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I was wondering how it's possible that IntelliJ is free for Android development? What drives the decision making to make one product free and the other paid? In

I was wondering how it's possible that IntelliJ is free for Android development? What drives the decision making to make one product free and the other paid? In a way I like paying for RubyMine, hoping that it won't be discontinued in the long run, although I'm guessing IntelliJ has a much larger user base.

kayoone 13y ago
Afaik the Android IDE is the official Android IDE now and supported by google, thats probably why its free!
- yole 13y ago
  It's actually the other way round: it could become official and supported by Google because we had released it for free before that.
  - kayoone 13y ago
    thanks for clearing up..i thought you guys had some sort of collaboration that yielded in the free Android IDE but this is even better. Well deserved!
yole 13y ago
The reasons for the decisions are different each time. As for Android, we felt that IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition didn't have as much uptake was we had expected, and we thought that adding Android support to CE would be a great way to make it more attractive without endangering the revenue that we get from selling IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate to enterprise customers. Of course, with the Google partnership that came later, the decision turned out far better that we had originally expected. :)
biafra 13y ago
Android Studio is a rebranded version of the Community Edition of IntelliJ IDEA which was free and open source for some time already. The idea probably is to get the people to use (and love) it and then when they want the non-free features, to buy it. And with Android Studio: Probably Google is paying a bit for the development.
- yole 13y ago
  Google is not paying anything for the development of Android Studio. Instead, they've put their own development team to work on the Android features in Android Studio, which we then integrate into our distribution of IntelliJ IDEA.
  - biafra 13y ago
    Thanks for clearing that up! And thanks for such a great IDE! So if I'am using Android Studio I am a bit ahead (Android specific) feature wise that by using the latest EAP of IntelliJ IDEA?

kayoone 13y ago

Afaik the Android IDE is the official Android IDE now and supported by google, thats probably why its free!

yole 13y ago
It's actually the other way round: it could become official and supported by Google because we had released it for free before that.
- kayoone 13y ago
  thanks for clearing up..i thought you guys had some sort of collaboration that yielded in the free Android IDE but this is even better. Well deserved!

yole 13y ago

The reasons for the decisions are different each time. As for Android, we felt that IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition didn't have as much uptake was we had expected, and we thought that adding Android support to CE would be a great way to make it more attractive without endangering the revenue that we get from selling IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate to enterprise customers. Of course, with the Google partnership that came later, the decision turned out far better that we had originally expected. :)

biafra 13y ago

Android Studio is a rebranded version of the Community Edition of IntelliJ IDEA which was free and open source for some time already. The idea probably is to get the people to use (and love) it and then when they want the non-free features, to buy it. And with Android Studio: Probably Google is paying a bit for the development.

yole 13y ago
Google is not paying anything for the development of Android Studio. Instead, they've put their own development team to work on the Android features in Android Studio, which we then integrate into our distribution of IntelliJ IDEA.
- biafra 13y ago
  Thanks for clearing that up! And thanks for such a great IDE! So if I'am using Android Studio I am a bit ahead (Android specific) feature wise that by using the latest EAP of IntelliJ IDEA?