KDevelop vs LabVIEW
KDevelop
kdevelop.orgLabVIEW
ni.comSide by side
| Figure | KDevelop | LabVIEW |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 7 |
| Spec score · Integrated Development Environments | 8.3 (#17) | 8.4 (#10) |
| Headquarters | Berlin, Germany | Austin, Texas, United States |
| Security | KDE directs users who find a security issue in KDE software to report it and says its security advisories are listed there. | NI says LabVIEW is memory-safe and that it generates software bills of materials for LabVIEW as part of its Secure Development Lifecycle. |
| Support | KDE community support is provided without warranty by volunteers, with help available through its discussion forum and Matrix rooms. | A single-seat purchase includes an NI software service agreement with technical support, version downloads, and LabVIEW Core 1 on-demand, with perpetual-license benefits included for the first year. |
Plans
LabVIEW
- LabVIEW Community EditionFree
- LabVIEW Base perpetualPrice not published
- LabVIEW Base subscriptionPrice not published
- LabVIEW Full perpetualPrice not published
- LabVIEW Full subscriptionPrice not published
- LabVIEW Professional perpetualPrice not published
- LabVIEW Professional subscriptionPrice not published
In their own words
KDevelop
KDevelop is a free, open-source integrated development environment for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its built-in parser backends support C, C++, and JavaScript/QML; Python and PHP support comes through optional plugins. For fully supported languages, it offers semantic syntax highlighting, code completion, and navigation such as finding symbol uses or jumping to declarations and definitions. Build support covers CMake and QMake, partial support for custom Makefiles, and invoking tools such as make and ninja. Graphical debugging is available for C/C++ and Python, with PHP debugging through an extra plugin. KDevelop also integrates unit tests, code formatting, and documentation from QtHelp, Man pages, and CMake help. Version-control interfaces include Git, Bazaar, Subversion, CVS, and Perforce; Mercurial is available as an optional plugin. Views, color schemes, and shortcuts can be customized. The free plan is listed at free. Windows nightly builds may be unstable or incomplete, and independently developed Chocolatey packages may not be up to date.
LabVIEW
LabVIEW is a graphical programming environment for developing automated test and measurement applications. Its G language uses dataflow programming, supports parallel execution, and includes interactive debugging. LabVIEW connects to instruments from any vendor and offers more than 7,000 instrument drivers. Engineering analysis functions and a native interface support monitoring and controlling tests. Editions can integrate Python, C/C++,.NET, and MathWorks MATLAB code. The Professional edition includes Application Builder, NI Nigel AI, software engineering tools, and Report Generation, Database Connectivity, and Advanced Signal Processing Toolkits. The Community Edition costs nothing, but is limited to personal, non-commercial, non-industrial use and cannot be used for teaching or research at a degree-granting institution. Professional trials provide seven days of access; the downloadable trial can be extended up to 45 days after first opening it. The downloadable trial connects to physical hardware, while the web trial uses simulated hardware only. NI lists Windows and Linux support for editions; starting with LabVIEW 2025 Q3, Community Edition is the only macOS edition. Each target computer running a developed application requires a perpetual deployment license.