Lazarus (IDE) - Differences From Delphi

Differences From Delphi

While resembling Delphi in many ways, there are a few limitations regarding the performance and feature set.

• Under Windows executable, by default, file size is somewhat larger than the Delphi (6/7) equivalent because debug information is included within Lazarus executables, instead of as separate files like Delphi. However, the 0.9.30 release introduces an external debug symbols feature. Lazarus program file size can be significantly reduced by using an external symbols file (it can be set in Compiler options), and also by using Strip and UPX (although UPX has significant disadvantages).
• Components for Delphi can be installed in Lazarus, but they must be converted, which can be complex. (2.4.x based 0.9.30 should make this easier)
• Missing important media libraries and widgets:
  • Microsoft Office connectivity (popping up Excel with a simple table filled out works fine in 2.5.x trunk)
  • Datasnap (not a publicly documented system, Borland proprietary enterprise functionality)
• Networking is mostly available
• No support to directly call .NET libraries. On the other hand, it is possible to call Object Pascal code from .NET software.
• COM support was missing from the 2.0.x series, but was initially working in 2.2.0, and has matured since.
• Missing dynamically loadable packages support.
• Not 100 percent compatible with VCL. As mentioned previously this is by design, although the current LCL widget set should suffice for most applications. But this makes the deep repository of available VCL widgets inaccessible without conversion. The conversion effort mostly involves some editing, although there are a few fundamental differences. When porting, missing units in the libraries and COM support are a considerably bigger problem than incompatibilities between LCL and VCL.