I was pleased to see that the development server (CFServer) was still completely free of cost (downloadable here – choose ‘Developer Edition’).

The IDE (CF Builder), however, was not free. So – I started digging around – and much to my dismay, did not easily find a low cost alternative to writing CFML code. Then I came across ‘First Page’ – primarily an HTML editor – but one that understood CF tags as well. No bells and whistles like intellisense etc. – but at a very basic level, lets you write CFML and HTML code without any interruptions. In fact, the HTML editor is one of the most intuitive that I have seen.

So – with the free CF server – and the free IDE – I was up and CFing in no time. A few stumbling blocks were related to IIS 7 (and IIS 8) and adding datasources to ColdFusion Server. Once those are overcome, I was all set to do CFML development on my local box.

NOTE: If you are just looking for a free HTML and CSS editor (without CFML support), take a look at KompoZer .

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