[3] It also shipped a separate Express edition that could be freely downloaded; however recent versions of SSMS are fully capable of connecting to and manage any SQL Server Express instance.

It also comes with Microsoft SQL Server Express 2012, or users can download it separately.

Starting from version 11, the application was based on the Visual Studio 2010 shell, using WPF for the user interface.

Versions 18 and after are based on the Visual Studio 2017 Isolated Shell.

[5] This article about software created, produced or developed by Microsoft is a stub.