WebStorm / new pricing model

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, JetBrains is switching to a subscription model i.e. from now on you’ll rent, not own their products anymore.

If I understood correctly, for people like myself with a personal licence for 49/year it will then be 29/year but only because I have bought a licsence in the past already. For new customers it will be 99/year compared, quite a big increase in price. Many users don’t seem to be happy about this decision…

Personally I’m not sure what to think right now but I guess that’s probably just because in my case I wouldn’t pay more. Overall I’m not so sure this will help the product much if people leave or never start using WebStorm simply because it became to expensive now.

Having said that, WebStorm as of now is the very best IDE for Meteor, at least that’s what I think. I went off Emacs after 14 years, was a big thing for me… What do you think about JetBrains decision?

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WebStorm is freaking amazing for Meteor dev. $2.42 per month? Shutup and take my money!

Can’t afford it? Sell your car and buy WebStorm. No car? Sell your plasma. I think the only people who would prefer another editor are people who simply haven’t taken enough time to learn what WebStorm can do.

btw we put up an editor poll a while back

Meteor Editor Poll

results

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Agreed, but that’s not the point. The point is the new subscription-only model. Psychologically it does make a difference, maybe I am old-school but I prefer to own rather than rent.

Right now I could buy v8 and v10 but not v9. I could spend $49 and have an IDE for 5 years, the choice is with me the customer. I guess that’s a point some people miss, not price so much in the end. JetBrains, understandably from an economical point of view, is now simply cornering the market.

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I feel what WebStorm is doing is exceptional. They have a premium product, so it makes sense to charge more than the competition. And I think it’s extremely generous of them to allow current customers of individual products like WebStorm to continue for only $29. Well done!

Cornering the marketing doesn’t really apply here. It’s generally used when the product is a commodity (things like coffee and copper) and when the supply is being controlled by monopoly position. But every company has a monopoly on their own products (Apple has a monopoly on iPhone but not on smartphones, and Nike has a monopoly on Air Jordans, but not on sneakers.) You still have lot of choice when it comes to editors.

People have plenty of choice. But existing users $29 / year comes out to $2.42 per month–that’s a pretty incredible deal for a product as powerful, feature-rich, customizable and extensible as WebStorm.

Cheers!

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btw if you are actively involved as the core team of an open source project, you may be eligible for a free license
details here

I don’t think the case here was price nor whether it was “fair”. I love WebStorm and absolutely would pay a “fair” price for it. I have no problems paying yearly for updates/upgrades.

The problem is that this totally kills my love for JetBrains. Have to be connected to the internet, can’t use the IDE after subscription ends etc etc. I just want to hand off the $100, download it and not worry about any freaking subscriptions.

And yes - this is them trying to milk the market. Right now, there is no IDE that can compete well with them - so they make the users pay. What they don’t understand is that the other IDEs are not THAT FAR behind and could easily spend 4-6 months developing and start winning over users with JetBrains’ old pricing model. Bad move overall IMO.

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This isn’t really much different than before. WebStorm was always a yearly subscription, they never offered any license that didn’t expire. They give you a discount for the next year, that’s all. ($49 first year, $29 renewal) but it definitely expired. I’ve had it for 3 years, and had to pay each year. I have also used RubyMine in the past, also a yearly license.

I’m assuming the $29 per year offer isn’t going to happen next year, so it will end up costing you a bit more.

I have used IDEs in the past that cost $12k per year. $79 is super cheap, in my opinion. I have no problem with that price for a well designed and supported tool that I use for many hours per day. There are plenty of excellent quality free tools, if that’s too much for your blood. Atom and Vi come to mind.

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What’s the point of having a competitive advantage if you are not going to take advantage of it? I think their biggest mistake was not raising the price sooner.

Only time will tell if it’s a good decision or not, but generally the name of the game is to produce something of such value that people will pay a premium for it.

Look at Dyson. You can buy a much cheaper vacuum and many people do, but Dyson is doing well (equity value of £3.5bn in 2013 and paid dividends of £200m last year). Japanese competitors are designing around their patents and Dyson may eventually have to compete more on price. Perhaps they know this and that’s why they are diversifying into other products (fans, etc). But what also happens is that the company making premium profits has more money to spend on product development–allowing them to stay ahead of the competition.

So think about it this way, even if competing editors could, in six months, catch up to where WebStorm is now–with a better cash position, WebStorm may be miles further down the road by the end of those six months.

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Have to be connected to the Internet.

Is that really a problem for you?

Does the new model demand that I have Internet access?
After the initial authentication using JetBrains Account credentials, it is not required to have a permanent Internet access to use the product. It is required however that a product is able to connect to the JetBrains servers at least once every 30 days. If the last successful connection was within the mentioned 30 days no interruptions should occur. In case no connection could be established for 30 days, the product will gently notify the user and will allow some time to connect to the Internet before asking to close the application.

If you do not have access to the Internet at all, please see How will this change affect customers in Government, Education, and others who are unable to utilize electronic delivery or web-accessed software for more information.

I prefer to own rather than to rent

is it really about owning vs renting or is it about the total cost?

would you prefer to “own” it at a price of $499 (no upgrades) or rent it for $29 a year and always get the latest version?

When something is updated 30 times a year you really don’t want to own one.

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Agreed.

Agreed.

Price hike is purely a psychological effect. I don’t think anyone is saying that they can’t afford +$70/yr for the value it brings.

History shows though that gamers hate DRM… when it doesn’t work. I think my dislike of this is the unnecessary overhead for those that just wants to get on with it. I would also prefer to have a static license. But it’s not such a big deal.

Anyone else think this is also a move to combat piracy? I know I was using a certain popular license from somewhere… for a while before I bit the bullet.
Price Hike - Piracy = PROFIT!

These guys are good at what they do and I’d like to see what they can come up with using the extra money.

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the “have to be connected to the Internet” is a false rumor. only need to connect once a month. see my earlier post. the product is updated dozens of times a year. you never just “get on with it”. today’s license is basically a subscription to get the updates.

I know I was using a certain popular license from somewhere.

a forum of people who earn their living from creating software is probably not the best place to brag about your history of software piracy.

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This is not true.
The “subscription” gave you the rigth to get updates during one year, but after that you were still allowed to continue to use your version of the software. This will not be the case anymore.
Let say i want to buy CLion for a small project i touch two times a year. It could make sense to buy the IDE and to not care about updates since this is all i need. Now i have to pay a subscription ad vitam eternam to be able to use a software two times a year ? That is not sustainable.

Actually, Webstorm was less expensive in the old model, so your comparison doesn’t fly.
The only scenario where you pay less is when you need multiples IDEs from Jetbrain, in all the other cases it is going to cost more.

Webstorm is updated two times a year, with some bugfixes afterward (4 bugfixes release for Webstorm 10).

I’m using Typescript.
The Typescript release is constantly desynchronized with Webstorm release, since they are always six months behind.
Last months, i had to switch to Atom because of that.
Current Webstorm EAP doesn’t work either.
As much as i liked to work with Webstorm, this brilliant model switch was all i needed to pull the plug.

Actually, Webstorm was less expensive in the old model, so your comparison doesn’t fly.

It was a hypothetical to make a point. Is it really about “owning” it, or was it more about total price? As you said, it was cheaper in the old model. So is that why you liked the old model?

Speaking about all the products in their Toolbox

With already over 30 major feature releases per year and dozens of maintenance releases we really want to make sure all of it is delivered to every user out there.

But I guess it’s a mute point, since you’re not longer a customer!

yeah, it’s designed for them to make a bit more money, as well as lowering the cost of ownership and simplify the licensing hassle for people who use multiple products. Which I think is fine. The product was very underpriced.

If you only use something twice a year, maybe you can just buy some cheap alternative. Or install a trial in VM ware. I install trials of Adobe products if I only need them once or twice.

I don’t like to pay more.
I don’t like to rent what was bought before.
I’m no masochist. (not implying your are…)

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If the built-in TypeScript compiler was not always up-to-date, maybe you could try the option to integrate with file watcher?

With WebStorm, you can have your TypeScript code transpiled into JavaScript in two ways: through integration with the typescript tool or using the built-in TypeScript compiler.

Your rational arguments for webstorm’s actions does not contrast well with your almost fanatical retort to any other points of view.
It’s a bit off putting to be honest and taking part of my point out of context makes your argument sound like a backhanded, reflexive remark that totally misses the point. Namely is it also a move to counter piracy?

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Then isn’t the new model much more flexible? You can just rent it for a month and get the latest updates.

AppCode, PhpStorm, RubyMine, PyCharm or CLion
US $ 7.90 /month*