The journey to find and download an offline version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition

Because your search includes the word "top," I assume you want the most complete, uncorrupted, and official source. Do not go to third-party "download aggregator" sites. They are riddled with adware.

: You can join the free Visual Studio Dev Essentials program to access older downloads directly from Microsoft's servers. How to Install the Offline Version

The Windows 10 SDK in VS2015 is outdated. You can skip it during the custom installation, or find the standalone SDK offline installer separately.

But when you search for or "ISO" , you want the full layout—all 4 to 7 GB of setup files. Microsoft calls this the "layout" or "offline cache."

Yes, permanently. The license terms for Community 2015 grant free usage for individual developers, academic research, and open-source projects.