JetBrains Announces Free Non-Commercial Licensing for WebStorm and Rider

In a significant shift for developers, JetBrains has announced that its popular IDEs, WebStorm and Rider, are now available for free to non-commercial users. This follows a similar move made earlier this year with RustRover and Aqua. The new licensing model allows developers involved in open-source projects, learning, hobby programming, and content creation to access these tools without charge.

JetBrains highlighted the growing trend of developers working on personal projects outside of their jobs, with surveys showing that 68% of developers code as a hobby and nearly 40% for professional growth. This decision aims to make these powerful IDEs more accessible, enabling more people to learn, innovate, and create in web and game development, fields where non-commercial coding is particularly prevalent.

Commercial users will continue under the existing paid licensing structure, and the change currently only applies to WebStorm and Rider, with no plans for other JetBrains products at this time. Additionally, users of the free version must consent to anonymous usage data collection to help improve the tools.

This move is expected to foster greater adoption and innovation within the non-commercial development community.