Visual Studio Express
Download Visual Studio Community for a fully-featured and extensible IDE; An updated alternative to Visual Studio Express.
Visual Studio 2017 is now available
Customized installer
Develop for WPF, WinForms, ASP.NET, Universal Windows Platform, Win32, Android, iOS, and many more platforms all from one IDE with everything you need.
Get to coding faster
With faster project load times and performance improvements, you can get to working faster with your favorite languages such as C/C++, C#, Visual Basic, F#, Python, and more.
Improved productivity
Code editing, navigation, and debugging are made easier with features like XAML Edit & Continue, improved IntelliSense, enhanced code refactoring, live code analysis, and the ability to open any folder without needing projects or solutions.
Modern Web
Tap into modern web development with JavaScript, ASP.NET, Python, and more with powerful coding tools like rich IntelliSense completions, first class debugging, and performance profilers.
Build for Windows
Create apps and games for Windows using powerful new platform features like UI analysis and debugging, Windows 10 mobile emulators, DirectX graphics tools.
Vibrant ecosystem
Access to thousands of extensions that Express lacks, such as GitHub Extension, Resharper, Visual Assist. And Web Essentials.
Help me choose. I am a…
Choose from the options below to see what version of Visual Studio is right for you

Individual Developer

Student or Teacher

Open Source Contributor

Academic Researcher

Small Organization

Large Business
Still want Visual Studio Express?
Supports building managed and native desktop applications.*
Supports the creation of desktop applications for Windows.
Create standards-based, responsive websites, web APIs, or real-time online experiences using ASP.NET.
Provides the core tools for building compelling, innovative apps for Universal Windows Platform. Windows is required.
Source-code-control, project management, and team-collaboration platform.
*Visual Studio Express 2017 is available for Windows Desktop developers. This will be the final version of Visual Studio Express, and there will not be a UWP or Web offering of Visual Studio Express 2017. We encourage all users to look at the free development options offered by Microsoft such as Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Community for future development needs.
Free, fully-featured IDE for students, open-source and individual developers
Professional developer tools, services, and subscription benefits for small teams
End-to-end solution to meet demanding quality and scale needs of teams of all sizes
Free, fully-featured IDE for students, open-source and individual developers
Professional developer tools, services, and subscription benefits for small teams
End-to-end solution to meet demanding quality and scale needs of teams of all sizes