Request: Sql Profiler

[PureKrome]

👋🏻 G'Day team,

ADS was announced that it's now retired.

vscode-mssql is the replacement.

Checking the "What's happening to Azure Data Studio?" docs, it says:

..
.

Um, nope.

SSMS cannot be an acceptable replacement for anything. ADS has Sql Profiler in it, so at the bare minimum everyone could be stuck using ADS for Profiling.

But we can't use ADS anymore so could we please please please have the Profiling functionality including in this vscode extension?

💍 One extension to rule them all. 🧙🏻‍♂️

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Update 25-Apr-2025: Sql Profiler is -not- planned to be added to VSCode Extension. More info here, in a comment further down in this thread. 👍🏻 Upvote this issue to communicate how important this issue is.

[woutkroon]

Seeing that the latest SSMS v20.2 still doesn't support a proper dark theme and is painfully slow to boot, please make SQL Server Profiler available as an extension within VS Code, just like it is available in ADS.

[redoper1]

Apart from horrendous UX to use SQL (and anything else than writing application code) inside VSC at general that means that after ADS retirement there will be no way to use profiler on systems other than Windows. That is totally unacceptable.

[daniel-karlsen-maersk]

Without the profiler available to a none Windows OS used for development, SQL Server cant be considered for many project going forward. Please consider this functionality since it is absolutely necessary for serious development against a MS SQL database.

[croblesm]

Hi @PureKrome,

Thanks so much for your feedback! I’d like to clarify a couple of points based on your comments:

👋🏻 G'Day team,

ADS was announced that it's now retired.

vscode-mssql is the replacement.

The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code is not intended to replace Azure Data Studio (ADS) or SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

Our goal is to empower developers by delivering a modern, streamlined database development experience inside VS Code. The extension is focused on improving SQL development productivity with features like schema management, query execution, and (soon) AI-powered assistance.

Additionally, I want to clarify that ADS is not yet retired—we have only announced its retirement timeline. The official retirement date is February 28, 2026.

But we can't use ADS anymore so could we please please please have the Profiling functionality included in this VS Code extension?

Would you mind sharing a bit more about your developer use cases for SQL Profiler in VS Code? We'd love to better understand how it fits into your workflow.

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Same question to @woutkroon and @redoper1 regarding your comments:

Seeing that the latest SSMS v20.2 still doesn't support a proper dark theme and is painfully slow to boot, please make SQL Server Profiler available as an extension within VS Code, just like it is available in ADS.

Apart from horrendous UX to use SQL (and anything else than writing application code) inside VSC at general that means that after ADS retirement there will be no way to use profiler on systems other than Windows. That is totally unacceptable.

Could you also share developer-specific scenarios where SQL Profiler is essential to your workflows? This would help us evaluate how and where it could fit into the future of the extension.

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Hi @daniel-karlsen-maersk, you mentioned:

Without the profiler available to a non-Windows OS used for development, SQL Server can’t be considered for many projects going forward. Please consider this functionality since it is absolutely necessary for serious development against a MS SQL database.

Could you elaborate on how SQL Profiler is essential to your development projects? We’d love to hear more so we can assess the best way to support these scenarios.

[GRustamyan-ST]

Hi @croblesm,

Could you elaborate on how SQL Profiler is essential to your development projects? We’d love to hear more so we can assess the best way to support these scenarios.

I'm on mac and it is the only way to check what queries are actually sent to SQLServer. Technically there is a way to enable SQL queries logging in .net, but analyzing raw logs is much more troublesome and you usually don't get query parameter values. So practically it is the only way to check what ORM is actually sending to DB.

Another great feature is ability to just copy query with all it's parameters and put it to SQL query editor to analyze query plan or just break down complex query and find bugs.

I occasionally need to analyzing multiple micro-services behavior on DB level and it that case having all queries in one place is super convenient. For example one MS may open transaction and request another (I know, this is bad, but it is what it is) which can again query same table. Having SQL server's perspective on queries execution order is super important.

Another use is to analyze bottleneck queries on certain operations - for example a user action can generate 10s or even 100s DB queries. Sampling operation by DB/user/CPU/Duration is a great tool to find a bottlenecks.

It is great tool to find N+1 queries.

Those are cases for local development. I'm running azure-sql-edge in docker.

But I previously also had experience with shared SQL server/production server. For those cases you basically have 2 options - RDP to server and run SQL profiler there. Close your mac and cry :)

I didn't mention it anywhere, but if you don't quite know what are you searching for, query filtering capabilities are super useful. Tho I should say that current filter UI is quite outdated.

(WTF, I'm in SQL, I have tabular data, why I can't just write SQL like query? Instead I had to suffer with stupid drop-downs.)

[PureKrome]

👋🏻 G'Day @croblesm and thanks for dropping into the thread - very much appreciated! Answers, inline:

The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code is not intended to replace Azure Data Studio (ADS) or SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

I think this is actually an unfair comment which can lead to some confusion.

MS has announced that ADS will be retired in 2026. A retired product is assumed to not to be used after that specified date. At least, there's no updates, sec patches, etc. Otherwise, clarify what "retirement" means for ADS. This is a nice '(announcer's voice) You have a year to consider other products and preparing to move onto another product'.

SSMS will keep going on. But you've now left out the massive market (existing and potential) of developers not on windows or wanting to use SSMS.

I think the a more balanced response could be:

"The MSSQL extension for VSCode is intended to be an option along side SSMS for development/support/maintenance of MS SQL."

Putting aside all the corporate speak crap, SSMS is fine if you're on windows. I'm on windows but despite that, I'm all in on XPlat software so developer teams which work in hybrid setups (e.g. win/mac vs/vscode/rider etc) have a balanced field of tools. So there's a large number of us developers who would sincerely appreciate tooling that is on par with the windows-only versions.

SIDE NOTE: The most ironic thing here - start with an XPlat tool and you've now won the hearts and minds of developers. Its not about win/mac anymore. It's about Azure vs AWS and the products they both offer and who gets the money for hosting costs.

Additionally, I want to clarify that ADS is not yet retired—we have only announced its retirement timeline. The official retirement date is February 28, 2026.

Semantics. Already outlined, above. It's now viewed as D.O.A. I'm still using it because it's an awesome tool but I've already started prepping for next year and making sure the tools are also ready for 2026.

SIDE NOTE: I love ADS but I do think having multiple products (ADS + VSCode extension) is not a Good Thing ™ Making VSCode the XPlat winner is a Good Thing ™ .

Would you mind sharing a bit more about your developer use cases for SQL Profiler in VS Code? We'd love to better understand how it fits into your workflow.
(and you've repeated this question a few more times)

I think the question is really: 'What's the use case for SQL Profiler?' Which is damn obvious. It literally explains how our queries perform. But you already know this, so I think we're all confused by your question, here.

SQL Profiling is an essential tool in working with MSSQL for those people who don't just use EFCore and send 'thoughts and prayers' that their sql code is 'just fine and works'. Developers need to see what the heck is going on under the hood.

VSCode is going to be our new DB tool. SSMS is not XPlat. ADS is now leaving the building. So we're all going to go ⚽-deep into VSCode for everything MSSql possible.

It's really that simple.

You want to win the ❤ and 🧠 of developers? Sure you guys do. Invest in the VSCode MSSQL extension and MS will 💸

[luckystriike22]

VSCode is an amazing tool. I’m doing my best to migrate most of my development workflow to it, and I have to say—I really love the new SQL extension, especially compared to SSMS. It has so many quality-of-life features, like the ability to name your database connections, a proper data inspector for JSON, and best of all, excellent IntelliSense and Copilot integration.

I’m trying to convince the rest of our dev team to switch over as well. One of the main blockers, though, is the lack of a profiler. We rely heavily on profiling to check for performance improvements(sometimes rewriting an EF query can make a huge difference) and bug fixing.

That said, I really believe VSCode is an amazing, lightweight tool, and I hope you’re able to add profiling support in the future.

[PureKrome]

After my initial post on this, the MS team has released a RoadMap for the VSCode extension and ... 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 ... SQL Profile is not planned to be ported (as of 25/Apr/2025). Ref is here.

Not sure how else to say this .. but .. **this is SERIOUSLY disappointing

I'm not going to guess why, but for anyone reading this far down, UPVOTE THIS ISSUE so MS can understand how important this feature is for developers. That's the best thing I can think of, as most of us don't have influence with their PM's, etc.

So, lets vote this up to the moon, people.