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Yes, Starter Editions is Free

I still get people asking about Embarcadero offering a free or community version or Delphi or C++Builder. That is one of the big strategies of IDERA – offering good free tools. So when we joined IDERA it didn’t take long before we started offering Delphi and C++Builder Starter edition for free (or a 100% discount, depending on who you ask).

Free Starter Edition

At first Embarcadero offered it for a limited time, but it is still offered it and you can still get it. The next question I get is “Will it be free forever?” to which I reply something along the lines that forever is a really long time, and I don’t have a crystal ball.

The Starter Edition is exactly that. It has limited feature set, most notably missing database access, and it has a limited license limiting you to free or open source software development, or upto $1000. Generally the latter isn’t too big of a deal because once you cross $1000 in revenue then you have the money to upgrade! And we usually have some great specific offers for upgrading when you are ready for Professional or Enterprise features.

The Starter editions generate a lot of interest, which is great. In the future we may we work them to include more or different features. It will never have as many features as Professional or Enterprise though. Then it wouldn’t be a Starter anymore.

12 replies on “Yes, Starter Editions is Free”

>limiting you to free or open source software development, or upto $1000.
I cannot find the source to that “Open source” thing you mentioned. Never heard of it, either. Sure you’re not confusing it with the “Community” license of a competing product?

I agree with Senad Zeco. Delphi’s main strength is database access. The free version is pretty useless for evaluating whether or not the tool is worth switching to in a corporate environment, and the trial period is too short too.

How to differentiate? Make the free edition the same as the “pro” version but “royalty” based. You are morally obligated to pay 10‰ of your license revenue if you deploy with it. If you don’t charge (e.g. open source), you owe $0. If you make more than a few thousand dollars it makes sense to buy the pro license.

Unenforceable? Of course. So is the current deal. How would you know if I earned more than $1000 with the current license? For that matter, how do you prevent me from downloading a license crack for the architect version? If I don’t contact you for support, how would you even know?

You are already having to trust your customers. The “percentage of license revenue” deal would be reasonable and fair. The people who will use that version rather than just steal a key will pay you. Those who don’t wouldn’t have anyway.

A cheaper professional version (not discounted), that’s what we really want.
No need to give things away for free.

There are many third-party database components which can be installed in the starter edition, both free (like ZeosLib) and not (like UniDac).

This was one of the big problems Delphi had, that I was not able to tell beginners “Hey, use Delphi”, because nobody wanted to pay for it to learn it. So now I hope for many new users.

One question is left: What about usage in schools? I could not find anything about it. Can I recommend Delphi there? As there are no-cost alternatives even the educational versions are too expensive. Can they use the free Starter Edition?

For me, the lack of debugger tooltip expressions are quite irrational, like the code explorer and other standard IDE features – And my free starter edition of delphi is no use for me after the third registration attempt, the support dont want to extend my registration limit (At this point I gave up with delphi developing, there are many more friendly techs available for free). Be aware and dont reinstall your system. The price is too high anyway – how much new users do you have (not the old ones) ? Cant win this with such politics.

This free version makes no sense to me. The idea is to allow people to use it and hence learn Delphi’s version of Object Pascal. But there is no reason to use the free version as it is now. There aren’t any significant free projects you can work on with it. Delphi isn’t used in college, and students find projects they can work on in college–which usually means some open source project. Lazarus is a better free version since there are (albiet few) open source projects to work on, and it supports Linux. Delphi has a better compiler, but without Linux support and database support (what makes it most useful), you can’t really make a successful open source project. Only if you are employed where Delphi is used, does it makes sense to have Delphi–free or paid version.

@Fritz +1000…

Two annual versions (bad update system) and also too expensive. They should solve these two things.

+Sebastian there is an academic version for use in schools.
+IB sorry you are having trouble reinstalling.
+MkB there are many Delphi open source projects, and the Starter edition is quite capable. Just because it lacks database features does not mean it is incapable of doing anything.
+joseant The Starter Edition is free, which is the opposite of expensive. Things are just moving to quickly to not have multiple releases in a year.

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