Embarcadero wants to help developers build cross-platform native apps faster with the latest release of its RAD Studio. According to the company, RAD Studio 10.2 is a milestone release with Linux support, improved IDE menus, new features, and enhanced C++ performance.

The latest version features its first LLVM-based Linux compiler for enterprise development. The Delphi Linux compiler is designed to help developers take new and existing Windows server apps and target Linux servers, according to the company. The Linux compiler features full file system support, threads and parallel programing library, and FireDAC database access support.

“We’re not just providing a Linux compiler for Delphi, but equipping developers with familiar core runtime classes and database access components, along with an integrated development experience like we provide for Android, iOS, macOS, and of course Windows,” said Marco Cantu, RAD Studio product manager at Embarcadero. “We’re excited to help customers reduce server costs by easily recompiling their existing Windows server applications for Linux, producing fast and secure native binaries.”

The release also adds a range of improvements to its cross platform GUI framework, FireMonkey, including multi-threading support, faster Android UIs, and enhanced user interaction management.

RAD Studio’s database capabilities have been updated to provide MariaDB support, new GUID access, MySQL support, and reduce client side memory usage.

The C++ Builder now features improved compiled C++ performance, debugging and large memory support; better codegen; packages on iOS and Android; and quality fixes.

Other features include: multi-tenancy support, cross platform RTL improvements, and IDE enhancements for faster navigation.

“The release of RAD Studio 10.2 not only takes a big step forward with Linux support, but it also leaps forward with a more scalable RAD Server, deeper Windows support and the quality developers expect,” said Nick Hodges, head of product management at Embarcadero. “We are also continuing to provide industry leading support for Windows 10 and the Windows 10 Store through our VCL framework.”