Visual Studio Community 2013 FREE
**Update** You must sign in with a Microsoft account within 30 days of downloading Visual Studio Community. I have gotten comments that otherwise, it will appear to prompt you for a license.
The full power of Visual Studio is now completely free for students, individual developers, or small teams. The power of Visual Studio, in my mind, has never been in doubt, but the cost of Visual Studio has been a factor for me to consider when doing work in the community. While Visual Studio was free for students who’s school was enrolled in Dreamspark, there was no guarantee that every student’s school was enrolled. Additionally, what about potential developers who were no longer students? There was always Visual Studio Express, a free version of Visual Studio, but it came with certain limitations. The key with Visual Studio Community being announced today is that, although it is free like Express, it does not have the limitations that Visual Studio Express had. Let’s take a look at those features!
What's in Visual Studio Community 2013
- Professional-grade editing, code analysis, and debugging support
- Support for open-source workflows (Git)
- Compilers for managed languages, C++ and more
- Cross-platform mobile development for your preferred device and platform, including the web, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone with the free Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova extension
- Take advantage of cloud services with simplified Azure SDK integration, and incorporate modern app analytics and telemetry with Application Insights
- Access to all the Visual Studio 2013 extensions on the Visual Studio Gallery
- Visual Studio Community 2013 includes Update 4, which is a cumulative update of all previous Visual Studio 2013 updates
You now have access to all extensions from the Visual Studio Gallery. Additionally, you get the ability to build completely cross platform web apps using the Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova. I have been working with this extension recently (posts to come soon), and trust me, this is a big deal. The tooling in Visual Studio for this was already impressive and is getting better and better. For details you can check out Dave Voyle’s Blog Posts.
Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community:
-
- Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community, to create their own free or paid apps.
Here’s how Visual Studio Community can be used in organizations:
-
An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects.
For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations up to 5 users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or > $1M in annual revenue) no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research and classroom learning environment scenarios described above.
Download Visual Studio Community 2013.
Comments
Anonymous
November 15, 2014
Excellent news! Well done Microsoft.Anonymous
November 15, 2014
"Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community, to create their own free or paid apps." this is little confusing, does it apply to someone how does freelance work for others(a company for example), or it has to be my own appsAnonymous
November 16, 2014
What is the size of the VS Community 2013 file that is actually downloaded? ThanksAnonymous
November 17, 2014
@stefj It's 6.88 GBAnonymous
November 17, 2014
I will miss the Express versions. Visual Studio Express for Web fit nicely on my 32Gig tablet.Anonymous
November 17, 2014
It's 6.88 GBAnonymous
November 18, 2014
Anouar- Thanks for the info. VS Community 2015 will probably be available by the time it downloads using my internet connection!Anonymous
November 21, 2014
So excited to finally been able to get this..and making it availableAnonymous
February 24, 2015
So i install Visual Studio Community 2013 and after 30 days it expired. So isn't Visual Studio Community 2013 free??Anonymous
March 09, 2015
Jhonas Visual Studio Community is free and shouldn't expire. I didn't do anything special when i downloaded. What exactly does it say or so to make you think it is expired?Anonymous
March 15, 2015
@Jhonas - The same thing happened to me. Apparently, VS Community 2013 is no longer free, and is instead 30 day free trial software... an enormous distinction Microsoft should make on its own website (it does not as of this post). @James - All I did was exactly what the instructions said: I downloaded and installed the program 30 days ago. It worked perfectly fine for me for 30 days. Then, starting today, a popup now comes up right after I launch VS that cannot be X'd out and says "License: 30 day trial (for evaluation purposes). This license has expired. Sign in to acquire a license using an online account." There is even a link to get it free only after verifying you are a student of a qualifying academic institution (implying it is NOT free for everyone else). * shrugs *Anonymous
March 15, 2015
Correction! It appears VS Community 2013 does continue to be free, but only after you sign in to your Microsoft account and register it. I realized this only after I visited the Visual Studio downloads page again, which does indicate the need to register by 30 days. But the product itself tells a very different story after 30 days are up (that you need to purchase a license to continue). MS really needs to change this wording... anyway: @Jhonas, and anyone else in trouble - If you launch VSC 2013 and get the popup I mentioned in my previous post, you will also see a link to sign in to your Microsoft account. Do so. You can reject the optional offer to host your code on MS's servers. After registering, the expired license message ceases and you can once again work in VSC 2013.Anonymous
March 17, 2015
@Kartari thanks for figuring that out! I never noticed because I signed in immediately. The article has been updated to reflect your note!Anonymous
June 18, 2015
The comment has been removedAnonymous
October 06, 2015
I have had downloaded and installed VC community edition 2013 a month or before . I added multiple Microsoft products from web site and MS web platform installer. I was rarely used the tool dint even remember whether I registered or not. Few days back I uninstalled all Microsoft VC 2013 and other dependent MS installation. After cleaning the PC , I used MS web platform installer to install a fresh copy of VC community edition 2013. But right then, it started showing "Licence: 30 days trail ( for evaluation purpose only) . This licence has expired. You are not able to update your license in this application" Using Windows 10 Operating System. What is the way to fix it?Anonymous
November 04, 2015
why he asking me for activation if its free