Introduction

Team Foundation Server (TFS) is a popular companion for users of Visual Studio, which provides Microsoft's approach to source control and project management. Developers working in traditional corporate software development will frequently use TFS as a way to coordinate their activity with that of product owners, quality assurance, and release engineers.

TFS is a separate product from VS2015, and exists in both paid and free (TFS Express) versions. The primary difference between the two is that TFS Express is designed for smaller developer teams and thus supports five users, while the full version has no such restrictions. Day to day usage will typically involve connecting to TFS from within Visual Studio or through the TFS web browser interface.

A couple of years ago when VS2013 launched, Microsoft created Visual Studio Online (VSO). This has since been renamed as Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). VSTS can best be thought of as the cloud-based, hosted version of TFS. It provides...