Microsoft + GitHub: Free Tools for Student Developers

When we launched the new Visual Studio Community 2013 edition last year, we talked about students being one the audiences this product is really great for.  Free access to the tools that professional developers use every day is a great resource for students to learn, code and build the next great app.

GitHub is the home of a strong open source community, including hundreds of Microsoft projects, and students are a critical part of this community.  Recently, GitHub announced the GitHub Student Developer Pack, a collection of resources for students to get started with access to great developer tools and services offerings from dozens of partners. 

Today, GitHub and Microsoft are making Visual Studio Community 2013 available as part of the GitHub Student Developer Pack.  

Through the Student Pack, student developers can access Visual Studio, as well as great free offers for Azure and Visual Studio Online.

  • Visual Studio:  All the tools, designers and debuggers you need for your next project – with support for web, mobile, desktop and cloud apps using C#, Node.js, Python, F#, VB and more.  Visual Studio 2013 Community is free for students and other non-enterprise developers.
  • Visual Studio Online: Tools for planning, backlogs, tracking bugs and running builds and continuous integration – all in one place.  Visual Studio Online accounts are free for up to 5 users.
  • Microsoft Azure:  Host apps in the cloud on a platform that supports any OS, any language and any framework.  Microsoft Azure subscriptions include 10 free web sites and 10 free mobile services.

That’s just the start though.  Students can also get free access to many more Microsoft tools and developer offerings through DreamSpark, including SQL Server, training courses and Windows Store developer accounts.  Along with the GitHub Student Developer Pack, we’re making it easy for students to discover and access the offerings available through DreamSpark.

Go ahead and get started today.

Namaste!