Download Lazarus for Windows PC v4.8 for Windows PC

Lazarus 4.8 is the free, open-source Delphi-style IDE for Object Pascal, bundled with Free Pascal 3.2.2: design forms visually, write Pascal code...

Features

• It recreates the Delphi experience for free: a visual form designer, a rich component palette and event-driven Object Pascal coding that compiles to native executables.
• The Windows installer is all-in-one, bundling Lazarus 4.8 with the Free Pascal 3.2.2 compiler, debugger and help files, and it is code-signed by the Free Pascal & Lazarus Foundation.
• The Lazarus Component Library lets the same project target Windows, Linux and macOS, which makes Lazarus unusual among free IDEs for genuinely cross-platform native GUI work.
• Licensing is developer-friendly: the IDE is GPL and the LCL uses a modified LGPL that allows linking into your own applications, so programs you ship are not forced to be open source.
• It can import and convert many Delphi projects, forms and packages, making it the standard free option for maintaining or modernising Delphi-era codebases.

Considerations

• The ecosystem is smaller than mainstream stacks, with fewer third-party components, tutorials and jobs, and some Delphi components need manual adaptation before they work.
• The interface and workflows feel traditional compared with modern IDEs, which can make Lazarus look dated to developers coming from Visual Studio or VS Code.
• The combined IDE-plus-compiler installer is large and installs a full toolchain, which is more than you need if you only want to read or lightly edit Pascal code.

Lazarus recreates the classic Delphi workflow for free: you design a form by dropping controls on it from a large component palette, double-click a control to write its event handler in Object Pascal, and compile to a fast native executable with no runtime, no licence server and no dependencies — a single self-contained EXE is a feature, not an accident. It is built on the Free Pascal Compiler and modelled closely on Delphi, with form and data-module inheritance much like the original, an integrated debugger, and a code editor with completion, refactoring and navigation tools. Because Lazarus can import many Delphi projects and packages, it has become the standard free route for maintaining Delphi-era codebases, as well as for teaching Pascal and building self-contained Windows utilities.

The Windows 64-bit installer for Lazarus 4.8 is admirably complete: lazarus-4.8-fpc-3.2.2-win64.exe — distributed via SourceForge from lazarus-ide.org — installs the IDE together with Free Pascal 3.2.2, the debugger and the help files, so no separate compiler download is needed, and the package is code-signed by the Stichting Programming Free Pascal & Lazarus Foundation. The Lazarus Component Library (LCL) is the other half of the proposition: it abstracts the underlying widget set, so the same project can typically be recompiled for Linux and macOS as well as Windows, a trick no other Pascal tool matches. The combined installer is large (1.5 GB of space) precisely because it installs a full toolchain — more than you need if you only want to read or lightly edit Pascal code.

The licensing is developer-friendly in a way that matters commercially: the IDE is GPL, while the LCL uses a modified LGPL with a linking exception, so programs you build and ship are not forced to be open source, and Lazarus is free including for commercial use — your own applications stay yours. Set expectations about the ecosystem, though: Lazarus has a loyal community, a large wiki and an online package manager, but it cannot match the component marketplaces, tutorial volume or hiring pool of C#, Python or web stacks, and some Delphi components and newer Delphi language features need adaptation rather than dropping straight in. The interface and workflows are also proudly traditional, which can make Lazarus look dated to developers coming from Visual Studio or VS Code. If Pascal is your language or your legacy codebase, none of that matters: for that audience Lazarus 4.8 is not a compromise but the obvious, capable default. It needs Windows 7 or later (64-bit 10/11 recommended), 2 GB of RAM and a 1 GHz x64 processor.

Download lazarus-4.8-fpc-3.2.2-win64.exe (EXE) — the Lazarus 4.8 installer with Free Pascal 3.2.2 included — using the download button on this page.

Open the downloaded EXE and follow the installation wizard; if you already have an older Lazarus install, the wizard will ask how to handle the existing configuration before installing alongside or over it.

Launch Lazarus, choose Project > New Project > Application, drop components from the palette onto the form, double-click a component to write its event code, and press Run (F9) to compile and test.

Is Lazarus free?

Yes. Lazarus is free and open source, including for commercial use. The IDE is licensed under the GPL and the Lazarus Component Library under a modified LGPL with a linking exception, so applications you build with Lazarus and the LCL are not required to be open source themselves.

What programming language does Lazarus use?

Lazarus uses Object Pascal. It is built on the Free Pascal Compiler and follows the classic Delphi workflow: design a form visually, add components, and write event handlers in Object Pascal.

How to download Lazarus IDE?

Download the official 64-bit Windows installer, lazarus-4.8-fpc-3.2.2-win64.exe, from the downloads linked at lazarus-ide.org. It installs Lazarus 4.8 together with Free Pascal 3.2.2 and the help files, so you do not need to install the compiler separately first.

Does anyone still use Pascal?

Yes. Object Pascal remains in use through Delphi and the free Free Pascal and Lazarus ecosystem, especially for existing business software and cross-platform desktop applications. Lazarus lets a project designed on Windows typically be recompiled for Linux and macOS with little or no code change.