Microsoft’s WebMatrix enables developers to create, execute and deploy web apps in an easy-to-use development environment. The tool provides all the components that are required to create and run Windows-based websites, and includes several additional tools to streamline the development process.
Although still in the beta stages of development, WebMatrix is available for download using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Along with the WebMatrix installation, the installer allows developers to also install Visual Web Developer 2010 Express and SQL Server Express 2008 R2.
The WebMatrix environment includes an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), IIS, which is a smaller version of Microsoft’s Internet Information Server, and the SQL Server Compact database engine. SQL Server Compact is a file-based embedded database engine for single applications, which is fine for development, but not for production apps.
