Due to its complexity FlexCel takes a while to compile. We are speaking about 1700 units with 700,000 lines of code, and a “mini-excel” which even includes a full PDF engine.

1) A full compilation for all platforms including debug and release configurations can take about 2 or 3 minutes. Most of the time is spent in mobile compilers like iOS and Android which are much slower than the Win32 compiler. If a full compilation takes up to 8 hours, then there is probably something wrong in the setup. (Antivirus, some unexisting library paths pointing to network locations could slow down compiling)

2) You should be compiling FlexCel just once: When you install it. Setup is similar to the VCL itself, it puts all dcus in the library path, and not the .pas files. And the result is similar, once you install it, it runs fast (recompiling the VCL would take many minutes too, again due to the complexity of it)

One way to speed it up, if you aren’t using the FireMonkey part, is to deselect it on setup: