Delphi Frequently Asked Questions

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 Products Portal. Notifications for those upgrades are delivered via email and the upgrades can be downloaded via the Customer 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 ELC provide the additional flexibility of managing licenses on a license server plus software provisioning.
• Network licenses managed by Embarcadero ELC 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, 11 Alexandria and earlier versions to Delphi 7 are included with your purchase of the latest version. See the Delphi Previous Versions 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 resend of your existing serial number.

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 and need to switch to commercial licenses.

See the Supported Versions List for the latest information by version.

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

Please review the license terms and the Community Edition FAQ.

Mobile development features for Android and iOS are available in all editions of Delphi.

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 FireDAC Page.

Yes. You can develop applications on any version of Windows and deploy your app to any of the supported deployment platforms, different versions of Windows but also other supported desktop, mobile, and server platforms.

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

Applications built with recent versions of Delphi will generally run on Windows XP, but versions of Windows before Windows 7 aren't officially supported at this time.

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 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.

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 Migration & Upgrade Center page has videos, information, resources and tips on creating 64-bit applications with Delphi.