One more thing: revisit your extensions every six months. VS Code adds features that make some extensions redundant (like the built-in bracket pair colorization that killed the Bracket Pair Colorizer extension). The marketplace changes. New extensions emerge. Your workflow evolves. The best extension setup is one that grows with you, not one you set up once and forget. Building your toolkit intentionally is one of the skills that matter most for developers right now.