Beta Build now available for download

Jul 7, 2010 14:09 GMT  ·  By

A new free solution from Microsoft is designed to streamline the processes required to build, customize and deploy websites on top of Windows. WebMatrix does this by providing a single package containing a web server, a database, and programming frameworks. The integrated experience is available as a part of the Microsoft Web Platform, and is designed to provide web developers leveraging the Windows platform with a small (15MB download, and up to 50MB if.NET 4 is not installed), simple and seamless web stack.

“The 15MB download includes a lightweight development tool, IIS Express, SQL Compact Edition, and a set of ASP.NET extensions that enable you to build standalone ASP.NET Pages using the new Razor syntax, as well as a set of easy to use database and HTML helpers for performing common web-tasks. WebMatrix can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express,” revealed Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.

According to Guthrie, the initial Beta development milestone of WebMatrix does not come with Razor support within ASP.NET MVC applications. However, the promise from Microsoft is that support will be deliver by the end of July 2010 through a standalone ASP.NET MVC Preview.

With the advent of WebMatrix, the Microsoft Web Platform, now offers a comprehensive Cloud platform for web developers, already featuring offerings such as Web Application Gallery and the Web Platform Installer. Of course, being a Microsoft solution, WebMatrix has been built to integrate seamlessly with a range of company technologies including Visual Studio, SQL Server and Windows Server.

WebMatrix recommends itself as the core of all web deployment efforts on top of Windows. Not only can devs turn to the solution to build websites from the ground up, but they can also download and customize web applications such as Wordpress and Joomla. Furthermore, WebMatrix hels developers choose hosting partners and deploy their projects.

“With WebMatrix on your desktop, you’re using the same powerful Web server, database engine and frameworks that your Web site on the internet uses, which makes the transition from development to production smooth and seamless. As your Web development needs grow, WebMatrix provides a seamless on-ramp to Microsoft’s professional tools and servers including Visual Studio, ASP.NET MVC and SQL Server,” revealed a member of the IIS team.