New VS Code extensions this week: 21–27 September 2026

TL;DR: 906 new extensions launched on the VS Code Marketplace from 21 to 27 September 2026, about the same as the week before. About 3 in 10 were AI tools. A typical new extension had 3 installs after its first week, and only 1 in 7 reached 10. Launches with a real category did better than those left in "Other". If you are launching this week, pick the category that fits and judge your first week by Marketplace installs, not early Open VSX downloads.

How many new VS Code extensions launched this week#

906 new extensions went live on the Marketplace between Monday 21 and Sunday 27 September 2026, from 807 publishers. We count each extension on the day of its first public release.

Two groups are left out of that count. The first is 154 listings whose entire description was a placeholder such as "app". They came from 153 different publishers, nearly all appeared on 23 and 24 September, and none of them chose a category. Earlier weeks had between 3 and 8 listings like this. The second is 53 listings from one publisher that released more than 20 extensions in the week. With both groups included, the Marketplace recorded 1,113 new listings.

Without them, the weekly total has barely moved for five weeks:

Weeks before 5 September include only extensions that were still listed on that date, when our daily reads began, so they may be slightly low.

On Open VSX, 369 new listings appeared in the same week, 66 of them from the same high-volume publisher. Open VSX is a separate registry used by editors such as VSCodium, so we count it separately.

What kinds of extensions launched#

About 3 in 10 new Marketplace extensions (278 of 906) mention AI in their name, description or tags. Of those, 82 mention Claude and 71 mention Copilot. MCP servers and tools came up in 50, and Codex in 40. That share has stayed close to 30% for five weeks.

Publishers choose their own categories, and an extension can have several, so this column adds up to more than 906:

A third of the week's launches (307) used only "Other". Only 159 of the 906 were also on Open VSX under the same ID by 28 September.

How many installs a new extension gets in its first week#

This week's launches haven't had a full week yet, so we looked at the 1,782 launches from the two weeks before (7–20 September) and read each one's install count 7 days after its release. 1,664 had a reading on that day.

The typical launch (the median) had 3 installs after a week. 235 of them, about 1 in 7, reached 10. So if your extension has a handful of installs after its first week, it is doing about as well as most. The count leaves out updates and is not a count of active users, as our install-count guide explains.

Some categories did noticeably better than others:

Launches with a specific category reached 10 installs more often than those left only in "Other": 16% against 10%. The table shows which launches did better, not why.

Why new Open VSX listings show hundreds of downloads#

Every one of the 512 listings that first appeared on Open VSX between 7 and 20 September had at least 100 downloads a week later.

The numbers looked much the same whatever the extension did. That pattern fits automated downloads, such as mirrors and scanners fetching each new version, more than people installing it. Open VSX also counts every download of every version, so it measures something different from Marketplace installs. Our download-count guide covers this in detail.

For a new listing, a few hundred Open VSX downloads in week one is the normal starting point, not a sign that people found it. Watch how the count grows over the following weeks instead.

Standout launches of the week#

It was a quiet week for breakout launches. Here is the new extension with the most Marketplace installs on 28 September in each category, chosen by the rules in the next section.

Earlier launches still climbing#

These launched between 7 and 20 September and gained installs on at least 6 of the 7 days to 28 September. They are ranked by installs gained in that week.

How we picked these#

These picks are not sponsored, and we haven't reviewed their code. An extension was eligible if it:

• was still listed on the Marketplace on 27 September,
• links a public source repository,
• has a real description, not a placeholder,
• comes from a publisher with fewer than 1 million installs across all its extensions and no more than 20 launches that week, and
• is not one of ours.

New launches also needed at least 20 installs, and none of them could have gained more than 500 installs in a single day, or most of its installs in one day with almost none after. Each one is listed under the first category its publisher chose. For the climbing list, gaining installs on 6 of 7 days does the same job.

What to check before you launch#

Use this list on your own extension before and during its first week:

• Category: set the categories field in your extension manifest to the one that fits. Use "Other" only when nothing does.
• Description: say what the extension does in one sentence. A placeholder gives people searching nothing to match.
• Display name: include the words people search for. Our keyword guide shows how to choose them.
• Open VSX: if you want users of VSCodium and other editors that use Open VSX, publish there too. Our Open VSX publishing guide walks through it. Only 159 of the week's 906 launches were on both.
• Week one: compare your Marketplace installs after 7 days with the median of 3 and with your category's row above.
• Open VSX downloads: don't read first-week downloads as users. Compare later weeks with each other instead.

How we counted#

• Weeks run Monday to Sunday, in UTC.
• Marketplace launches are counted on the first public release date the Marketplace reports. Open VSX launches are counted on the day VSXRank first saw them, because their publish dates weren't yet available.
• Left out: listings whose whole description was "app", "First one" or empty, and publishers with more than 20 launches in a week. Both groups are left out of every week in this post.
• AI launches are those whose name, description or tags include words such as AI, LLM, agent, Claude, Copilot, MCP, Codex, Gemini, GPT, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Ollama or prompt. This is a word match, so it will miss some AI tools and include a few that only mention AI.
• Installs come from the Marketplace's public counter, which we read every day at 00:00 UTC. "After 7 days" is the reading 7 days after the release date. When the Marketplace showed no install figure for a listing, we counted 0. When we had no reading for that day (118 launches), we left the extension out rather than guess.
• Removed listings: about 1 in 20 launches from the week of 7 September (45 of 936) had been gone from the Marketplace for at least 7 days by 28 September.

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