Delphi's compilers generate native code for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Linux (x64).

There is also a free-of-charge Community edition, with most of the features of Professional, but restricted to users and companies with low revenue.

Later versions have included upgraded and enhanced runtime library routines, some provided by the community group FastCode.

Pascal was originally developed as a general-purpose language "suitable for expressing the fundamental constructs known at the time in a concise and logical way", and "its implementation was to be efficient and competitive with existing FORTRAN compilers"[8] but without low-level programming facilities or access to hardware.

For dedicated string types, Delphi handles memory management without programmer intervention.

Third-party components (sometimes with full source code) and tools to enhance the IDE or for other Delphi related development tasks are available, some free of charge.

Third-party libraries typically need updates from the vendor but, if source code is supplied, recompilation with the newer version may be sufficient.

The VCL was an early adopter of dependency injection or inversion of control; it uses a reusable component model, extensible by the developer.

They share many core components, notably the IDE, the VCL and FMX frameworks, and much of the runtime library.

In 2007, the products were released jointly as RAD Studio, a shared host for Delphi and C++Builder, which can be purchased with either or both.

Delphi is the medium used to teach programming in South African schools as a subject of information technology (IT).

Instead, possible new features are now presented in a loose order through blog entries and online webinars.