You can review the latest Visual Studio Build Tools license here: License Terms | Microsoft Diagnostic Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022 – Visual Studio (for full list of licenses check out the Visual Studio Licenses & EULA Directory) Background With this new license option, if you do not need the full functionality of Visual Studio for your active development of your project, you have the flexibility to install Visual Studio Build Tools for free.Īs noted above, if you and your team need to compile and develop proprietary C++ code with Visual Studio, a Visual Studio license will still be required.

Previously, if the application you were developing was not OSS, installing VSBT was permitted only if you had a valid Visual Studio license (e.g., Visual Studio Community or higher). If you are an enterprise developer or developing any closed-source projects, this change now allows you to use Visual Studio Build Tools to compile and build any C++ 3rd party open-source dependencies, without needing a paid Visual Studio license, when you’re not using Visual Studio for active C++ development.įor example, if your Node.js application depends on npm native modules like sqllite3, bufferutil, etc., in order to successfully install these npm packages on Windows, you will need to use Visual Studio Build Tools. If you already are a developer contributing to OSS projects, you can continue to use Visual Studio and Visual Studio Build Tools together for free, just like before. This change expands user rights to the Build Tools and does not limit the existing Visual Studio Community license provisions around Open-Source development. Visual Studio Build Tools (VSBT) can now be used for compiling open-source C++ dependencies from source without requiring a Visual Studio license, even when you are working for an enterprise on a commercial or closed-source project.

Visual studio 2019 build tools