Features
Some of the features Lazarus has to offer:
Freedom
- LGPL licensed [1][2] libraries allow you to create your own applications under any license you desire. Even commercial closed source.
- GPL licensed IDE
- Cross Platform IDE. Work on your favourite system.
- Platform independent projects out of the box. Simply copy your project to another platform and compile it.
- Build native binaries. Distribute your binaries without dependencies on any runtime environment. [3]
Ease of use
- Installer, with all required files available
- Easy Drag & Drop Form designer to create powerful layouts
- Automatic synchronization between GUI-Forms and code
- Powerful code editor with syntax highlighting and code completion
- Navigate pascal source code
- Refactoring tools
- Integrated build system and debugger. Run, test and debug your projects from the IDE
Extensibility
- Open Source. You can add or modify existing code and components to meet your requirements
- Lazarus package system allows to install 3rd party add ons for more components or to extend the IDE
- Several database frameworks to meet your requirements
- Reporting and Charting
- A choice of Networking libraries available.
- Utf8 and i18n support. Translate your projects.
- Many more components. Build in and for download
[1] LGPL with additional permission to link libraries into your binaries.
[2] Some additional packages come with various licenses such as GPL, MPL, ...
[3] Linux/BSD applications may depend on GTK2 or alternatively QT.
Cross Platform
Lazarus runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and many other platforms. Even on Raspberry Pi! The programs you create also runs on these platforms. Enjoy the same experience on your favorite OS. See Installing Lazarus for OS-specific instructions for installation.
Powerful, Fast
Lazarus is a capable IDE for handling large projects. Its compiler FPC is being constantly developed to improve performance. As an example for the project size the IDE can handle, and the performance of the resulting application: The Lazarus IDE itself is developed using Lazarus.
Drag and Drop Form Designer
Lazarus has a graphical form designer with guidelines for aligning with adjacent components. There are numerous components for almost every software imaginable, already ready to be used. Further components can be added to the IDE by Lazarus Package Files (LPKs).
Cross-platform
Lazarus form designer uses LCL (Lazarus Component Library) which is especially designed for cross platform usage. Building your project for different platforms will give you native look and feel on each platform. There are no changes to the project needed.
Modern, Object oriented language
Lazarus uses Free Pascal as its language which is an Object Pascal dialect. It is constantly developed to integrate new features that can be expected in modern programming languages.
Easily Extendable
Hundreds of developers are developing and maintaining their Lazarus Libraries and Lazarus Packages (LPKs). You can find almost any kind of library that you may need.
Open source
Lazarus is open source and the core libraries [4] are distributed under LGPL with the extra permission of static linking. So you can create non-commercial and commercial applications with it.
[4] This applies to LCL, FCL, RTL. It covers all the standard components and many other. Some of the packages with extra components may be GPL, MPL or other
Frameworks
Various Frameworks are available which saves your time on certain codebase.
And more...
Here is a version-based feature history which has animations to show you many features in action: Wiki: New IDE features since
© 1993-2024 Lazarus and Free Pascal Team
