Upgrade details
Flex Builder 3™ offers powerful new capabilities for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs).
- Full support for Adobe AIR makes it easy to create RIAs for the desktop
- New integration with Adobe Creative Suite™ 3 helps designers and developers to work together more efficiently
- New and enhanced data visualization features, including the new advanced datagrid, enable even richer presentation of business data
- New memory and performance profilers make it easy to optimize your application
Version comparison
Flex version comparison chart
| Enhanced feature |
| Drag and Drop support |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Multi-window applications |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Local file system access |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Local SQLite database storage |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Complete html rendering |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Full AIR code hinting and error reporting |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| AIR Debugging and profiling |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| AIR Application packaging and signing |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Advanced Datagrid |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Datagrid |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
Full |
| Charting components |
Yes |
Full |
No |
No |
| Performance profiler |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Memory profiler |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Support for automated functional testing |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Interactive debugging |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
Yes |
| Drag and drop components to create rich UI |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Pan and zoom tools |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Improved constraints editor |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
No |
| Enhanced color picker |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
No |
| OpenType font support |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| CSS Skinning and styling |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
No |
| Visual CSS editor enables graphical editing of CSS properties |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Design view extensibility for 3rd-party products |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Export native Flex formats from Fireworks, Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Create custom Flex components using Flash CS3 |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Import skin assets into Flex Builder |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| MXML and ActionScript editors |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
No |
| Refactoring |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Faster compilation time |
No |
Full |
Full |
Full |
| Save applications as Flex 2.0.1 or Flex 3 SDK |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Version control |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| SWF size reduction |
No |
Full |
Full |
Full |
| Web-tier compilers for IIS and Apache |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Web Service Introspection |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Code-gen wizards for CF, Java, PHP, .NET |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Deep linking |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| JavaScript and Ajax wrappers |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Flex/Ajax bridge |
Yes |
Full |
Full |
Full |
| Dynamically load localization resource bundles at runtime |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Learn more about product features
Eligibility chart
| No Flex products |
Flex Builder 3 Standard |
Visit Adobe Store |
| No Flex products |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Only the free Flex 2 SDK |
Flex Builder 3 Standard |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Only the free Flex 2 SDK |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Flex Builder 2 |
Flex Builder 3 Standard |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Flex Builder 2 |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Flex Builder 2 and Flex Charting 2 |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Flex Builder 2 with Charting |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| The free Flex 2 SDK and Flex Charting 2 |
Flex Builder 3 Standard |
Visit Adobe Store |
| The free Flex 2 SDK and Flex Charting 2 |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Flex Builder 3 Standard |
Flex Builder 3 Professional |
Visit Adobe Store |
| Upgrade pricing is available only for products listed above and requires a qualifying previous product with serial number. Upgrades for volume and education licensing are handled separately. Flex Builder 3 can be installed on either Macintosh or Windows platforms using the same serial number. |
Next steps
