# Restore Kx Developer Compatibility or Provide a Lightweight Web-Based IDE for KDB-X 5.0

**URL:** <https://forum.kx.com/t/restore-kx-developer-compatibility-or-provide-a-lightweight-web-based-ide-for-kdb-x-5-0/15507>\
**Category:** Ideas & Feature Requests\
**Created:** [May 20, 2026, 1:56pm UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/restore-kx-developer-compatibility-or-provide-a-lightweight-web-based-ide-for-kdb-x-5-0/15507 "2026-05-20T13:56:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![karl.steven.wilkinso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@karl.steven.wilkinso](https://forum.kx.com/u/karl.steven.wilkinso)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2026, 1:56pm UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/restore-kx-developer-compatibility-or-provide-a-lightweight-web-based-ide-for-kdb-x-5-0/15507/1 "2026-05-20T13:56:51Z")

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Kx Developer ( [KX Developer](https://code.kx.com/developer/) ) is an exceptional, lightweight, browser-based q IDE. Features like its Grid Table View and integrated charting are things I have come to rely on heavily over the years for ad-hoc data analysis, and I am certainly not alone.

Unfortunately, after upgrading to the new KDB-X 5.0 Community Edition engine, Kx Developer fails to boot entirely with the error: [developer] failed to start Kx Developer: kdb+ version 5 is not supported - supported versions are 4.1 4.0 3.6 3.5 3.4.

As a result, I have been forced to revert to the old Java-based KDB Studio. While it works via standard IPC, the user experience is a massive step backward compared to the modern, streamlined feel of Kx Developer. Ironically, I was demoing Kx Developer to a fellow developer just yesterday, and they were incredibly impressed by how clean it was—so it was very disappointing to see it not working at all today.

I understand the push toward the new VS Code extension ecosystem, but many developers on native Linux environments intentionally avoid installing massive, corporate-telemetry-heavy platforms like VS Code just to run a lightweight scratchpad.

Please consider updating the internal compatibility flags for Kx Developer to support v5.0 namespaces, or open-source the tool so the community can patch it to work with KDB-X.

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**Author:** ![lkerr2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forum.kx.com/lkerr2/32/57_2.png) [@lkerr2](https://forum.kx.com/u/lkerr2)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2026, 9:02am UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/restore-kx-developer-compatibility-or-provide-a-lightweight-web-based-ide-for-kdb-x-5-0/15507/2 "2026-05-21T09:02:02Z")

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Thanks for this @karl.steven.wilkinso. Will feedback to the team.

Laura