I think my question is pretty much answered by this page:
http://www.visualmicro.com/page/User-Guide.aspx?doc=Getting-started-which-IDE.ht...

I was really just wanting to weigh up the top options to select the right one for my needs.

Regards,

Scotty

AS7 beta is available from the downloads page

Hi, AS7 is new and the documentation was produced before it was available. 

However there are benefits to both Ide's. Here is a selection of random observations:-

Arduino code is designed to run on different processors and we see a lot of varieties such as the Intel boards that arduino.cc promote and also boards such as the $10 Esp8266 which runs at 80mhz and also has wifi. The Atmel license doesn't permit these boards to be used so from a support perspective it's easier to support Vs.

The intellisense in Visual Studio can often be easier for new users because code is shown as disabled when a conditional #define resolves to false. Vs2015 also shows methods and variables expanded below file names in the solution explorer. 

For certain low level code the Atmel Studio intellisense can perform better because it knows gcc where as Microsoft have their own C++ syntax. This doesn't affect 99% of users and a nice feature of Vs2015 is the finer control of the displayed of intellisense errors so it's not so much of an issue as it was in the past.

Windows telemetry and IoT programs are of interest to many. Vs2015 has a wide range of tools that allows these programs to be built. If users want to install a single Ide then Vs2015 makes sense.

AS7 has a few quirks that have the potential to confuse users such as automatically adding a main.cpp and it's own configuration sources to new or upgraded projects. The main.cpp is especially a problem because it will break sketches and prevent them from working when compiled with the arduino ide. Visual Micro As7 monitors for this issue and prompts to auto-fix but it's not ideal.

There are also a lot of changes happening within the Arduino eco system so the software is constantly being updated to cater for these changes. There is a problem with the Atmel gallery at the moment that prevents extensions from being uploaded unless they use an older Microsoft format. When people download from the gallery the automatic update notification system of the gallery is activated for the extension. The auto update system is important otherwise the forum fills up with questions from people who have upgraded their arduino ide cores but not Visual Micro.

It really does depend on what is important to you. The download link for as7 below was out of date. I have changed the link to point to the downloads page where the latest As7 extension can be found. Atmel are certainly investing heavily and have a great team working on AS7 and if you want to explore the avr,sam or samd architectures in depth then it is a must.

Personally I have more of a relationship and assistance from Atmel than Microsoft so I am in their camp but most of Visual Micro is free and time becomes short so support comes first. Until this week the release of As7 could fail to start after installing/uninstalling extensions. It was a Microsoft problem that Atmel have "worked around" but it would have reflected badly on Visual Micro. I expect we will see a few releases of As7 over the next few months and will monitor its progress.