Microsoft’s August 2025 release of the MSSQL extension for VS Code finalises three flagship features that were previously in preview: Schema Compare, Schema Designer and Local SQL Server Container. Version 1.35 promotes these capabilities to general availability (GA) and delivers usability and performance improvements across the extension.
The MSSQL extension adds database management tools to VS Code, letting developers work with SQL Server instances alongside application code. Earlier previews introduced tools to compare and design schemas and to spin up local SQL Server containers. The GA release responds to months of community feedback, bringing refinements that make these tools production-ready for daily development. It also resolves a number of usability issues in connection dialogues and query result grids and improves localisation and accessibility.
Schema Compare allows developers to compare database schemas or projects and apply changes with a single click. The GA version offers bug fixes and refinements such as better file save options, the ability to switch comparison direction without repopulating, and remembering previous settings. A new include/exclude mechanism lets developers decide which differences to propagate, while UI changes improve the readability of object lists and have a theme‑aware dropdown styling.
The visual Schema Designer, introduced in preview in June 2025, now loads faster and provides a more polished diagramming experience. Developers can design and modify tables, relationships and constraints through an interactive diagram, supporting both code‑first and hybrid workflows. In GA, the designer adds collapse/expand buttons for tables with many columns and icons for foreign keys, improving readability. Relationships remain visible even when filtering to a subset of tables, and tooltips reveal full names when labels are truncated.
Visual Studio Code MS SQL Server extension’s visual Schema Designer
Version 1.35 also makes local SQL Server containers generally available. This feature lets developers provision and manage SQL Server containers directly from the extension without writing Docker commands. The default configuration uses SQL Server 2025 preview with built‑in vector types and enhanced JSON functions, but users can choose SQL Server 2022, 2019 or 2017. Recent usability improvements show a progress indicator during image downloads, provide step‑by‑step Docker checks with status indicators, remember the last used SQL Server version, auto‑scroll container logs and handle port conflicts more predictably. Developers should note that local SQL Server containers are meant for development and testing; they rely on Docker Desktop or a compatible Linux‑based container runtime, and the extension chooses Linux containers by default. The container wizard cannot currently configure backup, restore or clustering operations, and the SQL Server engine requires at least 2 GB of memory.
Beyond these major features, the release fixes an Entra ID sign‑in issue, improves the performance and usability of the query results grid, adds a plain text view mode for results, remembers SQL authentication passwords during a session, enhances localisation and addresses edge cases in GitHub Copilot agent mode.
Developer reactions to the update on the Visual Studio Marketplace site are mostly negative, focusing on the lack of parity with Azure Data Studio. As with previous releases, the extension is open source under the MIT License and accepts contributions via GitHub. The extension has accumulated over 8.2 million installs and around 1.8k GitHub stars.
