Optimizely is installed through Visual Studio and the Optimizely Visual Studio Extension, providing everything you need to get a website running and start developing.

📘

Note

See the [Optimizely system requirements](🔗) for production and development environment requirements.

## Install Visual Studio

Visit [Microsoft Visual Studio](🔗) to download a suitable version, if you do not already have Visual Studio installed.

When installing Customized Commerce through Visual Studio, you will use **IIS Express**, **SQL Server Express** and **LocalDB, **which are included with VS 2015 and higher. Ensure that you [install LocalDB separately](🔗), should you not have this.

## Licenses

A license is not required when running in Visual Studio and using IIS Express.

Eventually, you will need a commercial Optimizely license for testing and production environments. You can order a time-limited demo license for evaluation purposes from the [Optimizely License Center](🔗).

## Explore advanced features

Later on, when you want to explore more advanced features like multi-site and language support, and to test deployment locally, you will need a more production-like development environment using [Internet Information Services (IIS)](🔗).

When testing deployment and backup and restoring of databases, it is also recommended to install either [SQL Express or SQL Server Developer Edition and Management Studio](🔗).