What is snapcrafters and what does it mean if it is listed as the developer of some apps on Ubuntu Software?

For some applications, under "details" on Ubuntu Software it says that the developer is snapcrafters. This is true for Visual Studio Code and also Simplenote. But these applications were developed by Microsoft and Automattic respectively. While for other snap applications, like VLC, the name of the developer (videolan) is given.

Why is this the case? This might be a silly question but could it be that these applications are clones built by snapcrafters of the original programs. Or are these programs somehow modified by them?

There are some such applications that can be downloaded from the official websites too. Will the "snapcrafters" version found on Ubuntu Software be any different from the one downloaded from the website?

Solution 1:

The “Snapcrafters” are a group of community contributors working to get snaps published by upstream projects, with install instructions on the project homepage and the snapcraft.yaml in the project code repository.

Source: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/join-snapcrafters/1325

Solution 2:

Snapcrafters is a github area where developers can package their snap applications. You can find GIMP there too. Apparently developers find publishing their apps as snap applications is easier than publishing them as .deb files installed with sudo apt install .... Furthermore putting their snaps in Snapcrafters is even easier.