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. More on reddit.com

mingw works flawlessly

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There's online C compilers if you just want to have a play around: https://www.onlinegdb.com/online_c_compiler Also games that require writing code to solve puzzles: https://www.codingame.com/ Windows MSVC compiler is an option, although windows tends to support their C++ compiler more than C. GCC doesn't mix well with windows, you'll have to emulate a unix environment with something like: vmware+ubuntu, WSL2, MSYS2, Cygwin, MinGW. This can be difficult for beginners, but there is plenty of online info/guides More on reddit.com

Pretty much all Windows compilers these days use stupid online downloaders, eliminating much of the determinism and simplicity you might want (Msys2, Cygwin, MSVC++). Intel's compiler also relies on Microsoft's linker too which is annoying. The only one I found that was a little sane was Embarcadero's (clang based): https://www.embarcadero.com/free-tools/ccompiler/free-download However it is 32-bit only which is possibly an issue for a few projects. So what I typically do is install Msys2, including all that messy POSIX layer nonsense, install the packages: mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-make mingw-w64-x86_64-gdb Then zip up the mingw64 folder and delete the rest of the crap. The only annoyance is that GDB drags in sodding python which is extremely heavy for such a niche usage but this is a growing flaw with package managers (and open-source) in general these days. ... Another option which might be preferable is install Linux or FreeBSD and use wine's winegcc compiler to cross compile. I tend to do this and mixed with Wine for quick test iterations is a really nice way to go to avoid Microsoft's slow cancerous consumer growth inside Windows. More on reddit.com