This is one of the earliest VST instruments, if not the earliest of them all. I heard back in 1998 that a friend talked about a synth called Neon that was software, but I didn't believe him. It wasn't until 2001 that I had the chance to test it out on my own when I bought Cubase VST.

Neon is a pretty useful synth for it's era, nowadays almost all analog VST's can produce similar sounds. But the sound in itself is pretty slick and smooth. Good for sturdy synth basses, pads and brass sounds. Not that special as I said but back in the days this was the synth I went to for new fresh sounds. The interface is pretty straight forward, nothing strange here. Featurewise this gives lots to wish for, but for the money what can you really expect? If you can download it from Steinberg then this is worth trying out, but if not... Well there is plenty of other plugins with similar features. I wouldn't lose any sleep over the failed download. So does it beat the plugins with stockpiled SynthEdit components? Yes I have to say because it has a bit phatter sound than most synthedit components can produce.

Some people don't think much of Neon but here's how I see it. It's simple to use encourages people to play around and (maybe) learn something about subtractive synthesis.
Neon lacks in performance features but makes up for it by sounding good and for free sounding good works for me. Capable of good pads, modest leads and pads, not good for Fx and weird, typical analog weirdness.

Pros: good sounding, free, simple but effective editing
Cons: could have been more feature laden, doesn't do many of the fun features associated with subtactive analog (of VA)

It's free with Cubase, maybe even free on Steinberg's site. Worth checking out. Good for meat and potato synth timbres.

Very limited synth, but it's free, so....

It has two oscillators, so you can actually make some nice basses by detuning them a little. A one-trick pony, but I've gotten one or two sounds out of is that I have use for.