What type of programming do you do / what languages? I've got three open 24/7 in different windows, sometimes more, and vscode behaves no differently than if I've got just the one. Total RAM usage is not exactly minimal, but still small enough I can have multiple servers running along with postgres, two chrome profiles and assorted terminals, and still have a comfortable amount of RAM left on my 16gb laptop.

In fact, the only time I ran into trouble was when a funky install caused one particular webpack dev server to leak and eventually force me to close every chrome process that was running (vscode + chrome windows) to let the system recover the memory.

Definitely that but also vs code is too busy. Just the window chrome is too garish.