Dev-C++ has a long history as a C++ development tool for Windows. It was started over 20 years ago by developer Colin Laplace from Bloodshed Software. One of the major selling points is that it is FAST and easy to use. It was created in then Borland Delphi and has been upgraded multiple times since by different authors. The original Bloodshed version has been download over 39 million times according to SourceForge. It is described as “Dev-C++ is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Win32. It uses GCC, Mingw or Cygwin as compiler and libraries set. It supports Windows 98, NT, 2000 & XP.”
Johan Mes took up the mantle to upgrade Dev-C++ and created the Orwell Dev-C++ fork of the original project. This version receives some decent upgrades but has not seen a new version since 2015 and Johan has stated he “will probably still not have any time to work on this project”. The Orwell Dev-C++ project on SourceForge has received over 29 million downloads. It is described as “A new and improved fork of Bloodshed Dev-C++” with “TDM-GCC 4.9.2 32/64bit” support.
As you can see Dev-C++ has been downloaded almost 70 million times since 1998. Quite a few colleges like the University of New Orleans, Brooklyn College, and Connecticut State University may use Dev-C++ in their C++ programming coursework.
The latest version (released in 2021) of Dev-C++ is Embarcadero Dev-C++ which is built in Embarcadero Delphi. It features full support for Windows 7, 8, and 10. Additionally, it features support for C++17 and partial support of C++20 through TDM-GCC 9.2.0 32/64bit. It has also been upgraded to support Unicode out of the box. Finally, the most recent update includes built in support for parallel compilation proving a massive compile time boost on today’s multiprocessor CPUs like AMD’s Threadripper 3990X and Ryzen 9 5950X.
If you are looking for a C++ development environment for Windows 10 that uses less memory that Visual Studio Code and Visual C++ isn’t doing it for you then give Embarcadero Dev-C++ a try. Want to contribute to the project? Jump in on the GitHub repo and make your own enhancements!
