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Adobe® Flex® Builder™ 3 software offers powerful new capabilities for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs).

  • Full support for the Adobe AIR™ runtime makes it easy to create RIAs for the desktop.
  • New integration with Adobe Creative Suite® 3 software helps designers and developers 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
Feature Flex Builder 2 Flex Builder 3 Professional Flex Builder 3 Standard Flex 3 SDK
RIA on the desktop
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 Adobe 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
Data Visualization
Advanced Datagrid No Yes No No
Datagrid Yes Full Full Full
Charting components Yes Full No No
Testing
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
Design View
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 for graphical editing of CSS properties No Yes Yes No
Design view extensibility for third-party products No Yes Yes No
Designer/developer workflow
Native Flex format exporting from Adobe Fireworks®, Photoshop®, Flash, and Illustrator® No Yes Yes No
Custom Flex component creation using Flash CS3 Professional No Yes Yes No
Skin asset importing into Flex Builder No Yes Yes No
Coding tools
MXML and ActionScript™ editors Yes Full Full No
Refactoring No Yes Yes No
Faster compilation time No Full Full Full
Ability to save applications as Flex 2.0.1 or Flex 3 SDK No Yes Yes No
Version control Yes Yes Yes No
Performance
SWF file size reduction No Full Full Full
Web-tier compilers for IIS and Apache No Yes Yes Yes
Working with Data
Web service introspection No Yes Yes No
Code-gen wizards for Adobe ColdFusion®, Java™, PHP, .NET No Yes Yes No
Browser integration
Deep linking No Yes Yes Yes
JavaScript and Ajax wrappers No Yes Yes Yes
Flex/Ajax bridge Yes Full Full Full
Localization
Dynamic load of localization resource bundles at runtime No Yes Yes Yes

Eligibility chart

Upgrade to Flex 3*
You have You want You pay
No Flex products Flex Builder 3 Standard US$249
No Flex products Flex Builder 3 Professional US$699
Only the free Flex 2 SDK Flex Builder 3 Standard US$249
Only the free Flex 2 SDK Flex Builder 3 Professional US$699
Flex Builder 2 Flex Builder 3 Standard US$99
Flex Builder 2 Flex Builder 3 Professional US$299
Flex Builder 2 and Flex Charting 2 Flex Builder 3 Professional US$299
Flex Builder 2 with Charting Flex Builder 3 Professional US$299
The free Flex 2 SDK and Flex Charting 2 Flex Builder 3 Standard US$249
The free Flex 2 SDK and Flex Charting 2 Flex Builder 3 Professional US$699
Flex Builder 3 Standard Flex Builder 3 Professional US$499
*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 Mac OS X or Windows® using the same serial number.

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