Is Application Builder necessary?

[Ken_Brooks]

Our company is looking into buying into LabVIEW, and we're considering what level of product we need to buy. Looks like we could go with the low-end annual subscription, except that we do want to build .exe  executables. Is Application Builder truly necessary for this, or is it just more convenient?

[altenbach]

To build standalone executables, you need the application builder. (Included in pro and above).

[Kyle97330]

Contacting a sales rep instead of posting on a forum would get you better results, but the short answer is probably yes.

A slightly longer answer is that there are several "levels" of LabVIEW licensing.

Home/Student - Super cheap, not allowed for commercial use

Base - Commercial use, limited abilities

Full - Commercial use, can run all code but has no extra development/debug-related tools

Professional - Commercial use, runs all code and has a lot of extra tools included, such as Application Builder

Automated Test Software Suite - Professional LabVIEW plus TestStand and a few other things

If you get Base or Full and want to make EXEs, you'll need the application builder.  If you get Professional or the Suite, you don't need a separate purchase.

[RTSLVU]

Every time my company purchased LabVIEW the Application builder came at no extra charge.

It even comes with the LabVIEW Home Edition at no extra charge

[altenbach]

The application builder does not come with LabVIEW full or base. I guess your company gets the pro.

Yes, the application builder was added to the home edition, probably mostly to allow deploying to embedded hardware (beaglebone, raspberry pi, etc.) and I don't know if there are limitations or watermarks.

[natasftw]

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@altenbach wrote:

Yes, the application builder was added to the home edition and I don't know if there are limitations or watermarks.

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As the Home Edition states "not for use in commercial applications," I'd expect that to include using it along with the App Builder to the same end.

https://www.ni.com/en-us/shop/product/labview-application-builder-module.html The App Builder lists at ~$1500.  I'll leave it as an exercise to the OP to determine if purchasing one of the smaller packages and adding on the $1500 makes more or less sense than getting Pro.

If you want to build executables, yes.  App Builder is required.  If you want to get around that, have some web knowledge, and all of the PCs are connected by some network, there's the chance you could build a web-based app instead.  But, that's more limited.