What CGI Studio Editions are existing?

There are currently three available editions of CGI Studio:

1. Enterprise Edition – provides the maximum level of features and flexibility for embedded projects (available for all versions) 
2. Professional Edition – focuses on ease of use for creating embedded projects (available from version 3.15)
   
3. Community Edition – a free edition for creating projects for non-commercial applications (available from version 3.16)

There are several key differences between the individual editions. The primary distinction between the Enterprise Edition and the Professional/Community Editions is the range of available features, with the Enterprise Edition offering the complete feature set (see the full list of feature differences here).

In addition, the Professional and Community Editions use a different approach to data binding implementation. While the Enterprise Edition provides maximum flexibility, the CGI Studio Player must be built specifically for each target platform. This enables full customization and optimization of the HMI application for the respective target.

In contrast, the Professional and Community Editions implement data binding in a predefined way using Python scripts instead of C++. This approach simplifies and accelerates HMI creation while requiring less engineering expertise, though it offers reduced flexibility for target-specific optimization. To address these limitations, Candera is preparing optimized Player builds for the supported platforms of the Professional Edition.

When comparing the Professional Edition with the Community Edition, there are no functional differences. The main distinction is that the Community Edition is available free of charge but may not be used for commercial purposes. In addition, it includes built-in hardware limitations that restrict target deployments through the implementation of a Candera watermark and runtime limitations (for more information, click here).

The Professional Edition replaced the definition, compiling and data binding implementation in C++ with a fixed set of data bindings and a Python based script for the data binding implementation. 

Professional / Community Edition – Advantages and Disadvantages

The simplified development workflow and the elimination of the need to compile data bindings provide several advantages, while also introducing certain limitations.

Advantages

• Simplified development process
• Reduced requirement for specialized embedded engineering knowledge
• Faster development cycles
• Optimized for less complex HMI projects
• Easy-to-use Python scripting interface instead of C++ implementation
• No need to compile the Player

Disadvantages

• Fixed set of data binding elements, although this is sufficient for most projects (removal of this limitation is already planned for future releases)
• Custom Player builds are not available directly and can only be requested through Candera support

Enterprise Edition – Advantages

The Enterprise Edition enables highly optimized adaptations of the Candera CGI Studio Player, as the Player can be built and customized during the development process. In addition, the individually configurable data binding implementation allows for further optimization opportunities.

This additional engineering effort is particularly beneficial for high-volume projects, where optimization can help reduce production costs, and for organizations with experienced engineering teams. Furthermore, when using lower-end hardware platforms, the added flexibility enables further performance and memory optimizations.