22 ms·

CLion Is Now Free for Non-Commercial Use

624 points by AlexeyBrin 1y ago

bayindirh 1y ago
This is good news. I for one, won't change my toolchain, but having a "free for personal use" alternative is always better, esp. when the license includes open source development. Like it or not, C++ is not going anywhere in the short and long term, so it's always good to have real IDEs around (CLion, Eclipse CDT, etc.) which can integrate with good instrumentation and give real time feedback on your code.
1over137 1y ago
Free version sends telemetry with no opt-out.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  Yes, that one is a real bummer, actually, but if they're using something like how Go does it [0], at least it's tolerable if you're bound to using it. [0]: https://telemetry.go.dev/privacy https://telemetry.go.dev/privacy
- enigma101 1y ago
  just use a firewall, no?
- pjmlp 1y ago
  There is your price right there.
- lern_too_spel 1y ago
  They're probably using the telemetry to monitor commercial abuse.
  - anastasiak2512 1y ago
    The telemetry is used to analyzed the most used / unused features and to improve the product. For example, it's useful to understand that some specific technology gains more popularity among users and contribute more into its support.
    - lern_too_spel 1y ago
      I have no doubt that this is the primary use. It was the only way to use that data until now. Now that there is a free offering, there is a new potential use that neatly explains why it is required in the free offering and optional otherwise.
- ainiriand 1y ago
  Can you give us proof of that? I have not seen anything like that in my RustRover usage but it might be that I have missed that.
  - hiq 1y ago
    It's in the article: > It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics.
  - dardeaup 1y ago
    From the link: "It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics."
- pasoevi 1y ago
  You can still use paid version if you want to turn telemetry off. With the free version, you can either use it and say thanks, or not use it at all.
  - badsectoracula 1y ago
    Indeed, this is one of the various options one has. Another option is to not use it and be vocal against telemetry, hopefully convincing others to do the same while dissuading other developers (especially in a forum like Hacker News where people that build stuff gather) from adding it on their products.
    - pasoevi 1y ago
      I wouldn't take people seriously who are vocal against telemetry in a product which has paid version with the option to turn telemetry off. Such people would be vocal against paying for the work others do. Also, if properly anonymised, telemetry isn't the devil people make it to be.
      - badsectoracula 1y ago
        > I wouldn't take people seriously who are vocal against telemetry in a product which has paid version with the option to turn telemetry off. You are conflating two separate things, a product does not need telemetry to function and if telemetry is needed it can be opt-in. Similarly a product does not need to be free to have telemetry nor does it need to be paid to not have telemetry, as i already wrote these two are completely separate. > Such people would be vocal against paying for the work others do. Again you are conflating two completely separate things: people being concerned about the privacy implications of telemetry (both directly and indirectly, see below) and people who are against about paying others for their work. > Also, if properly anonymised, telemetry isn't the devil people make it to be. Even if anonymized (which is something you can only guarantee for open source projects that either you or someone you trust has checked they do such anonymization properly - and also you either build yourself from the source that was checked or you used a binary from a reproducible build) having telemetry in place still creates and reinforces a precedent of it being acceptable which in turn can be used to excuse other programs doing the same but those programs actually not caring about doing proper anonymization (at best) or even outright spying on you (at worst). Besides anonymized data can still be used in conjunction with other data to be deanonymized and the best way to protect users from this is to not collect that data in the first place.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- pacman1337 1y ago
  couldn't we just block the traffic with /etc/hosts?
  - immibis 1y ago
    Then you're presumably committing an actual crime, or at least, their lawyers will see it that way, probably, as copyright infringement because they only gave you a license to use the software if you left the telemetry on.
- Someone 1y ago
  So, they’re contradicting themselves, saying both (https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-for-non-commercial-use/#what-features-are-included-under-the-free-license https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-f...) “With the new non-commercial license type, you can enjoy a full-featured IDE that is identical to its paid version. The only difference is in the Code With Me feature – you get Code With Me Community with your free license.” and (https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-for-non-commercial-use/#is-there-a-way-to-opt-out-of-sending-anonymized-statistics https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-f...) “We appreciate that this might not be convenient for everyone, but there is unfortunately no way to opt out of sending anonymized statistics to JetBrains under the terms of the Toolbox agreement for non-commercial use. The only way to opt out is by switching to either a paid subscription or one of the complimentary options mentioned here.” Also, if they find that unfortunate, why did they make the product do that?
  - codedokode 1y ago
    > there is unfortunately no way to opt out of sending anonymized statistics There is a way - simply use an open source alternative to JetBrains.
DemetriousJones 1y ago
Awesome news
andy_ppp 1y ago
What’s the Duck Duck Go equivalent for editors these days? Everything seems to be spying on me and/or offering to send my code to AI in the cloud.
- candiddevmike 1y ago
  VSCodium without any extensions? IMO it's the extensions that are the big exfil risk, not necessarily the editor.
- bartekpacia 1y ago
  CLion (and other JetBrains IDEs for that matter) doesn’t send any of your code to AI in the Cloud (unless you use sth like AI Assistant yourself, of course)
  - andy_ppp 1y ago
    It does send telemetry and analytics I believe? I should have been broader in the tracking I specified…
    - tredre3 1y ago
      All duckduckgo software is filled with telemetry and analytics that cannot be disabled (The search engine, the Android web browser, the Windows web browser).
      - yegg 1y ago
        FWIW All DuckDuckGo telemetry is completely anonymous: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/atb https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/atb
- badsectoracula 1y ago
  I've been using Kate (KDE's advanced text editor) recently.
FpUser 1y ago
I have subscription that covers all their tools. CLion is my favorite when dealing with C++. So glad that hobbyist can use it now
- jasonlotito 1y ago
  So... not that it really matters I imagine, but JetBrains doesn't do pure subscription. Rather, you buy your IDEs, and effectively have a perpetual license to the product you bought. You get free upgrades, and if you keep paying, your license gets updated along with it. If you don't continue paying, you still have the IDE you paid for. You just don't get updates. This seems like a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one in the world of subscription services. https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What-is-a-perpetual-fallback-license https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What...
  - inetknght 1y ago
    So it's like what software licenses were 20 years ago. That's a good thing.
  - FpUser 1y ago
    Yep. Having perpetual license is precondition for me buying major development tools.
  - dismalaf 1y ago
    JetBrains does have a subscription option, including a monthly subscription to get all their tools.
    - int_19h 1y ago
      The yearly subscription includes the "perpetual fallback" license GP is talking about. With monthly, you get that once you've been subscribed for 12 months.
- mdaniel 1y ago
  And I recognize that I'm biased as a JetBrains fanboy, but I think it is just a stellar deal to pay $173/year for the all-you-can-eat pack where you get to keep them if you stop paying I know folks are going to call out that the entry price is $289/year, but I still think for the number of included products that's still a deal
WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
I wish they'd extract the debugger and release it as a crossplatform standalone tool, i'd pay for it
- freeone3000 1y ago
  The debugger is primarily lldb, which has the same features (watches, expressions, locals) with not as slick a UI.
- kanwisher 1y ago
  the debugger without the ide doesn't make any sense, just use the ide for debugging
shortrounddev2 1y ago
Personally dislike jetbrains UX design but it's cool that Linux has a really good, free-ish IDE
- memsom 1y ago
  If you use more than one of their IDEs on a regular basis, I'm going to be honest - it starts to make more sense that the change between IDEs is less jarring. I use Rider a lot, and Pycharm and Android Studio infrequently, and I like that all of the IDEs are so similar that I know how to do most things as the settings and menu system is almost identical. I also use the IDEs on Windows, Mac and sometimes Linux - and the UI is similar enough that I do not ever struggle to make something work that I have previously done in any of the platforms or OS versions
  - jghn 1y ago
    Also alternatives like VSCode have garbage for a debugging & profiling workflow compared to Jetbrains.
videogreg93 1y ago
This is amazing news. As a long time IntelliJ user (Android dev for 7+ years) who wants to start doing more c++, having free access to Clion is a godsend.
- eric-p7 1y ago
  Nobody actually wants to start doing more c++.
discmonkey 1y ago
Assuming that the plugin is enabled for the free version, CLion is also amazing for Rust. Thanks Jetbrains! Here's hoping this won't be abused by smaller companies that will no longer want to pay for the actual subscription. I also wonder if they are moving towards a different funding model, since the IDE space is pretty competitive with a free alternative (VSCode) out there.
- ainiriand 1y ago
  RustRover is already free for Non-Commercial use! I think it is the best IDE for Rust dev.
  - toprerules 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - redserk 1y ago
      First-party LSPs are great and all but some form of text editor is also at least marginally useful for writing code.
    - rafram 1y ago
      Using "Java-based" as a smear is pretty silly. The IntelliJ platform is an extremely solid piece of software, clunkiness and all. It does everything pretty well, with very little need for config fiddling or third-party plugins.
      - levzzz 1y ago
        [dead]
      - osigurdson 1y ago
        I won't argue with the logic, if it works, it works. But still, I tend to react negatively to "Java-based" things. I think it comes from fiddling with Xms Xmx in the past with Elasticsearch which gave me the sense that the JVM is a beast. Now you want me to use the same beast in my editor? Neovim feels a lot lighter in this regard.
pasoevi 1y ago
Great news. It is beyond me how people are complaining about the free version not allowing to turn off telemetry. Why don't you stick to the paid version if you are bothered by the (anonymous) telemetry?
- badsectoracula 1y ago
  Because these two are completely separate things.
  - pasoevi 1y ago
    How?
    - badsectoracula 1y ago
      See my reply to the other comment you made[0] where you basically say the same thing. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915600
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - pasoevi 1y ago
    You aren't a product? Then pay for the products you use instead of asking to get it for free. If they don't give you the option to turn telemetry off in the paid product, then go ahead and complain. But pay for what you get.
    - matheusmoreira 1y ago
      ? No one asked them to release their software for free. They did it of their own accord. They don't get to subtly mine value out of their users just because they released free stuff. That's nonsense. We're not obligated to be guinea pigs in their usability experiments.
hiq 1y ago
I'm curious about what non-commercial means in practice. > Common examples of non-commercial uses include learning and self-education, open-source contributions without earning commercial benefits What if I start writing code, let's say 80% of a codebase, then for the next 3 months I switch to another editor to write the next 20%, and then commercialize the support (so open-source but with commercial benefits)? Would it be about intent, i.e. it'd be fine if I had no plan to make a business out of it at the beginning, but as soon as there's the idea of a business I should have switched? I guess in practice this mostly targets companies with 10+ employees so it's fine not to draw the line that clearly?
- speed_spread 1y ago
  It means "stay under the radar if you are cheap". This is Jetbrains, not Oracle, there isn't an army of lawyers out to get you the second you breach the agreement.
  - dagmx 1y ago
    It’s a shame but not unexpected that people reward smaller companies giving their products away for free by trying to abuse the spirit of it.
- deafpolygon 1y ago
  Probably why they want telemetry. Then, if you go on to make billions- they can sue when it's worth it.
subzero06 1y ago
If something is free, you are the product - it is "free" but Anonymous data is collected.
- dist-epoch 1y ago
  Exactly, this I why I won't use Linux or Firefox, I don't want to be the product.
  - creatonez 1y ago
    Most Linux distros are completely free of any builtin telemetry. Your fears are unwarranted.
    - 333c 1y ago
      I believe that's the point being made by the comment you're replying to
    - cbpowell 1y ago
      My impression (perhaps incorrect) was that the guy was being sarcastic.
      - thadt 1y ago
        We at the HN do not have a sense of humor we're aware of.
  - inetknght 1y ago
    Linux is free as in free speech. It's also open source. Firefox... is free as in free beer.
    - noisem4ker 1y ago
      Firefox is covered by the Mozilla Public License (MPL), which is a free-as-in-freedom, open source software license. What's your definition of freedom?
toprerules 1y ago
[flagged]
- NoboruWataya 1y ago
  Agree that it is a crazy resource hog and I don't like the AI integrations either. But I gotta say for UI and features it is very good. I haven't been able to get VSCode or neovim to offer the same kind of easily actionable code diagnostics and suggestions as JetBrains IDEs do out of the box. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I couldn't quite match it even with a fair bit of tinkering.
  - KronisLV 1y ago
    I like the AI integrations (they me use Claude Sonnet 3.7, Gemini 2.5 and GPT 4.1 with my all products pack) and quite enjoy their Junie tool, much better than my attempts at getting Aider working. UI seems pretty okay, at least on the 2025 versions of the tools (in compact mode, Inter 12 as the custom UI font on a 1080p monitor) but still quite the resource hog. Oh well, I’m actually going to try their Fleet as well after reinstalling my OS because it was worse than VSC the last time I tried it, might be better now.
    - sitefail1 1y ago
      It's not. The functionality gap between VSC and Fleet has further widened, and its future looks even more unsure now they backed out the Kotlin native stuff back to the main IDEs.
- jillesvangurp 1y ago
  The community edition of intellij and pycharm is Apache 2.0 licensed and you can use those for commercial development. Pycharm is about similar to vs code (I've used both). But intellij blows the Java & Kotlin support in vs code out of the water. It's not even remotely close. Reason, Java has several decent OSS IDEs as an alternative and those would win by default if the only option was a paid IDE. Clion and Rustover are somewhere in between I suspect. VS Code plugins vary from language to language. And commercial non OSS tools for native development are pretty common (e.g. Visual Studio, XCode, etc.). So, I guess Jetbrains feels more comfortable charging for Clion and Rustover for commercial development because they know they are that good. But nothing wrong if you don't appreciate what is on offer. Yes these tools use some memory and CPU. But then I use a decent laptop as well so it doesn't matter to me. Pretty normal to be spending on proper tools if you do this stuff professionally.
zoobab 1y ago
So it will never be in Debian.
iainctduncan 1y ago
Worth mentioning too that they have free student plans for all their IDEs for university students.
hbn 1y ago
I'm super happy JetBrains has been opening up all their editors to offer free access for non-commercial use. I've never made any money off of my occasional side projects, so I could never justify the cost to pay for a license when I may go an entire year without using. But I really love their editors - their key mappings are an extension of me at this point, it's so smart about figuring out how the code works and letting you find usages or refactor without thinking, and their git UI is basically the only way I find git tolerable. I may or may not have been abusing the fact that my university let me keep my email address as an alumni to squeeze more years out of their free access for students, though that seemed to stop working for me at some point a year or 2 ago. But I'll happily take this instead!
- rob74 1y ago
  > I'm super happy JetBrains has been opening up all their editors to offer free access for non-commercial use. All? That would be news to me! From the 10 IDEs (not counting ReSharper, which iss a plugin vor Visual Studio) listed on https://www.jetbrains.com/ides/#choose-your-ide https://www.jetbrains.com/ides/#choose-your-ide, only CLion, Rider, RustRover and WebStorm are free for non-commercial use. Plus, each of the products has its own free or discounted licenses for certain users (e.g. students).
  - jackwilsdon 1y ago
    There are community editions of IDEA and PyCharm which are free for commercial use too.
    - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
      Right, but goland, and importantly the go plugin for intellij are both not free, which is a bummer
      - mdaniel 1y ago
        Since the Goland plugin and then IDE arrived, they torpedoed the prior Golang plugin but it still exists and is Apache 2 https://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin/blob/%231288/LICENCE https://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin/bl... I don't recall offhand what features it does or doesn't support, and certainly not GOMODULES et al but just FYI They did a similar "fuck you" to the Terraform plugin <https://github.com/VladRassokhin/intellij-hcl/blob/v0.6.14/LICENSE https://github.com/VladRassokhin/intellij-hcl/blob/v0.6.14/L...> when they hired the developer and then made the built-in Terraform functionality basically abandonware :fu: And then, in some extra weird behavior, they have CloudFormation still in the open <https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-plugins/tree/idea/251.25410.109/CloudFormation https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-plugins/tree/idea/251....> but mysteriously it, too, is basically abandonware. Or maybe they're expecting the community to chip in and fix the bugs <https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues?q=subsystem:%20%7BLang.%20CloudFormation%7D%20&sort=created&order=desc https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues?q=subsystem:%20%7BLang...>. I dunno.
William_BB 1y ago
I used to be a CLion user. Unfortunately, it could not keep up with our large and heavily templated C++ codebase. Although CLion Nova with the new ReSharper engine improved things a lot, we found our custom clangd with emacs/vim/VSCode to still be much faster and convenient. I know CLion also has clangd, but I believe it's their own fork. I am also not sure if you can enable all clangd features since it's not the main engine. I'd be happy to hear people's thoughts about this.
- mdaniel 1y ago
  My experience has been than complaining into HN does not result in changes to software. Have you submitted a profiling dump to YouTrack? I have a lot of sympathy for someone trying to make an IDE (or any introspection tooling) because the number of ways humans can come up with to organize or author code is unlimited. So, I'm sure they would welcome feedback on "hey, watch out, modeling templates using this mechanism has bad perf in this IDE component"
  - William_BB 1y ago
    Not complaining at all! I have just heard of other people facing the same issues and assumed that this must be a well-known problem. It might also just be template heavy projects -- maybe it works great otherwise. I don't have much experience with CLion in other contexts.
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      I had the same experience with a large and heavily macroed Rust codebase.
  - varispeed 1y ago
    Why would you do that for a commercial product without getting paid?
    - nilamo 1y ago
      Why would you pay for a product and never want it to improve your workflows?
sgt 1y ago
Incidentally, I recently tested Zig and I decided to try out CLion as the Zig IDE. Seems to work great with the ZigBrains plugin. It's still in development but ready for use.
- cgh 1y ago
  Thank you, this is excellent information. Hopefully it beats the Kate + LSP experience.
wizrrd 1y ago
Make all IDEs free for non-commercial use to attract more users who might pay for services in the future — a win-win strategy.
inetknght 1y ago
Oh hell yeah! I used CLion about 6 or 7 years ago at my job, and it was a pretty great product for small projects. It used to slow down really bad for a medium-sized project though and I switched to VSCode. I've since moved on to new employers, but I'd love to check it out again. > It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics. We use this information to improve our products. Well, it's basically true for MS-branded VSCode too. I now use VSCodium. But I'm heavily against Microsoft. I don't like usage statistics collection, but at least this is a direct competitor to Microsoft. I had a chance to speak to some of the JetBrains folk at CppCon a couple years back. It was really nice and reassuring. I'll check it out for personal projects and see if it's improved since years ago. :)
- riquito 1y ago
  > > It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics. We use this information to improve our products. > Well, it's basically true for MS-branded VSCode too. I now use VSCodium. How's that "basically true"? That's false. You can opt out. In fact there's very good documentation around that https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/telemetry
  - hyper57 1y ago
    According to Microsoft's own license terms for VS Code, you can't opt out of all telemetry; see Section 2a: https://code.visualstudio.com/license https://code.visualstudio.com/license > You may opt-out of many of these scenarios, but not all, as described in the product documentation located at https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di.... Also, each extension (including Microsoft's) may collect its own telemetry. The blog post https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry has more details. Personally, I think it's a shame that JetBrains get such flack for collecting telemetry in their free products when Microsoft do the same in VS Code with hardly anyone voicing the same level of criticism for it.
paxys 1y ago
It's wild to me that Jetbrains has been making so many top-tier IDEs, languages, runtimes and other developer products for 25 years now and is valued at maybe $5B, meanwhile we have months-old "pre-revenue" startups releasing AI coding wrappers and raising money or being bought out for twice that.
- OtomotO 1y ago
  The power of hype. The same was true for Web3, Crypto, Machine Learning...
  - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
    Was crypto really hype? BTC has been around for almost 15 years now, and has been on a bumpy rise up to multiples of its value
    - dgfitz 1y ago
      Ever heard that saying about finding the sucker at a poker table?
      - raincole 1y ago
        I did. The first time I heard people describe crypto as such, Bitcoin was at $5000.
        dgfitz 1y ago
        The first time I bought bitcoin it was under a dollar a coin. When I realized it actually had zero real value I got out. What actual value does bitcoin have? As an example, gold can be used to make high fidelity cabling.
        int_19h 1y ago
        If price of gold was according to its "actual value", it wouldn't be $3300/oz right now. Nor would anyone hold it if they expected its price to ever get down to such "actual value". Bitcoin really isn't any different in that regard - it has value because people are willing to trade it. Although it does have practical uses, as well - black markets, for example.
deafpolygon 1y ago
When it's free, you are the product: "It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics. We use this information to improve our products. The data we collect is exclusively that of anonymous feature usages of our IDEs." I'm aware it's common practice, but it's always good to read the fine print.
- sofixa 1y ago
  Do you think JetBrains are making money of usage statistics of their IDE? It's much more likely they use those stats to know which parts and features of their products are used, and therefore which need improvements/love/prominence.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deafpolygon 1y ago
    I have no idea what they're doing - only that now, the product contains telemetry and if I want to use the free product, I cannot opt-out. I don't consent to being tracked.
globalnode 1y ago
If its free, you're the product.
- not_kurt_godel 1y ago
  Yes, they want you to eventually convert to a paying customer by using their software to make yourself money. How nefarious! (/s)
travisgriggs 1y ago
Pycharm is my goto for Python; I happily use AndroidStudio when working on our Android apps. In the past when I tried CLion, I found that its need/desire to use cmake prohibited me from really using it. We have our own build scripts, and it seemed to struggle with that. Anyone know if that CMake bias still exists? I ended up using Nova on my Mac for C code and have been pretty happy with that. I would really really really love it if there was an Elixir skin for Jetbrains tools.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  clion still needs a cmakelists.txt that's good enough to index the project, but it doesn't have to produce a usable artifact -- you can still build with make or whatever else you want. Probably cold comfort if you use a lot of third-party libraries, but otherwise it's a fairly set-and-forget kind of thing.
  - mdaniel 1y ago
    > clion still needs a cmakelists.txt I don't believe that's true anymore. I previously saw in their release notes that Makefile-based projects were out, but while digging up supporting links it seems their project formats list has gotten quite sizeable https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html And they have a "what can CLion do with projects in those formats" table further down that page: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html#:~:text=some%20of%20the%20features%20marked%20as%20supported https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html#:~:...
    - chuckadams 1y ago
      It has been a while since I last used CLion. I got Nethack working with it (I did have to run it through cproto first) and at the time it auto-generated a broken cmakelists.txt that I simplified with an even more broken one that slurped up every single source file with a couple wildcards. Couldn't build that way of course, but it was enough to index all the things while the makefile did the real job. Good to know that's not a necessary step anymore.
ferguess_k 1y ago
Just curious, for low level mid-size projects ON LINUX, like a simple OS or a compiler, is Clion over-complicated or suitable? And how does the debugging look like? I'm using VSCode with a manually written Makefile, and all of my debugging lives in gdb tui mode in a separate terminal. I do prefer a better UI though, but right now it's fine. One concern is that Jetbriain IDEs usually takes a lot of memory. I do have a 16GB laptop though, so should be fine.
90s_dev 1y ago
JetBrains IDEs always had difficult and unintuitive default keyboard shortcuts. I think it's just because of its age (same is true with Visual Studio). Whereas VS Code's out of the box shortcuts were relatively great. If JetBrains IDEs shipped with VSCode-style shortcuts as an option (not necessarily default) that I could switch to without having to manually remap everything, I'd be so glad to use them.
- grondo4 1y ago
  They do? Or at least the Jetbrains IDE I use the most (IntelliJ) will ask you the first time you start it up if you want to use VS code keybinds
  - 90s_dev 1y ago
    Wow you're right. To be fair it was about 9-10 years since I last tried it, so either it didn't have that back then, or I forgot that it did.
- leovander 1y ago
  They do have those options out of the box. I immediately switch them over to the VSCode bindings when on a new work machine. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/configuring-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/configuring-keyboard-and...
  - nsonha 1y ago
    they have a VS keybinding option out of the box, but the VSCode one is also available on the Marketplace
- xp84 1y ago
  They do. There are a ton of keybinding sets to choose from right there in the options. Heck, when i first started, I chose Textmate bindings!
OrvalWintermute 1y ago
I've been a quite happy Jetbrains All Products Pack subscriber for several years now.
perrygeo 1y ago
As good as LSP and other tooling has gotten recently, there are some C++ projects that just need a proprietary IDE for proper code navigation and completion. A lot of times my choice is a) spend 3 hours debugging why neovim's LSP is putting squiggly lines everywhere or b) just fire up CLion.
- ivanjermakov 1y ago
  Huge benefit of current rise of "C++ killer" languages is that they're designed with LSP support from day 1. I had a great experience with Rust and rust_analyzer: open any project in LSP-capable editor and it just works.
  - AmalgatedAmoeba 1y ago
    Are they though? * Rust was designed before even vscode was released * Zig, Odin, JAI are all designed by people that don’t use LSP and don’t like it * Don’t know about Carbon, but it currently doesn’t look like it’s gonna kill anything It seems to me that rust analyzer is something of an exception
    - kristoff_it 1y ago
      Zig has on the roadmap the creation of a compiler REPL to power all kinds of code intelligence tools, including LSPs. This item is blocking only on finishing incremental compilation.
      - AmalgatedAmoeba 1y ago
        Sure and the incremental compiler work is genuinely amazing. I was objecting purely to the notion that this new crop of systems languages is “designed from day one” around LSP, which doesn’t seem to be quite true
gh0stcat 1y ago
This is cool, I briefly looked at using this to work on an unreal project, does anyone have any experience with using CLion with unreal? Is Rider or VScode still ideal?
chpatrick 1y ago
I used to use CLion but switched to VS Code with the clangd extension. It's by far the best and snappiest C++ coding experience I've had.
mcflubbins 1y ago
Great, but how about letting me have my paid, licensed Rust rover open on two PCs simultaneously? I have my work PC which I leave on pretty much 24/7 and if I forget to close RustRover, and try to launch it on my desktop (for personal project, or to just work from another room) I get an error that I already have a licensed copy running and it closes RustRover. Sometimes I wake my Laptop from sleep and it does this because I still had an old window open. Really unnecessary...
- seatac76 1y ago
  I just bought the annual license for all IDEs did not know this was a restriction that’s a bummer. Surely they can do some pattern analysis to determine which systems belong to a single license.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    It’s not a restriction for personal licenses. EDIT: Or if you a corporate license and have the same OS username on both computers.
    - seatac76 1y ago
      Ahh I see. Thanks
  - Jtsummers 1y ago
    https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/206544319-Can-I-use-my-license-on-multiple-machines https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/206544319-Can-... https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/207241005-Using-IDE-on-different-machines-and-operating-systems-with-the-same-license https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/207... For personal licenses it's a non-issue. For commercial, use the same username on both computers. If you have floating licenses, you need multiple licenses.
  - mcflubbins 1y ago
    Can confirm this doesn't seem to occur anymore, they must have fixed in the past few months.
hiatus 1y ago
Can anyone comment how this compares to Dev-C++?
- int_19h 1y ago
  It has working code completion for C++ (including templates), for starters.
demarq 1y ago
This is a good move, more people will unwittingly be running a trial of the product. I suspect there’s a whole lot of devs who’ve never experienced paid IDEs vs VsCode. Plus the community is about to grow insane. Interested to see what happens
the__alchemist 1y ago
These are so interesting. From my perspective using PyCharm and RustRover: By far the best code editors, in terms of introspection and refactoring. The only ones I've used that model my projects correctly; VsCode and Sublime etc make it feel like I'm editing files, where are IMO the wrong abstraction. I experience major performance problems. They periodically bring my 9950 CPU to a crawl, or freeze, requiring a force-kill. (RustRover more so than PyCharm, but both are guilty). Memory hogs. (Feels like they leak memory). This is consistent behavior over the years, across a range of project styles. I put up with the performance problems because of my first point! The interesting/amusing part to me: My experiences do not seem wholly consistent with other users: Many users seem to find these IDEs heavy, but don't experience the freezes, crashes, or memory leaks. And many (most?) people claim VsCode is fine for managing multi-file projects. I don't know what to think!
- winrid 1y ago
  That's insane, I use webstorm, pycharm, and Intellij, sometimes all at the same time, on a mobile 8th gen i7, it doesn't lock up. The single thread passmark score is literally half your cpu! :D
  - winrid 1y ago
    Although I guess none of those projects are more than 150k loc.
- ackfoobar 1y ago
  > ... RustRover: By far the best code editors ... I'm using RustRover. It's pretty lame compared to the IntelliJ experience. "Find usages" does not separate test code and application code; "copy reference" gets me the file name and line number instead of the fully qualified name. I'd probably use vscode/cursor fully if I weren't so used to the JetBrains environment.
- trallnag 1y ago
  Are you experiencing these problems on your personal device or is it a corporate provided one full of scanners? IntelliJ is definitely slower on my work laptop compared to my private desktop. Might also be due to the larger project size and heavy usage of Spring, though
andrewstuart 1y ago
I really wish JetBrains released its terminal as a standalone product. It’s one of the best.
- mdaniel 1y ago
  This might not help you, but it is actually a plugin so there's a very small chance with enough determination you could get it to run outside the IDE https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/tree/idea/251.25410.109/plugins/terminal https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/tree/idea/25... The follow-on [rhetorical] question is what value it provides to you outside of its integration with the IDE (e.g. click to open, it being integrated right into the window of your editor, etc)
giancarlostoro 1y ago
One thing I wish JetBrains would explore is building a fully native NON-JRE text editor that is a direct competitor to Sublime Text, but has a rich plugin API. I would love to see their take on a Sublime like editor. Atom and VS Code were the only serious Sublime Text competitors for a while, but now VS Code has gotten insanely bloated over the years, and also Atom is defunct unfortunately. I would love to see them build a fully native editor with their decades of knowledge.
- hiccuphippo 1y ago
  They have Fleet which was supposed to be a competitor to VSCode. AFAIK it's written in Kotlin so still JRE (unless they are able to compile it to native?). Maybe Zed would be more interesting for you.
taylorallred 1y ago
I love jetbrains IDE for all sorts of features (their git tools like diff checker are unmatched imo). I've been wanting to use them for C++ for a while now specifically because I find that many LSP solutions are not that great. Looking forward to using the non-commercial version of clion!
Artoooooor 1y ago
Wow! Thank you for sharing, I would miss this otherwise.
geophile 1y ago
This is a love letter to JetBrains. I started using Intellij with the 3.0 version, I think. It just worked, even on Linux. (It was existence proof that you could build excellent UIs in Java.) Unlike Eclipse, and other forgotten IDEs that were so bad I discarded them immediately. Even early on, their refactorings were usually flawless. While I think I found one screwup, they were so good that they changed the way I coded. I could easily and reliably do refactorings that were otherwise pretty time-consuming and error-prone. I have continued using their products: mostly PyCharm now, and occasionally CLion. Each new release improves the UI, and occasionally adds features that I find useful, and many that I don't. I suspect that I'm not alone in using a very tiny portion of the features they offer. How they can keep up with all the languages, and libraries, and frameworks is beyond me, but they seem to do it. Their support has always been excellent. I once (v4?) complained that refactorings did not extend into configurations. E.g., if I rename a class Foo to Bar, then the runtime configuration running Foo didn't reflect the change. I reported it, and found a fix in the next release. Email with technical questions or bug reports is always handled promptly and thoughtfully. They have always provided absolutely fantastic products for free. Yes, you gave up some features, but the free versions are really useful. I'm retired now, but continue to pay their licensing fees every year, for my hobby usage, because it's worth it, and they earn it. And the licensing is not onerous to use. What I really like is that you don't have to be on the internet to use their products, just for the license check. I wish all licensed products did that. And beyond all this: They haven't sold out. They are one of the very, very few for-profit tech companies that have maintained a stellar level of product breadth, depth, quality, and support for such a long period of time. I'm sure they could have cashed in, sold to IBM and the product would have just rotted away, (sorry, IBM, but you know it's true). I can only think of one product that is comparable in this way, and that's Postgres. Thank you, JetBrains, you have Figured It Out.
- mdaniel 1y ago
  I was expecting you to end with "and don't squander the amazing track record of developer goodwill you have accumulated by forcing the stupid-ass 'New UI' on us, or telling us that we're committing code wrong, or somehow suddenly trying to go 'All AI' or whatever" I'll be straight: for me personally there is no replacement, and I'll just patch the "unsupported" Commit Like a Sane Person plugin[1] indefinitely if I have to, but ... come on, don't strain our relationship like that 1: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/26647-modal-commit-interface https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/26647-modal-commit-inte...
Xss3 1y ago
Just bought it last week. Oops.
DidYaWipe 1y ago
That's interesting. This led me to their page, which also touted the now-free WebStorm. Can anyone weigh in on WebStorm vs. VS Code for JS/TS development? I'm developing a back end with Deno running locally, and VS Code has been decent for debugging and using the language runtime. Would WebStorm offer any advantages?
- thunderfork 1y ago
  [dead]
ixmerof 1y ago
YESYESYES
trew44 1y ago
[flagged]
Alifatisk 1y ago
Very cool and I am quite thankful for Jetbrains free contribution! I understand peoples concern with telemetry but I can understand that there is some kind of trade-off from a free product, my wish is that they do the same with RubyMine. Another thing I would like to discuss is this (it's kind flimsy so bear with me), Jetbrains IDEs are good and clean. One thing I dislike with these IDEs is that they do a lot in the background that feels like is outside of my control. I can't really point my finger exactly to where this feeling is coming from but I only get that impression when I use these heavy IDEs. Say I want my development environment / settings / workspace config to be easily replicated and configured when someone new joins the project, will their Jetbrains IDE recognize it and prompt the user to adapt? Because that is one thing I enjoy with vscode, EVERYTHING is under my control and I can see what everything does. The buttons that runs different tasks can easily be viewed on .vscode/tasks.json, all config is within the .vscode folder! In Jetbrains IDEs, some things are local only and you have to ask the peers to screenshare which config they had. I don't want that, I want the whole workspace to be easily replicated and shared. I know Jetbrains is working on Fleet, I've been trying it out a couple of times and I like it, I hope they take this into their consideration.
trew44 1y ago
[dead]

624 points by AlexeyBrin 1y ago

This is good news. I for one, won't change my toolchain, but having a "free for personal use" alternative is always better, esp. when the license includes open source development. Like it or not, C++ is not going anywhere in the short and long term, so it's always good to have real IDEs around (CLion, Eclipse CDT, etc.) which can integrate with good instrumentation and give real time feedback on your code.

1over137 1y ago

Free version sends telemetry with no opt-out.

bayindirh 1y ago
Yes, that one is a real bummer, actually, but if they're using something like how Go does it [0], at least it's tolerable if you're bound to using it. [0]: https://telemetry.go.dev/privacy https://telemetry.go.dev/privacy
enigma101 1y ago
just use a firewall, no?
pjmlp 1y ago
There is your price right there.
lern_too_spel 1y ago
They're probably using the telemetry to monitor commercial abuse.
- anastasiak2512 1y ago
  The telemetry is used to analyzed the most used / unused features and to improve the product. For example, it's useful to understand that some specific technology gains more popularity among users and contribute more into its support.
  - lern_too_spel 1y ago
    I have no doubt that this is the primary use. It was the only way to use that data until now. Now that there is a free offering, there is a new potential use that neatly explains why it is required in the free offering and optional otherwise.
ainiriand 1y ago
Can you give us proof of that? I have not seen anything like that in my RustRover usage but it might be that I have missed that.
- hiq 1y ago
  It's in the article: > It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics.
- dardeaup 1y ago
  From the link: "It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics."
pasoevi 1y ago
You can still use paid version if you want to turn telemetry off. With the free version, you can either use it and say thanks, or not use it at all.
- badsectoracula 1y ago
  Indeed, this is one of the various options one has. Another option is to not use it and be vocal against telemetry, hopefully convincing others to do the same while dissuading other developers (especially in a forum like Hacker News where people that build stuff gather) from adding it on their products.
  - pasoevi 1y ago
    I wouldn't take people seriously who are vocal against telemetry in a product which has paid version with the option to turn telemetry off. Such people would be vocal against paying for the work others do. Also, if properly anonymised, telemetry isn't the devil people make it to be.
    - badsectoracula 1y ago
      > I wouldn't take people seriously who are vocal against telemetry in a product which has paid version with the option to turn telemetry off. You are conflating two separate things, a product does not need telemetry to function and if telemetry is needed it can be opt-in. Similarly a product does not need to be free to have telemetry nor does it need to be paid to not have telemetry, as i already wrote these two are completely separate. > Such people would be vocal against paying for the work others do. Again you are conflating two completely separate things: people being concerned about the privacy implications of telemetry (both directly and indirectly, see below) and people who are against about paying others for their work. > Also, if properly anonymised, telemetry isn't the devil people make it to be. Even if anonymized (which is something you can only guarantee for open source projects that either you or someone you trust has checked they do such anonymization properly - and also you either build yourself from the source that was checked or you used a binary from a reproducible build) having telemetry in place still creates and reinforces a precedent of it being acceptable which in turn can be used to excuse other programs doing the same but those programs actually not caring about doing proper anonymization (at best) or even outright spying on you (at worst). Besides anonymized data can still be used in conjunction with other data to be deanonymized and the best way to protect users from this is to not collect that data in the first place.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pacman1337 1y ago
couldn't we just block the traffic with /etc/hosts?
- immibis 1y ago
  Then you're presumably committing an actual crime, or at least, their lawyers will see it that way, probably, as copyright infringement because they only gave you a license to use the software if you left the telemetry on.
Someone 1y ago
So, they’re contradicting themselves, saying both (https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-for-non-commercial-use/#what-features-are-included-under-the-free-license https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-f...) “With the new non-commercial license type, you can enjoy a full-featured IDE that is identical to its paid version. The only difference is in the Code With Me feature – you get Code With Me Community with your free license.” and (https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-for-non-commercial-use/#is-there-a-way-to-opt-out-of-sending-anonymized-statistics https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2025/05/clion-is-now-free-f...) “We appreciate that this might not be convenient for everyone, but there is unfortunately no way to opt out of sending anonymized statistics to JetBrains under the terms of the Toolbox agreement for non-commercial use. The only way to opt out is by switching to either a paid subscription or one of the complimentary options mentioned here.” Also, if they find that unfortunate, why did they make the product do that?
- codedokode 1y ago
  > there is unfortunately no way to opt out of sending anonymized statistics There is a way - simply use an open source alternative to JetBrains.

DemetriousJones 1y ago

Awesome news

andy_ppp 1y ago

What’s the Duck Duck Go equivalent for editors these days? Everything seems to be spying on me and/or offering to send my code to AI in the cloud.

candiddevmike 1y ago
VSCodium without any extensions? IMO it's the extensions that are the big exfil risk, not necessarily the editor.
bartekpacia 1y ago
CLion (and other JetBrains IDEs for that matter) doesn’t send any of your code to AI in the Cloud (unless you use sth like AI Assistant yourself, of course)
- andy_ppp 1y ago
  It does send telemetry and analytics I believe? I should have been broader in the tracking I specified…
  - tredre3 1y ago
    All duckduckgo software is filled with telemetry and analytics that cannot be disabled (The search engine, the Android web browser, the Windows web browser).
    - yegg 1y ago
      FWIW All DuckDuckGo telemetry is completely anonymous: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/atb https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/privacy/atb
badsectoracula 1y ago
I've been using Kate (KDE's advanced text editor) recently.

FpUser 1y ago

I have subscription that covers all their tools. CLion is my favorite when dealing with C++. So glad that hobbyist can use it now

jasonlotito 1y ago
So... not that it really matters I imagine, but JetBrains doesn't do pure subscription. Rather, you buy your IDEs, and effectively have a perpetual license to the product you bought. You get free upgrades, and if you keep paying, your license gets updated along with it. If you don't continue paying, you still have the IDE you paid for. You just don't get updates. This seems like a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one in the world of subscription services. https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What-is-a-perpetual-fallback-license https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What...
- inetknght 1y ago
  So it's like what software licenses were 20 years ago. That's a good thing.
- FpUser 1y ago
  Yep. Having perpetual license is precondition for me buying major development tools.
- dismalaf 1y ago
  JetBrains does have a subscription option, including a monthly subscription to get all their tools.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    The yearly subscription includes the "perpetual fallback" license GP is talking about. With monthly, you get that once you've been subscribed for 12 months.
mdaniel 1y ago
And I recognize that I'm biased as a JetBrains fanboy, but I think it is just a stellar deal to pay $173/year for the all-you-can-eat pack where you get to keep them if you stop paying I know folks are going to call out that the entry price is $289/year, but I still think for the number of included products that's still a deal

WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago

I wish they'd extract the debugger and release it as a crossplatform standalone tool, i'd pay for it

freeone3000 1y ago
The debugger is primarily lldb, which has the same features (watches, expressions, locals) with not as slick a UI.
kanwisher 1y ago
the debugger without the ide doesn't make any sense, just use the ide for debugging

shortrounddev2 1y ago

Personally dislike jetbrains UX design but it's cool that Linux has a really good, free-ish IDE

memsom 1y ago
If you use more than one of their IDEs on a regular basis, I'm going to be honest - it starts to make more sense that the change between IDEs is less jarring. I use Rider a lot, and Pycharm and Android Studio infrequently, and I like that all of the IDEs are so similar that I know how to do most things as the settings and menu system is almost identical. I also use the IDEs on Windows, Mac and sometimes Linux - and the UI is similar enough that I do not ever struggle to make something work that I have previously done in any of the platforms or OS versions
- jghn 1y ago
  Also alternatives like VSCode have garbage for a debugging & profiling workflow compared to Jetbrains.

videogreg93 1y ago

This is amazing news. As a long time IntelliJ user (Android dev for 7+ years) who wants to start doing more c++, having free access to Clion is a godsend.

eric-p7 1y ago
Nobody actually wants to start doing more c++.

discmonkey 1y ago

Assuming that the plugin is enabled for the free version, CLion is also amazing for Rust. Thanks Jetbrains! Here's hoping this won't be abused by smaller companies that will no longer want to pay for the actual subscription. I also wonder if they are moving towards a different funding model, since the IDE space is pretty competitive with a free alternative (VSCode) out there.

ainiriand 1y ago
RustRover is already free for Non-Commercial use! I think it is the best IDE for Rust dev.
- toprerules 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - redserk 1y ago
    First-party LSPs are great and all but some form of text editor is also at least marginally useful for writing code.
  - rafram 1y ago
    Using "Java-based" as a smear is pretty silly. The IntelliJ platform is an extremely solid piece of software, clunkiness and all. It does everything pretty well, with very little need for config fiddling or third-party plugins.
    - levzzz 1y ago
      [dead]
    - osigurdson 1y ago
      I won't argue with the logic, if it works, it works. But still, I tend to react negatively to "Java-based" things. I think it comes from fiddling with Xms Xmx in the past with Elasticsearch which gave me the sense that the JVM is a beast. Now you want me to use the same beast in my editor? Neovim feels a lot lighter in this regard.

pasoevi 1y ago

Great news. It is beyond me how people are complaining about the free version not allowing to turn off telemetry. Why don't you stick to the paid version if you are bothered by the (anonymous) telemetry?

badsectoracula 1y ago
Because these two are completely separate things.
- pasoevi 1y ago
  How?
  - badsectoracula 1y ago
    See my reply to the other comment you made[0] where you basically say the same thing. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915600
matheusmoreira 1y ago
[flagged]
- pasoevi 1y ago
  You aren't a product? Then pay for the products you use instead of asking to get it for free. If they don't give you the option to turn telemetry off in the paid product, then go ahead and complain. But pay for what you get.
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    ? No one asked them to release their software for free. They did it of their own accord. They don't get to subtly mine value out of their users just because they released free stuff. That's nonsense. We're not obligated to be guinea pigs in their usability experiments.

hiq 1y ago

I'm curious about what non-commercial means in practice. > Common examples of non-commercial uses include learning and self-education, open-source contributions without earning commercial benefits What if I start writing code, let's say 80% of a codebase, then for the next 3 months I switch to another editor to write the next 20%, and then commercialize the support (so open-source but with commercial benefits)? Would it be about intent, i.e. it'd be fine if I had no plan to make a business out of it at the beginning, but as soon as there's the idea of a business I should have switched? I guess in practice this mostly targets companies with 10+ employees so it's fine not to draw the line that clearly?

speed_spread 1y ago
It means "stay under the radar if you are cheap". This is Jetbrains, not Oracle, there isn't an army of lawyers out to get you the second you breach the agreement.
- dagmx 1y ago
  It’s a shame but not unexpected that people reward smaller companies giving their products away for free by trying to abuse the spirit of it.
deafpolygon 1y ago
Probably why they want telemetry. Then, if you go on to make billions- they can sue when it's worth it.

subzero06 1y ago

If something is free, you are the product - it is "free" but Anonymous data is collected.

dist-epoch 1y ago
Exactly, this I why I won't use Linux or Firefox, I don't want to be the product.
- creatonez 1y ago
  Most Linux distros are completely free of any builtin telemetry. Your fears are unwarranted.
  - 333c 1y ago
    I believe that's the point being made by the comment you're replying to
  - cbpowell 1y ago
    My impression (perhaps incorrect) was that the guy was being sarcastic.
    - thadt 1y ago
      We at the HN do not have a sense of humor we're aware of.
- inetknght 1y ago
  Linux is free as in free speech. It's also open source. Firefox... is free as in free beer.
  - noisem4ker 1y ago
    Firefox is covered by the Mozilla Public License (MPL), which is a free-as-in-freedom, open source software license. What's your definition of freedom?

toprerules 1y ago

[flagged]

NoboruWataya 1y ago
Agree that it is a crazy resource hog and I don't like the AI integrations either. But I gotta say for UI and features it is very good. I haven't been able to get VSCode or neovim to offer the same kind of easily actionable code diagnostics and suggestions as JetBrains IDEs do out of the box. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I couldn't quite match it even with a fair bit of tinkering.
- KronisLV 1y ago
  I like the AI integrations (they me use Claude Sonnet 3.7, Gemini 2.5 and GPT 4.1 with my all products pack) and quite enjoy their Junie tool, much better than my attempts at getting Aider working. UI seems pretty okay, at least on the 2025 versions of the tools (in compact mode, Inter 12 as the custom UI font on a 1080p monitor) but still quite the resource hog. Oh well, I’m actually going to try their Fleet as well after reinstalling my OS because it was worse than VSC the last time I tried it, might be better now.
  - sitefail1 1y ago
    It's not. The functionality gap between VSC and Fleet has further widened, and its future looks even more unsure now they backed out the Kotlin native stuff back to the main IDEs.
jillesvangurp 1y ago
The community edition of intellij and pycharm is Apache 2.0 licensed and you can use those for commercial development. Pycharm is about similar to vs code (I've used both). But intellij blows the Java & Kotlin support in vs code out of the water. It's not even remotely close. Reason, Java has several decent OSS IDEs as an alternative and those would win by default if the only option was a paid IDE. Clion and Rustover are somewhere in between I suspect. VS Code plugins vary from language to language. And commercial non OSS tools for native development are pretty common (e.g. Visual Studio, XCode, etc.). So, I guess Jetbrains feels more comfortable charging for Clion and Rustover for commercial development because they know they are that good. But nothing wrong if you don't appreciate what is on offer. Yes these tools use some memory and CPU. But then I use a decent laptop as well so it doesn't matter to me. Pretty normal to be spending on proper tools if you do this stuff professionally.

zoobab 1y ago

So it will never be in Debian.

iainctduncan 1y ago

Worth mentioning too that they have free student plans for all their IDEs for university students.

hbn 1y ago

I'm super happy JetBrains has been opening up all their editors to offer free access for non-commercial use. I've never made any money off of my occasional side projects, so I could never justify the cost to pay for a license when I may go an entire year without using. But I really love their editors - their key mappings are an extension of me at this point, it's so smart about figuring out how the code works and letting you find usages or refactor without thinking, and their git UI is basically the only way I find git tolerable. I may or may not have been abusing the fact that my university let me keep my email address as an alumni to squeeze more years out of their free access for students, though that seemed to stop working for me at some point a year or 2 ago. But I'll happily take this instead!

rob74 1y ago
> I'm super happy JetBrains has been opening up all their editors to offer free access for non-commercial use. All? That would be news to me! From the 10 IDEs (not counting ReSharper, which iss a plugin vor Visual Studio) listed on https://www.jetbrains.com/ides/#choose-your-ide https://www.jetbrains.com/ides/#choose-your-ide, only CLion, Rider, RustRover and WebStorm are free for non-commercial use. Plus, each of the products has its own free or discounted licenses for certain users (e.g. students).
- jackwilsdon 1y ago
  There are community editions of IDEA and PyCharm which are free for commercial use too.
  - wing-_-nuts 1y ago
    Right, but goland, and importantly the go plugin for intellij are both not free, which is a bummer
    - mdaniel 1y ago
      Since the Goland plugin and then IDE arrived, they torpedoed the prior Golang plugin but it still exists and is Apache 2 https://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin/blob/%231288/LICENCE https://github.com/go-lang-plugin-org/go-lang-idea-plugin/bl... I don't recall offhand what features it does or doesn't support, and certainly not GOMODULES et al but just FYI They did a similar "fuck you" to the Terraform plugin <https://github.com/VladRassokhin/intellij-hcl/blob/v0.6.14/LICENSE https://github.com/VladRassokhin/intellij-hcl/blob/v0.6.14/L...> when they hired the developer and then made the built-in Terraform functionality basically abandonware :fu: And then, in some extra weird behavior, they have CloudFormation still in the open <https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-plugins/tree/idea/251.25410.109/CloudFormation https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-plugins/tree/idea/251....> but mysteriously it, too, is basically abandonware. Or maybe they're expecting the community to chip in and fix the bugs <https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues?q=subsystem:%20%7BLang.%20CloudFormation%7D%20&sort=created&order=desc https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues?q=subsystem:%20%7BLang...>. I dunno.

William_BB 1y ago

I used to be a CLion user. Unfortunately, it could not keep up with our large and heavily templated C++ codebase. Although CLion Nova with the new ReSharper engine improved things a lot, we found our custom clangd with emacs/vim/VSCode to still be much faster and convenient. I know CLion also has clangd, but I believe it's their own fork. I am also not sure if you can enable all clangd features since it's not the main engine. I'd be happy to hear people's thoughts about this.

mdaniel 1y ago
My experience has been than complaining into HN does not result in changes to software. Have you submitted a profiling dump to YouTrack? I have a lot of sympathy for someone trying to make an IDE (or any introspection tooling) because the number of ways humans can come up with to organize or author code is unlimited. So, I'm sure they would welcome feedback on "hey, watch out, modeling templates using this mechanism has bad perf in this IDE component"
- William_BB 1y ago
  Not complaining at all! I have just heard of other people facing the same issues and assumed that this must be a well-known problem. It might also just be template heavy projects -- maybe it works great otherwise. I don't have much experience with CLion in other contexts.
  - koakuma-chan 1y ago
    I had the same experience with a large and heavily macroed Rust codebase.
- varispeed 1y ago
  Why would you do that for a commercial product without getting paid?
  - nilamo 1y ago
    Why would you pay for a product and never want it to improve your workflows?

sgt 1y ago

Incidentally, I recently tested Zig and I decided to try out CLion as the Zig IDE. Seems to work great with the ZigBrains plugin. It's still in development but ready for use.

cgh 1y ago
Thank you, this is excellent information. Hopefully it beats the Kate + LSP experience.

wizrrd 1y ago

Make all IDEs free for non-commercial use to attract more users who might pay for services in the future — a win-win strategy.

inetknght 1y ago

Oh hell yeah! I used CLion about 6 or 7 years ago at my job, and it was a pretty great product for small projects. It used to slow down really bad for a medium-sized project though and I switched to VSCode. I've since moved on to new employers, but I'd love to check it out again. > It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics. We use this information to improve our products. Well, it's basically true for MS-branded VSCode too. I now use VSCodium. But I'm heavily against Microsoft. I don't like usage statistics collection, but at least this is a direct competitor to Microsoft. I had a chance to speak to some of the JetBrains folk at CppCon a couple years back. It was really nice and reassuring. I'll check it out for personal projects and see if it's improved since years ago. :)

riquito 1y ago
> > It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics. We use this information to improve our products. > Well, it's basically true for MS-branded VSCode too. I now use VSCodium. How's that "basically true"? That's false. You can opt out. In fact there's very good documentation around that https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/configure/telemetry
- hyper57 1y ago
  According to Microsoft's own license terms for VS Code, you can't opt out of all telemetry; see Section 2a: https://code.visualstudio.com/license https://code.visualstudio.com/license > You may opt-out of many of these scenarios, but not all, as described in the product documentation located at https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-di.... Also, each extension (including Microsoft's) may collect its own telemetry. The blog post https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry has more details. Personally, I think it's a shame that JetBrains get such flack for collecting telemetry in their free products when Microsoft do the same in VS Code with hardly anyone voicing the same level of criticism for it.

paxys 1y ago

It's wild to me that Jetbrains has been making so many top-tier IDEs, languages, runtimes and other developer products for 25 years now and is valued at maybe $5B, meanwhile we have months-old "pre-revenue" startups releasing AI coding wrappers and raising money or being bought out for twice that.

OtomotO 1y ago
The power of hype. The same was true for Web3, Crypto, Machine Learning...
- SJC_Hacker 1y ago
  Was crypto really hype? BTC has been around for almost 15 years now, and has been on a bumpy rise up to multiples of its value
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    Ever heard that saying about finding the sucker at a poker table?
    - raincole 1y ago
      I did. The first time I heard people describe crypto as such, Bitcoin was at $5000.
      - dgfitz 1y ago
        The first time I bought bitcoin it was under a dollar a coin. When I realized it actually had zero real value I got out. What actual value does bitcoin have? As an example, gold can be used to make high fidelity cabling.
        int_19h 1y ago
        If price of gold was according to its "actual value", it wouldn't be $3300/oz right now. Nor would anyone hold it if they expected its price to ever get down to such "actual value". Bitcoin really isn't any different in that regard - it has value because people are willing to trade it. Although it does have practical uses, as well - black markets, for example.

deafpolygon 1y ago

When it's free, you are the product: "It’s important to note that, if you’re using a non-commercial license, you cannot opt out of the collection of anonymous usage statistics. We use this information to improve our products. The data we collect is exclusively that of anonymous feature usages of our IDEs." I'm aware it's common practice, but it's always good to read the fine print.

sofixa 1y ago
Do you think JetBrains are making money of usage statistics of their IDE? It's much more likely they use those stats to know which parts and features of their products are used, and therefore which need improvements/love/prominence.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deafpolygon 1y ago
  I have no idea what they're doing - only that now, the product contains telemetry and if I want to use the free product, I cannot opt-out. I don't consent to being tracked.

globalnode 1y ago

If its free, you're the product.

not_kurt_godel 1y ago
Yes, they want you to eventually convert to a paying customer by using their software to make yourself money. How nefarious! (/s)

travisgriggs 1y ago

Pycharm is my goto for Python; I happily use AndroidStudio when working on our Android apps. In the past when I tried CLion, I found that its need/desire to use cmake prohibited me from really using it. We have our own build scripts, and it seemed to struggle with that. Anyone know if that CMake bias still exists? I ended up using Nova on my Mac for C code and have been pretty happy with that. I would really really really love it if there was an Elixir skin for Jetbrains tools.

chuckadams 1y ago
clion still needs a cmakelists.txt that's good enough to index the project, but it doesn't have to produce a usable artifact -- you can still build with make or whatever else you want. Probably cold comfort if you use a lot of third-party libraries, but otherwise it's a fairly set-and-forget kind of thing.
- mdaniel 1y ago
  > clion still needs a cmakelists.txt I don't believe that's true anymore. I previously saw in their release notes that Makefile-based projects were out, but while digging up supporting links it seems their project formats list has gotten quite sizeable https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html And they have a "what can CLion do with projects in those formats" table further down that page: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html#:~:text=some%20of%20the%20features%20marked%20as%20supported https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/project-models.html#:~:...
  - chuckadams 1y ago
    It has been a while since I last used CLion. I got Nethack working with it (I did have to run it through cproto first) and at the time it auto-generated a broken cmakelists.txt that I simplified with an even more broken one that slurped up every single source file with a couple wildcards. Couldn't build that way of course, but it was enough to index all the things while the makefile did the real job. Good to know that's not a necessary step anymore.

ferguess_k 1y ago

Just curious, for low level mid-size projects ON LINUX, like a simple OS or a compiler, is Clion over-complicated or suitable? And how does the debugging look like? I'm using VSCode with a manually written Makefile, and all of my debugging lives in gdb tui mode in a separate terminal. I do prefer a better UI though, but right now it's fine. One concern is that Jetbriain IDEs usually takes a lot of memory. I do have a 16GB laptop though, so should be fine.

90s_dev 1y ago

JetBrains IDEs always had difficult and unintuitive default keyboard shortcuts. I think it's just because of its age (same is true with Visual Studio). Whereas VS Code's out of the box shortcuts were relatively great. If JetBrains IDEs shipped with VSCode-style shortcuts as an option (not necessarily default) that I could switch to without having to manually remap everything, I'd be so glad to use them.

grondo4 1y ago
They do? Or at least the Jetbrains IDE I use the most (IntelliJ) will ask you the first time you start it up if you want to use VS code keybinds
- 90s_dev 1y ago
  Wow you're right. To be fair it was about 9-10 years since I last tried it, so either it didn't have that back then, or I forgot that it did.
leovander 1y ago
They do have those options out of the box. I immediately switch them over to the VSCode bindings when on a new work machine. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/configuring-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/configuring-keyboard-and...
- nsonha 1y ago
  they have a VS keybinding option out of the box, but the VSCode one is also available on the Marketplace
xp84 1y ago
They do. There are a ton of keybinding sets to choose from right there in the options. Heck, when i first started, I chose Textmate bindings!

OrvalWintermute 1y ago

I've been a quite happy Jetbrains All Products Pack subscriber for several years now.

perrygeo 1y ago

As good as LSP and other tooling has gotten recently, there are some C++ projects that just need a proprietary IDE for proper code navigation and completion. A lot of times my choice is a) spend 3 hours debugging why neovim's LSP is putting squiggly lines everywhere or b) just fire up CLion.

ivanjermakov 1y ago
Huge benefit of current rise of "C++ killer" languages is that they're designed with LSP support from day 1. I had a great experience with Rust and rust_analyzer: open any project in LSP-capable editor and it just works.
- AmalgatedAmoeba 1y ago
  Are they though? * Rust was designed before even vscode was released * Zig, Odin, JAI are all designed by people that don’t use LSP and don’t like it * Don’t know about Carbon, but it currently doesn’t look like it’s gonna kill anything It seems to me that rust analyzer is something of an exception
  - kristoff_it 1y ago
    Zig has on the roadmap the creation of a compiler REPL to power all kinds of code intelligence tools, including LSPs. This item is blocking only on finishing incremental compilation.
    - AmalgatedAmoeba 1y ago
      Sure and the incremental compiler work is genuinely amazing. I was objecting purely to the notion that this new crop of systems languages is “designed from day one” around LSP, which doesn’t seem to be quite true

gh0stcat 1y ago

This is cool, I briefly looked at using this to work on an unreal project, does anyone have any experience with using CLion with unreal? Is Rider or VScode still ideal?

chpatrick 1y ago

I used to use CLion but switched to VS Code with the clangd extension. It's by far the best and snappiest C++ coding experience I've had.

mcflubbins 1y ago

Great, but how about letting me have my paid, licensed Rust rover open on two PCs simultaneously? I have my work PC which I leave on pretty much 24/7 and if I forget to close RustRover, and try to launch it on my desktop (for personal project, or to just work from another room) I get an error that I already have a licensed copy running and it closes RustRover. Sometimes I wake my Laptop from sleep and it does this because I still had an old window open. Really unnecessary...

seatac76 1y ago
I just bought the annual license for all IDEs did not know this was a restriction that’s a bummer. Surely they can do some pattern analysis to determine which systems belong to a single license.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  It’s not a restriction for personal licenses. EDIT: Or if you a corporate license and have the same OS username on both computers.
  - seatac76 1y ago
    Ahh I see. Thanks
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/206544319-Can-I-use-my-license-on-multiple-machines https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/206544319-Can-... https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/207241005-Using-IDE-on-different-machines-and-operating-systems-with-the-same-license https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/207... For personal licenses it's a non-issue. For commercial, use the same username on both computers. If you have floating licenses, you need multiple licenses.
- mcflubbins 1y ago
  Can confirm this doesn't seem to occur anymore, they must have fixed in the past few months.

hiatus 1y ago

Can anyone comment how this compares to Dev-C++?

int_19h 1y ago
It has working code completion for C++ (including templates), for starters.

demarq 1y ago

This is a good move, more people will unwittingly be running a trial of the product. I suspect there’s a whole lot of devs who’ve never experienced paid IDEs vs VsCode. Plus the community is about to grow insane. Interested to see what happens

the__alchemist 1y ago

These are so interesting. From my perspective using PyCharm and RustRover: By far the best code editors, in terms of introspection and refactoring. The only ones I've used that model my projects correctly; VsCode and Sublime etc make it feel like I'm editing files, where are IMO the wrong abstraction. I experience major performance problems. They periodically bring my 9950 CPU to a crawl, or freeze, requiring a force-kill. (RustRover more so than PyCharm, but both are guilty). Memory hogs. (Feels like they leak memory). This is consistent behavior over the years, across a range of project styles. I put up with the performance problems because of my first point! The interesting/amusing part to me: My experiences do not seem wholly consistent with other users: Many users seem to find these IDEs heavy, but don't experience the freezes, crashes, or memory leaks. And many (most?) people claim VsCode is fine for managing multi-file projects. I don't know what to think!

winrid 1y ago
That's insane, I use webstorm, pycharm, and Intellij, sometimes all at the same time, on a mobile 8th gen i7, it doesn't lock up. The single thread passmark score is literally half your cpu! :D
- winrid 1y ago
  Although I guess none of those projects are more than 150k loc.
ackfoobar 1y ago
> ... RustRover: By far the best code editors ... I'm using RustRover. It's pretty lame compared to the IntelliJ experience. "Find usages" does not separate test code and application code; "copy reference" gets me the file name and line number instead of the fully qualified name. I'd probably use vscode/cursor fully if I weren't so used to the JetBrains environment.
trallnag 1y ago
Are you experiencing these problems on your personal device or is it a corporate provided one full of scanners? IntelliJ is definitely slower on my work laptop compared to my private desktop. Might also be due to the larger project size and heavy usage of Spring, though

andrewstuart 1y ago

I really wish JetBrains released its terminal as a standalone product. It’s one of the best.

mdaniel 1y ago
This might not help you, but it is actually a plugin so there's a very small chance with enough determination you could get it to run outside the IDE https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/tree/idea/251.25410.109/plugins/terminal https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/tree/idea/25... The follow-on [rhetorical] question is what value it provides to you outside of its integration with the IDE (e.g. click to open, it being integrated right into the window of your editor, etc)

giancarlostoro 1y ago

One thing I wish JetBrains would explore is building a fully native NON-JRE text editor that is a direct competitor to Sublime Text, but has a rich plugin API. I would love to see their take on a Sublime like editor. Atom and VS Code were the only serious Sublime Text competitors for a while, but now VS Code has gotten insanely bloated over the years, and also Atom is defunct unfortunately. I would love to see them build a fully native editor with their decades of knowledge.

hiccuphippo 1y ago
They have Fleet which was supposed to be a competitor to VSCode. AFAIK it's written in Kotlin so still JRE (unless they are able to compile it to native?). Maybe Zed would be more interesting for you.

taylorallred 1y ago

I love jetbrains IDE for all sorts of features (their git tools like diff checker are unmatched imo). I've been wanting to use them for C++ for a while now specifically because I find that many LSP solutions are not that great. Looking forward to using the non-commercial version of clion!

Artoooooor 1y ago

Wow! Thank you for sharing, I would miss this otherwise.

geophile 1y ago

This is a love letter to JetBrains. I started using Intellij with the 3.0 version, I think. It just worked, even on Linux. (It was existence proof that you could build excellent UIs in Java.) Unlike Eclipse, and other forgotten IDEs that were so bad I discarded them immediately. Even early on, their refactorings were usually flawless. While I think I found one screwup, they were so good that they changed the way I coded. I could easily and reliably do refactorings that were otherwise pretty time-consuming and error-prone. I have continued using their products: mostly PyCharm now, and occasionally CLion. Each new release improves the UI, and occasionally adds features that I find useful, and many that I don't. I suspect that I'm not alone in using a very tiny portion of the features they offer. How they can keep up with all the languages, and libraries, and frameworks is beyond me, but they seem to do it. Their support has always been excellent. I once (v4?) complained that refactorings did not extend into configurations. E.g., if I rename a class Foo to Bar, then the runtime configuration running Foo didn't reflect the change. I reported it, and found a fix in the next release. Email with technical questions or bug reports is always handled promptly and thoughtfully. They have always provided absolutely fantastic products for free. Yes, you gave up some features, but the free versions are really useful. I'm retired now, but continue to pay their licensing fees every year, for my hobby usage, because it's worth it, and they earn it. And the licensing is not onerous to use. What I really like is that you don't have to be on the internet to use their products, just for the license check. I wish all licensed products did that. And beyond all this: They haven't sold out. They are one of the very, very few for-profit tech companies that have maintained a stellar level of product breadth, depth, quality, and support for such a long period of time. I'm sure they could have cashed in, sold to IBM and the product would have just rotted away, (sorry, IBM, but you know it's true). I can only think of one product that is comparable in this way, and that's Postgres. Thank you, JetBrains, you have Figured It Out.

mdaniel 1y ago
I was expecting you to end with "and don't squander the amazing track record of developer goodwill you have accumulated by forcing the stupid-ass 'New UI' on us, or telling us that we're committing code wrong, or somehow suddenly trying to go 'All AI' or whatever" I'll be straight: for me personally there is no replacement, and I'll just patch the "unsupported" Commit Like a Sane Person plugin[1] indefinitely if I have to, but ... come on, don't strain our relationship like that 1: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/26647-modal-commit-interface https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/26647-modal-commit-inte...

Xss3 1y ago

Just bought it last week. Oops.

DidYaWipe 1y ago

That's interesting. This led me to their page, which also touted the now-free WebStorm. Can anyone weigh in on WebStorm vs. VS Code for JS/TS development? I'm developing a back end with Deno running locally, and VS Code has been decent for debugging and using the language runtime. Would WebStorm offer any advantages?

thunderfork 1y ago
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ixmerof 1y ago

YESYESYES

trew44 1y ago

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Alifatisk 1y ago

Very cool and I am quite thankful for Jetbrains free contribution! I understand peoples concern with telemetry but I can understand that there is some kind of trade-off from a free product, my wish is that they do the same with RubyMine. Another thing I would like to discuss is this (it's kind flimsy so bear with me), Jetbrains IDEs are good and clean. One thing I dislike with these IDEs is that they do a lot in the background that feels like is outside of my control. I can't really point my finger exactly to where this feeling is coming from but I only get that impression when I use these heavy IDEs. Say I want my development environment / settings / workspace config to be easily replicated and configured when someone new joins the project, will their Jetbrains IDE recognize it and prompt the user to adapt? Because that is one thing I enjoy with vscode, EVERYTHING is under my control and I can see what everything does. The buttons that runs different tasks can easily be viewed on .vscode/tasks.json, all config is within the .vscode folder! In Jetbrains IDEs, some things are local only and you have to ask the peers to screenshare which config they had. I don't want that, I want the whole workspace to be easily replicated and shared. I know Jetbrains is working on Fleet, I've been trying it out a couple of times and I like it, I hope they take this into their consideration.

trew44 1y ago

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