Is there a community edition for CLion? Is CLion available as a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA?

CLion is a commercial product built on our own open-source IntelliJ Platform. As all other JetBrains products, CLion has a variety of licensing options, including free and paid ones. Students and open source projects qualify for free licenses. CLion is also available as a part of All Products pack. Startups can get 50% off. Check the details on our site. However, community edition is not planned for now.

In the future, a CLion-based plugin will likely be made available for IntelliJ IDEA, but this is not on our short-term roadmap due to many requests with higher priority.

 

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38 comments
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It is good news that a CLion plugin is still under consideration, even if it's not a priority. Some of my projects mix Python and C, and having a CLion plugin for PyCharm would be perfect.

35

Ntbrogan, do you know about Python support in CLion?

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I do, but it seems to be limited to the community edition feature set, and I often use features from PyCharm Pro (particularly cython support). Are there any plans to offer a PyCharm Pro plugin for CLion, as there is for IntelliJ?

5

We do consider adding Cython support to CLion as well. Feel free to upvote.

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I really need CLion to be available as part of IntelliJ Ultimate because I work for a large organization which buys IntelliJ Ultimate for our Java developers, but has no procedure for buying CLion and that is not likely to change as demand is low.  I'm sure my situation is not unique.

39

Thanks, Mikhail! Unfortunately, it's not coming in the nearest releases. But we still plan to do it later.

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Please plan a community edition of CLion, with a free software license - it would be a great contribution to the free software community.

32

Things may change, but we don't plan a community version now.

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I'd like to see a plugin for IDEA as well, thanks! :)

28

Perhaps Kotlin Native will help increase the priority of this going forward?  For those interested in following more closely or upvoting, see: CPP-4141 - Make CLion available as IntelliJ plugin.

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Would it be possible for you to release a community edition of CLion to attract/get the rather large user base of people looking for alternatives to Atmel studio and Arduino IDE, and to possibly convince Arduino (companies) to switch to CLion like Google switched from Eclipse to IntelliJ? Currently both of them (Atmel studio and Arduino IDE) are really rather limiting in some way or another and having a good cross-platform IDE for that kind of development would be really awesome.

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I absolutely love CLion. Never in my life did I think I would pay for an IDE, but CLion has been the only C++ IDE I've ever found that was elegant, easy to use, and incredibly helpful.

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As a student learning C, I love CLion! I can't understand why people still code anywhere else.

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Please add a community edition. Personally I'm fed up with Visual Studio, Eclipse-C, NetBeans-C, MinGW Studio  and Code::Blocks and I hear everyone speak about CLion like "better than any other free/paid IDE". I'm just starting with C++ so there's no way I'd qualify for a free license. I'm also a long-time and very happy user of IDEA (it lured me away from Eclipse, which I previously praised, at first sight) and contributed many bug reports.

Is there a more 'formal' place to leave my vote for the community edition, like YouTrack?

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Thank you all for all your nice comments. We appreciate your feedback.

Community edition is not in our plans for now. Please check the discounted and complementary options on the bottom of the Buy page on our site.

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Is there a way to license CLion for Idea Ultimate users?

We are in the same situation as Mikhail. Our organization buys Idea Ultimate, Webstorm and PyCharm for various projects - actually paying a lot of money for it.

But we only have a handful of people using C++, and those already have Idea Ultimate licenses.

If a CLion plugin will come along, we do not want to purchase CLion licenses for people using Idea right now. Especially since we have 100s of licenses as is.

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Strictly speaking, IntelliJ IDEA was never promoted as an IDE for all languages, but JVM technologies. So we never promised C++ under IntelliJ Ultimate license.

We might, however, consider adding C++ support into it, if we see enough cases where C++ and Java are used together on one project. Currently, there are mostly cases covered by Android Studio, like JNI and Android dev.

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While that may not be how IDEA was promoted, it's certainly what it has evolved into. I don't use Python, PHP or Ruby in the same project as Java, but the selling point for me (and clearly many others) is a single IDE that supports all of the languages that I develop in. Sure, there are other IDEs that are capable of this (Eclipse, NetBeans, and Visual Studio Code come to mind), but IDEA feels more polished. That's why we pay for it over the alternatives. Missing a C/C++ plugin is a clear deficiency.

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There are definitely use-cases when you program mainly is written in Java/Kotlin but for some specific parts of your project you need C/C++ support.
To compile some libraries, to be able to work with some micro-controllers based hardware. Being able to do all of this in one IDE could be great.

Edited by Alexander Arutuniants
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For me, the main problem with IDEA seems to be it's lack of proper support for debuggers, i.e. there is no way to debug/provide debugging for any "external" language in IDEA.

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Kindly release the community version of CLion!

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[as stated here](https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/206815485/comments/360001359040) I don't qualify for the free license, nor can I afford to buy a license...
(nor do I like hacking, I shouldn't have to hack a FOSS program just to do my work)

I've just recently started working on a Python project that integrates both Java and C++ that's causing IDEA to hang when configuring the project files...
(I'm not using the latest version of IDEA, so that could be a reason)
^ having 3 instances open on ~4GB (3506MiB) of RAM could also be another (yes I work on multiple projects)
I'd like to switch to CLion, but this doesn't seem possible unless there's actually community edition available...

I've already stated numerous times already I don't prefer using individual IDEs for each code base...

how many more years do I have to hold out before I can actually start working on C/++ code??
I AM waiting patiently (if being a hacker isn't enough to tell you I HAVE patience), but it's getting a bit ridiculous.

EDIT: \*removed the cringe\*

Edited by Tcll
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I use a two monitor LinuxMint setup at work, and I run CLion on the left screen and Pycharm Pro on the right. This has been working very well. I don't think I would like having both integrated as they are different. If you need more memory, buy some. With a sufficient computer, these tools work very well.

Update 2020/11/19 -I was thoughtless when I just said "buy some". I realize that people use the resources they have or are provided. I was coming from a place where I understand what affects my productivity. I have been programming since 1965 and along the way, I have had a wide variety of development scenarios. I have quit jobs where employers demanded I work with underpowered tools. At my last three jobs, I negotiated out front for strong enough development machines. I have invested in the tools that make me more productive.  This year I spent 4% of my income on my personal development machine, and I think it was worth it.

Edited by Ichibrosan
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Ichibrosan unfortunately after all this time, I still have neither a sufficient machine, nor do I have the money to buy more RAM (if my machine could even accept it)
sometimes you're just stuck with what you got and it's up to the devs to optimize their software for you.
(if I could afford the luxury, I would, but I'm stuck in an inherited debt hole for at least 5 more years before my life improves)
if I may say, that was a bit rude, to me or anyone else in my position. ;)

but honestly, I'm not making this post to argue about my short-comings...

since JB have spent their time dilly-dallying over the years, my initial project has expanded into a software suite, and I now need a free IDE capable of editing C...
since nobody else can seem to provide something decent, I've decided to start working on my own for my project.
so look out JB, cause you're about to have some competition in the upcoming years. ;)
it's a shame it had to come to this -.-*

Edited by Tcll
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Tcll I apologize for my insensitive remark. You spoke about writing your own IDE. Is that because CLion doesn't do what you need, or because of the price? I have been using CLion full time for over a year now, and I have found it to be packed with features that continue to amaze me. I love the debugger. I consider myself a very strong system programmer, but I can't even imagine trying to write a C++ IDE with a fraction of the features present in CLion. It would take years, and it would divert me from my real focus.Best of luck Sir.

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mainly both tbh, though not so much the lack of features, but the seeming lack of acknowledgement and common sense for features...
but it's not just CLion that drove me to the decision, it's the lack of comparable alternatives.

I'm writing a software suite, so I may as well improve upon my previous IDE developments with my new API
(yes I've actually written an IDE prior, but it wasn't anything great, and wasn't even meant for general development)

though I will say, I don't intend to compete with C++ anytime soon
I really only need C support, which is something I can currently manage.

you'll see it later in the future when the main API I'm writing it on is much more complete

but I don't want to change the topic and steal JB's limelight on their platform
I just want to point out I'm fed up with the seemingly severe lack of common sense toward development
(I've been around for at least 4 (longer than when I created my account) years just dealing with having to use and configure multiple JB IDEs for everything I do)

the functionality offered is amazing
but when you start needing multiple IDEs to support multiple languages, it ends up becoming a hassle to configure them all
and they haven't seemed to have made any acknowledgements to improve this until just recentlywhy they'd need
heck they have a request to make CLion into a core plugin for IDEA (or other IDEs) that's been going on for at least 15 years

it doesn't take much common sense to figure out managing multiple plugins that need to be built differently for multiple IDEs that all do the same things is incredibly inefficient...
I'd be more than happy to pay (when possible) for a core architecture broken up into multiple IDEs that can support any language.
yet they move like a sloth on the needless questioning of reasons to support such functionality.
(why do you need reasons to ease stresses and better your core architecture?)
^ if it's really that much of a headache then maybe it's actually time to cease development on current projects and make everyone aware you're starting over.

and then there's the issue of EAP vs Community as addressed here
every other IDE has a community edition, yet this CLion aims to make it harder on devs by providing potentially broken free releases.

I'm glad work has finally started on making a plugin for IDEA (not sure about PyCharm and others), but I can't be asked to support such glaring issues that won't be fixed any time soon.

and this is what drove me to my decision.
if nobody else can do it right, then it's up to me to do it myself. u.u
(and I may as well since I'm building a suite anyways, backed by the fact Facebook now supports Blender, which is initially what my suite targeted replacement of, while also working with it as a multi-featured plugin)

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Tcll Thanks for explaining your motivation. I can see you have a much more complex development requirement than I do. My application runs on Linux and has write access to the local webroot (Apache2). As it is running, it dynamically creates python modules that are included by one main Python3 CGI script. The CGI script then communicates back to the C++ application using XMLRPC-C bindings. Since you are using Java as your second language after C++ your situation is different than mine. Using both CLion and PyCharm Pro at the same time. I assume you are making direct calls from C++ into Java code, or calling back into the C++ from Java. I am not an initiate of those mysteries, but I recognize the degree of difficulty and the degree of complexity this adds to your IDE environment. Good luck with your project and your evolving toolset. I look forward to learning more about your new IDE when you get to the point of sharing it :-)

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eh, actually I no longer do Java development as I no longer mod minecraft... heh
but IDEA is just my primary IDE... I don't really use CLion as I have a custom syntax theme built as a guide for my IDE, and managing that between multiple IDEs whenever I have ideas is too much work for me to keep up with...
the reason why IDEA is the primary and not CLion is because IDEA has a stable community edition
in fact, the last time I actually used CLion was when I had Xubuntu installed on my primary machine ~3 years ago

so yeah I use IDEA for: (order of highest priority first)
- python for most of my projects
- C would be here if I could use it
- LUA for Minetest mods
- other languages related to linux apps
- web on the off-shoot I ever get the chance to work on forum plugins or documentation again

I mainly just work on a bunch of small projects in other languages while my primary projects are associated with portable python interpreters.
(I usually need to work on other stuff just so I can even work on my primary projects, because nobody understands python is a portable programming language, or because linux doesn't have applications that work like I need them to, eg Nemo)

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Please add a community addition of Clion it will be a great help of us

 

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I am a .Net (C#) professional programmer, in my work we use different IDE than JetBrains' products, but I am a Python and ML enthusiast, and I ended up using first the PyCharm Community Edition, and later I started paying PyCharm Pro licence for the last 2+ years, I am not a Python/ML professional Programmer yet, it is only for me to continue self-learning...

Now I also want to learn C/C++ stuff, I realy like Pycharm, and I would like to use CLion, but this is for a personal use, self-learning, no professional (at least for now), but I can't afford two IDE licenses... having said that, is there any non-paid license I could apply for CLion?

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