There is no single official C or C++ compiler. There are language standards for C and C++ (and their standard libraries) and there are multiple compilers and library implementations out there. You can probably find a lot of C compilers, but for modern C++ there are basically three choices: gcc (GNU Compiler) — the short version is this is ‘the Linux compiler’, but you can use it on other platforms as well. This is open source. clang — an alternate C++ compiler that tries to be compatible with gcc. This is the default compiler for Macs running OSX. Also open source. MSVC — Microsoft’s C/C++ compiler, Windows only for the most part. Normally used as part of the Visual Studio IDE. Closed source. If you want to write stuff for Windows only, usually the community edition Visual Studio (NOT VISUAL STUDIO CODE) is going to be the easiest thing to install and use. This comes with MSVC (Microsoft’s C/C++ compiler) and an integrated IDE that is all set up to use. I think that in newer versions of VS you can also optionally install a Windows version of clang directly and use that if you prefer it over MSVC. Other options if you’re on Windows: install “mingw”, which is a build of gcc for Windows. I’ve had the most luck using MSYS2 and then installing the packages for minGW-64 through that. This gives you a POSIX compliant programming environment that works on Windows, and also a console with a version of the *NIX bash shell. This is commonly used for building a Windows version of programs designed for Linux. install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which lets you run a VM of a Linux system inside Windows. Then you can download the Linux version of gcc or clang inside there. This is probably the best way to do Linux program development on a Windows machine. If you’re used to working in a Linux/UNIX environment this will let you have everything you’re used to, but bridging stuff between the Linux and Windows systems can be a little annoying. Answer from TheSkiGeek on reddit.com