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Delphi Frequently Asked Questions

Build Native Apps 5x Faster With One Codebase
For Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, and Linux

Delphi is the most powerful Object Pascal IDE and component library for high-performance cross-platform Native App Development with flexible Cloud services and broad IoT connectivity. It provides powerful native VCL controls for Windows 10 and enables FMX development for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux. Delphi is your choice for ultra-fast Enterprise Strong Development™. Enhancements include double the available memory for large projects, extended multi-monitor support, improved Object Inspector, and much more. Delphi is 5x faster for development and deployment across multiple desktop, mobile, cloud, and database platforms including 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 10.

Delphi – The Fastest Application Development Platform for Windows 10, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and IoT.

Delphi includes a comprehensive set of additional tools to help you do more than ever before. These are generally special editions of the tools created to be bundled with Delphi and the feature sets may differ from the full commercial versions.

  • FastReport VCL RAD edition and FastReport FireMonkey Embarcadero Edition from Fast Reports so you can quickly design and generate reports
  • TeeChart Standard from Steema provides quick and easy-to-use charting components
  • CodeSite Express logging tools for building quality applications
  • Beyond Compare Text Compare lets you view differences between source files
  • IntraWeb from Atozed for building web applications in the same way you build Delphi applications

Delphi is available in English, French, German and Japanese. The installer lets you choose any combination of languages and it's easy to switch between languages in the IDE.

You can view pricing and purchase Delphi from Embarcadero Sales, one of our valuable partners, or our online Embarcadero Shop site.

The first year of Update Subscription is included at the time you purchase your Delphi product or upgrade. The Update Subscription agreement gives you a year of upgrades (including major and minor upgrades) and a specified number of support incidents. See the Update Subscription page for more detail.

Updates and additional software for Delphi users are available on the registered users download page at http://cc.embarcadero.com/reg/delphi. Notifications for those upgrades are delivered via email and the upgrades can be downloaded via the Maintenance Portal web site by following the instructions in the email.

Delphi is available in four editions – Community, Professional, Enterprise and Architect. See the Delphi Product Editions page and Feature Matrix for details on the differences between the editions.

Delphi is available with multiple licensing options including:

  • Individual named user licenses delivered via electronic software delivery (ESD) as a download and serial number. Discounted 5-packs and 10-packs are also available.
  • Network Named and Concurrent user licenses managed using Embarcadero AppWave provide the additional flexibility of managing licenses on a license server plus software provisioning.
  • Network licenses managed by Flexera FlexNet are available on a special request basis.
  • Academic individual licenses for students and educators as well as volume licenses for classroom use.

Yes, 10.3 Rio and below are included with your purchase of the latest version. See the Delphi Previous Versions web page web page for further details.

No. They are considered part of your license and are tied to your user account. They cannot be given away or sold.

Your earlier version license, and the version you upgrade to, are considered one named user license that covers both versions. If you already own an earlier version and go to the web page and request the same version license, you will just get a re-send of your existing serial number.

Some of those earlier products are only available as Professional and Enterprise editions.

We can't guarantee that the older versions will be available indefinitely so you should be sure to download your earlier version software and licenses within 180 days.

The earlier versions are available in English, French, German and Japanese. For versions 2007 and later, there is a single download and you choose the language at install time. For version 7, there is a separate download for each localized version.

The Academic edition can be used only for learning in an academic or classroom environment. Educational institutions cannot use the academic version to produce software for use within their institution to commercial licenses.

It could be a little confusing for some customers when they purchase Delphi and receive seven different serial numbers and download links. We tried to keep it simple by just delivering the license for the purchased version and allow you to request the other licenses as needed.

Version 2006 included some third party licensed code that we are no longer able to ship. Delphi 6 and earlier were discontinued years ago and we don't have plans to bring them back.

Those versions used an earlier version of our licensing technology.

Yes. When you first run the product, a small application will open and ask you to register the product. Once that is done, and your product key is validated, then your product will be registered and installed.

InterBase Developer Edition is InterBase Server licensed for up to 20 users (80 database connections). The InterBase software is automatically installed with a default install of Delphi and licensed with your Delphi serial number. An InterBase ToGo Test Deployment license is also included in your Delphi license. You can deploy InterBase ToGo for testing purposes using the ToGo Test Deployment serial number included as part of your Delphi order delivery email. This is not available for AppWave Network license users.

When you're ready to deploy applications using InterBase, Embarcadero offers a variety of editions (Desktop, Server and To-Go) and a variety of licensing options (flexible server licensing, multi-packs and OEM licensing). Contact Embarcadero Sales or partners for more information. See the license terms in the Delphi license.rtf file for additional licensing details.

The export status for the RAD Studio IDE and Delphi is 5D992C – Mass Market

The open source project is http://sourceforge.net/projects/radstudioverins/. The repository for the open source code is available from the "Code" tab when you're logged in to SourceForge web site or at https://svn.code.sf.net/p/radstudioverins/code/trunk/.

Mobile development features for Android and iOS are available in the following editions of Delphi:

  • Community (Limited Commercial License applies, see EULA)
  • Professional
  • Enterprise
  • Architect

Mobile development features are also included in all editions of Embarcadero RAD Studio.

DataSnap Mobile Connectors are available in Enterprise edition and above.

When developing for iOS, you will also need a Mac computer for development and running in the simulator. You will need an Apple Developer account to test and deploy to iOS devices. Additional details are available in the online and product documentation.

FireDAC makes database app development fun again with high-performance, multi-device enterprise database connectivity for Delphi, C++Builder, and RAD Studio. With its powerful universal architecture FireDAC enables direct access from your applications to Oracle, SQL Server, InterBase, DB2, Firebird, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Anywhere, Advantage DB, Access, Informix, DataSnap and more. And now, access to IBLite, InterBase ToGo, and SQLite databases from your Delphi Android and iOS apps. In addition to blazing speed and universal access, FireDAC also supports vendor specific database features as well as deployment across multiple client operating systems and device platforms.

FireDAC is included as part of the install. Features vary by edition with local/embedded database connectivity to select databases in Community and Professional editions and local/embedded plus enterprise database connectivity in Enterprise edition or higher. More information is available at http://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/firedac.

Yes. You can develop applications on any of the supported development platforms and deploy your app to any of the supported deployment platforms - even if they are different.

The DataSnap Mobile Connector feature generates connectivity code that you can incorporate into mobile applications for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7. You develop your mobile applications using the standard development tools and languages for each platform such as Objective C with the Xcode IDE for iOS, Java for Android and Blackberry, or Silverlight for Windows Phone 7. You then use the DataSnap Mobile Connector code to provide connectivity to your native C++Builder or Delphi DataSnap server.

For latest supported platforms and installation requirements, please see Supported Platforms and Devices document .

Because of the use of Unicode as the default string type, Windows 98, 95, and ME will not run applications produced with Delphi 2009 or later. These operating systems do not support Unicode strings, and Microsoft has dropped support for them.

Applications built with Delphi 2009-XE2 and VCL will run on Windows 2000 or later. Applications built with Delphi XE3-XE5 will run on Windows XP and later. Applications built with Delphi versions from XE6 onwards will run on Windows 7 or later.

For latest supported platforms and installation requirements, please see Supported Platforms and Devices document.

You can use an online service like MacinCloud to run macOS apps that you create with Delphi and you can use MacinCloud to test your iOS apps in the simulator. Access to a physical Mac machine is required for on-device testing.

Yes. You can create a single application and deploy to Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can also create iOS and Android mobile apps from the same codebase. The single application can share a responsive UI across all platforms.

Most existing code will work fine using the new default UnicodeString. Code that does byte level manipulation of string data, or that carries data in string variables probably needs to be examined and perhaps updated to account for the new character sizes inherent in Unicode string data. For more information, see the documentation and Embarcadero Developer Network for information about moving existing code to Unicode.

Yes, you should be able to do so, depending on the installed components required by your projects. Delphi uses the MSBuild system for the build engine, and thus requires a new project file if you are upgrading from version 2007 or earlier. However, the IDE will seamlessly update your projects to the new format.

No. Delphi produces native binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can import .NET assemblies as COM objects, but the code produced by Delphi is strictly native code.

Some of the functionality of the IDE requires these software packages.

No. Applications produced with Delphi do not require any .NET runtime support. The product produces native compiled Windows applications based on the Windows API.

The ER/Studio Developer Edition data modeling and visualization in Delphi Architect is a subset of the full ER/Studio. Delphi Architect doesn't include metadata import/export capabilities or access to ER/Studio team repository servers. It includes limited reporting functionality (HTML only). The ER/Studio functionality in Delphi Architect supports a specific set of databases in line with those supported by dbExpress, while the full ER/Studio products offer flexible configurations for those databases and more.

Yes, Delphi coexists nicely with earlier versions of RAD Studio, C++Builder and Delphi.

Yes. See the Embarcadero Certification Center web page at Certification for information on the Delphi developer certification program.

Yes, the 64-bit Windows compiler is included in Delphi.

The Delphi 64-bit information page has videos, information, resources and tips on creating 64-bit applications with Delphi.