Embedded Files
Developer Edition
Developer Edition
Developer Edition Restrictions
Developer Edition Restrictions
Developer edition provides access to the full capabilities of SQL Server to build and test new mission critical, intelligent applications. It is a free download from the SQL Server downloads page.Developer edition is only for development and test environments and should not be used in production.
Examples typically considered acceptable:
developer troubleshooting
QA testing
performance testing
UAT
You can use several Developer Edition instances in an AlwaysOn Availability Group (2)
Examples typically considered non-compliant:
reporting offload from production
customer-accessible staging
hosted client environments
production HA/DR replicas
You can restore production backups into Developer Edition.
If the environment is strictly non-production
But not if the server performs production work or serves customers/users operationally
SQL Server 2025
SQL Server 2025
Microsoft now provides two Developer editions:
Enterprise Developer Edition
Standard Developer Edition
For earlier versions (with only an Enterprise Edition compatible Developer Edition)...
"...there is a risk with using this edition for building your data driven solutions if cost is any factor with your organisation. That risk is sneakily hidden in feature support. As the dev version gives you access to the enterprise features you never run into the problems of what features are available for what version for the whole of the development cycle… and some of them are pretty hidden. An example in our case was using the dev edition to build and prototype a complex SSAS cube based off one of our data warehouses. Everything was wonderful until we went to put into production. Because we are not a huge company SQL standard edition was all we could afford / justify. Unfortunately for us some of the built in semi additive calculations are not supported in standard edition. As such many of our stock / inventory control calculations would not work (FirstNonEmpty and LastNonEmpty) and the project could not be deployed. We are still working on fixes – which are quite painful. So while this is great, be careful of the features you use."(comment on https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/ )
SQL Server 2017
SQL Server 2017
Prior to SQL2017 use of SQL Server Developer Edition was tied to the free Visual Studio Dev Essentials (VSDE) program. With SQL2017 Microsoft began offering direct public downloads.
SQL Server 2016
SQL Server 2016
With SQL2016 SQL Server Developer Edition became freely available via the Visual Studio Dev Essentials (VSDE) program. MSDN membership is no longer required.
The license agreement from the SQL Server 2016 Developer Edition states:
1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.a. General. You may install and use copies of the software on any device, including third party shared devices, to design, develop, test and demonstrate your programs. You may not use the software on a device or server in a production environment.b. Demonstration. Any person that has access to your internal network may install and use copies of the software to demonstrate use of your programs with the software. Those copies may not be used for any other purpose.c. User Testing. Your end users may access the software to perform acceptance tests on your programs.
From directionsonmicrosoft...
A potentially confusing issue, and license compliance risk, is that the SQL Server Developer edition can refer to a license as well as software. MSDN subscriptions include the SQL Server Developer edition software, but it may only be used by MSDN subscribers. Individuals with a SQL Server Developer edition license, in contrast, may only use software media available through volume licensing, not MSDN. A customer cannot deploy SQL Server Developer edition software acquired from the MSDN subscriber Web site and then provide access to both MSDN subscribers and individuals licensed with the freestanding SQL Server Developer edition user license.(https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/licensing/2013/06/licensing-sql-server-development-and-test)SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2014
SQL Server 2014 Developer edition lets developers build any kind of application on top of SQL Server. It includes all the functionality of Enterprise edition, but is licensed for use as a development and test system, not as a production server. SQL Server Developer is an ideal choice for people who build and test applications.
SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition is a full-function version of SQL Server software—including all of the features and capabilities of Enterprise Edition—licensed under the Developer Tools model, which is a “per user” model. One license is required for each person that accesses or uses the software. Customers licensing APS appliances for non-production use are also able to license the included SQL Server 2012 PDW software under the Developer Tools model.
When using SQL Server under the Developer Tools license model, the software may only be used for development, test or demonstration purposes. Each licensed user may install and run the SQL Server software on any number of devices, and an additional SQL Server license for the actual server systems running SQL Server software is not required. This is significant, because it allows customers to run the software on multiple devices (for testing purposes, for example) without having to license each non-production server system.
Before using SQL Server software under the Developer Tools model, customers must assign one license to each user accessing the software. Once licensed, customers can install the SQL Server software on any number of server systems, and all licensed users can use copies to design, develop, test and/or demonstrate programs. Customers cannot use the software in a production environment, and any test data that was used for design, development or test purposes must be removed prior to deploying the software for production use.
Note: A production environment is defined as an environment that is accessed by end-users of an application (such as an Internet website) and that is used for more than gathering feedback or acceptance testing of that application. Other scenarios that constitute production environments include:
Environments that connect to a production database. Environments that support disaster-recovery or backup for a production environment. Environments that are used for production at least some of the time, such as a server that is rotated into production during peak periods of activity.
It is rare that someone whose primary role is designing, developing, or testing software would also qualify as an “end user” of the software.
SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition is a full-function version of SQL Server software—including all of the features and capabilities of Enterprise Edition—licensed under the Developer Tools model, which is a “per user” model. One license is required for each person that accesses or uses the software. Customers licensing APS appliances for non-production use are also able to license the included SQL Server 2012 PDW software under the Developer Tools model.
When using SQL Server under the Developer Tools license model, the software may only be used for development, test or demonstration purposes. Each licensed user may install and run the SQL Server software on any number of devices, and an additional SQL Server license for the actual server systems running SQL Server software is not required. This is significant, because it allows customers to run the software on multiple devices (for testing purposes, for example) without having to license each non-production server system.
Before using SQL Server software under the Developer Tools model, customers must assign one license to each user accessing the software. Once licensed, customers can install the SQL Server software on any number of server systems, and all licensed users can use copies to design, develop, test and/or demonstrate programs. Customers cannot use the software in a production environment, and any test data that was used for design, development or test purposes must be removed prior to deploying the software for production use.
Note: A production environment is defined as an environment that is accessed by end-users of an application (such as an Internet website) and that is used for more than gathering feedback or acceptance testing of that application. Other scenarios that constitute production environments include:
Environments that connect to a production database. Environments that support disaster-recovery or backup for a production environment. Environments that are used for production at least some of the time, such as a server that is rotated into production during peak periods of activity.
It is rare that someone whose primary role is designing, developing, or testing software would also qualify as an “end user” of the software.
Visual Studio Subscription Options
Visual Studio Subscription Options
For customers needing a comprehensive database development solution, we also offer Visual Studio Professional and Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions. Visual Studio subscriptions provide additional benefits, including:
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/
- Past and current versions of SQL Server (including Enterprise edition)
- Past and current versions of Windows and Windows Server for dev/test
- A monthly Azure credit of $50 to $150 to use for running dev/test workloads, including Azure SQL Database, SQL Server running in Azure Virtual Machines, and much more
- 2 or 4 incidents with Microsoft Technical Support*
- Visual Studio Professional or Visual Studio Enterprise, for state-of-the-art database development
- Source code management/version control, work item management, builds, and more using Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team Services
- And much more…
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/
Enterprise Edition
Enterprise Edition
Key deciding factors for use of Enterprise Edition include....
Does the database need Transparent Data Encryption (TDE).. e.g. for PCI compliance? Note that from SQL2019 TDE is also available in Sandard Edition.
Is the environment virtualised? EE allows "unlimited virtualisation". Other editions require 4 core licenses per VM. EE requires 1 core license per physical core in the virtualised environment but allows an unlimited number of virtual machines to be deployed on those cores.
Do you need the performance benefits?
Do you need online index rebuilds? (i.e. if the database needs to be available 24/7 you could assume that at some point you will need to rebuild an index... can you live with that index being offline for the duration?).
Check EE Feature Usage
Check EE Feature Usage
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb.dbo.##enterprise_features') IS NOT NULL
DROP TABLE ##enterprise_features
CREATE TABLE ##enterprise_features
(
dbname SYSNAME,
feature_name VARCHAR(100),
feature_id INT
)
EXEC sp_msforeachdb
N' USE [?]
IF (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sys.dm_db_persisted_sku_features) >0
BEGIN
INSERT INTO ##enterprise_features
SELECT dbname=DB_NAME(),feature_name,feature_id
FROM sys.dm_db_persisted_sku_features
END '
SELECT *
FROM ##enterprise_features
Express Edition
Express Edition
SQL Server 2014 Express edition is the entry-level, free database and is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server data-driven applications. It is the best choice for independent software vendors, developers, and hobbyists building client applications. If you need more advanced database features, SQL Server Express can be seamlessly upgraded to other higher end versions of SQL Server. SQL Server Express LocalDB, a lightweight version of Express that has all of its programmability features, yet runs in user mode and has a fast, zero-configuration installation and a short list of prerequisites.
You can run multiple instances of Express Edition on a single server/virtual machine
LocalDB
LocalDB
LocalDB is a lightweight version of SQL Server Express, aimed mainly at developers.
Standard Edition
Standard Edition
2014
2014
Standard Edition is limited to the lesser of 4 sockets or 16 cores
2019
2019
Standard Edition is limited to the lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores
Compact Edition
Compact Edition
This is the Microsoft equivalent of SQLite - it is free to distribute and use.
In February 2013, Microsoft announced that SQL Server Compact Edition had been deprecated.Although no new versions or updates are planned, Microsoft will continue to support SQL Compact through their standard lifecycle support policy. This support ended in July 2021. (1)Evaluation Edition
Evaluation Edition
This is an 180 day evaluation of Enterprise Edition. After 180 days the instance will stop and will not be restartable without converting to another edition.
The Microsoft SQL Server release is NOT supported by Microsoft Customer Services and Support (CSS). (3)
The Microsoft SQL Server release is available for testing purposes only and should NOT be installed and used in production environments. (3)
Bibliography & References
Bibliography & References
https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/licensing/2013/06/licensing-sql-server-development-and-test https://gbyte.co/blog/finding-databases-use-Enterprise-features-sql-server http://support.cyriouswiki.com/Can+I+use+a+VM+%28Virtual+Machine%29+to+host+SQL+Server%3F#gsc.tab=0 https://sqlserverbuilds.blogspot.com/2019/02/sql-server-editions.htmlhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/compute-capacity-limits-by-edition-of-sql-server
SSIShttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/integration-services/integration-services-features-supported-by-the-editions-of-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver15
Developer Editionhttps://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/dev-essentials/https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/7201/sql-server-developer-edition-download-install-get-started/(2) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/288802/setting-up-alwayson-availability-group-on-sql-serv
Standard Editionhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/sqlreleaseservices/sql-server-2016-service-pack-1-sp1-released
Enterprise Editionhttps://splalicensing.com/2014/10/28/sql-enterprise-its-more-than-virtualization/
Express Editionhttps://logicalread.com/sql-server-express-as-a-production-database/#.XxGo_GRKiUkhttps://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/29712/is-the-sql-server-express-memory-and-cpu-limit-per-instancehttps://expressdb.io/
LocalDBhttps://www.sqlshack.com/install-microsoft-sql-server-express-localdb/
Compact Edition(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Compact
Evaluation Editionhttps://techyaz.com/sql-server/sql-server-evaluation-period-has-expired-and-how-to-upgrade-it/https://blog.sqlauthority.com/2015/06/22/sql-server-evaluation-period-has-expired-how-to-activate-sql-server/https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/sql/database-engine/install/windows/evaluation-period-has-expired(3) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2022
SQL2014https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/getting-started/features-supported-by-the-editions-of-sql-server-2014?view=sql-server-2014 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/compute-capacity-limits-by-edition-of-sql-server?view=sql-server-2014
SQL2016https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2016?view=sql-server-ver15https://sqlperformance.com/2016/12/sql-performance/sql-server-2016-enterprise-edition-perf-benefits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/sqlreleaseservices/sql-server-2016-service-pack-1-sp1-released https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2016
SQL2017https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017-editions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2017?view=sql-server-ver15 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2017
SQL2019https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/compute-capacity-limits-by-edition-of-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver15 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-version-15?view=sql-server-ver15 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2019
SQL2022https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2022
SSIShttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/integration-services/integration-services-features-supported-by-the-editions-of-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver15
Developer Editionhttps://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/03/31/microsoft-sql-server-developer-edition-is-now-free/https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/dev-essentials/https://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/7201/sql-server-developer-edition-download-install-get-started/(2) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/288802/setting-up-alwayson-availability-group-on-sql-serv
Standard Editionhttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/sqlreleaseservices/sql-server-2016-service-pack-1-sp1-released
Enterprise Editionhttps://splalicensing.com/2014/10/28/sql-enterprise-its-more-than-virtualization/
Express Editionhttps://logicalread.com/sql-server-express-as-a-production-database/#.XxGo_GRKiUkhttps://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/29712/is-the-sql-server-express-memory-and-cpu-limit-per-instancehttps://expressdb.io/
LocalDBhttps://www.sqlshack.com/install-microsoft-sql-server-express-localdb/
Compact Edition(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Compact
Evaluation Editionhttps://techyaz.com/sql-server/sql-server-evaluation-period-has-expired-and-how-to-upgrade-it/https://blog.sqlauthority.com/2015/06/22/sql-server-evaluation-period-has-expired-how-to-activate-sql-server/https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/sql/database-engine/install/windows/evaluation-period-has-expired(3) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2022
SQL2014https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/getting-started/features-supported-by-the-editions-of-sql-server-2014?view=sql-server-2014 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/compute-capacity-limits-by-edition-of-sql-server?view=sql-server-2014
SQL2016https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2016?view=sql-server-ver15https://sqlperformance.com/2016/12/sql-performance/sql-server-2016-enterprise-edition-perf-benefits https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/sqlreleaseservices/sql-server-2016-service-pack-1-sp1-released https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2016
SQL2017https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017-editions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2017?view=sql-server-ver15 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2017
SQL2019https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/compute-capacity-limits-by-edition-of-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver15 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-version-15?view=sql-server-ver15 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2019
SQL2022https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2022
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