Webstorm community edition

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Is there a community edition for webstorm ?

 

Update from JetBrains as of October 2024: Starting with v2024.2.4, WebStorm can be used for free for non-commercial purposes. See this blog post for more details.

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40 comments

No; you can try WebStorm Early Access Preview builds - they give the access to the new features we're currently working on and are free to use.
Note also that we have special programs you can try applying to - please contact sales for information about existing programs/discounts

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I think it's a mistake not to have a community edition for WebStorm.  I can't count the number of online classes, YouTube videos, conference demos, and other presentations I've seen over the last year that used the free VS Code IDE. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen a conference talk or YouTube tutorial that used WebStorm. This represents lost mindshare.

As someone who does these talks and who is planning to post some online videos and training, I simply cannot expect someone to shell out money for a tool to use in the class or to follow along in a presentation.

I understand there are ways to work around this, as the answer above shows, but again, that would never be a "trick" I'd recommend to an audience.  I'll never send them to a non-GA, EAP version and hope that everything is stable enough for them not to stumble because of an unreleased tool.

Without a WebStorm community edition, like almost everyone else, I'll simply use VS Code in my talks, thus moving students and attendees farther away from JetBrains.

Fwiw, I have a full, every-tool-included, annual JetBrains subscription, so I'm not saying this to save a few bucks myself.  I'm merely pointing out that in client-side web application development, VS Code is eating your lunch, at least as far as public perception goes.

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As the owner if the VS code discord I can say that Webstorm is still much more productive for me, even though I tried to move to VS code.

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A community version would be appreciated...

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I too believe that not providing a  community edition for WebStorm is a mistake. I simply do not get why there is a community edition for  IntelliJ, the Java IDE. Not sure what the market share for  Java is these days, but I'm pretty sure that the web market is a lot bigger and Webstorm, as a product, can win much more market share with a community edition. It's basically  FREE marketing. As the people above  I too own a Jetbrains full product license, so I'm not looking to save a buck or two with this. I just think this move would be a very good one for both the product and the community 

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Strongly agree with Jack Frosch. A community edition will be a game changer for JetBrains. If someone has used VS Code while learning to code will most probably continue using it on their job as well.

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Sheesh its like £50 a year for a much superior product to config horror VScode, don't be so cheap people.

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Jack, every single one of my youtube videos uses webstorm, good enough for you?

 

 

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I hope there never is a community addition as I don't want the product quality to go down to the lowest level. I use webstorm every working day to make a decent living. 

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We’d lie if we said that we’d never thought about introducing a community edition of WebStorm. Unfortunately, it’s not feasible right now, mainly because the WebStorm functionality is included in a lot of other JetBrains IDEs. So, if we made such a radical change, we’d have to fully restructure the existing sales model and, what’s more, the entire platform architecture. It’s a significant commitment that we aren’t ready to make at the moment. Anyway, we try to support the community in other different ways, such as giving away WebStorm subscriptions to open-source projects or providing discounts for students and educational institutions. Plus, we keep the WebStorm price relatively low for individuals (it’s just US $59 a year, and the price goes down every next year of use) so that more individual developers can afford it.
Note that the 30-day free trial is available for every major product update (e.g. WebStorm 2019.2, 2019.3, 2020.1...). We have 3 major releases a year, it means that you can run a free trial version 3 times a year for 30 days after every release.

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Please include a community edition for webstorm, it'd go a long way in helping people

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Like I understand that this is an age-old question of whether or not JetBrains will release a community edition of WebStorm or not. As much as I'd like one, it's most likely against their business model. They are more likely to introduce a community edition of some other IDE like rider because of unity support, not WebStorm. Why?

Let's say they do. Most of the people here use IntelliJ idea which is their flagship IDE. Now let's say they suddenly decided that they want to use java as a backend what do they do, well they can use the IntelliJ idea community edition for writing java backend and WebStorm community edition for writing the front-end, which to JetBrains they lose out on a customer that would have purchased IntelliJ professional also same applies for PyCharm community edition.
The PyCharm and IntelliJ idea community edition are there for users to get hooked to the IDE's and then buy the professional IDE's because of how much they love it. Being a student I get all of them for free, and now I have been hooked to it because good it is. So when I finish my uni I will eventually buy it, because of how much a part of life it has become.

So no, I don't expect there to be a community edition for WebStorm but more likely for other languages. To me, a Rider community edition seems more likely.

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@Rodude123,  you make some valid points, however, the problem that you describe there can be solved by licensing. You can enforce community edition limitations trough the license and prevent using the tools commercially.  I feel that the front-end community is much more appealing than the java community. There are a lot more eyes on the shiny front-end frameworks that pop up every other day and all those eyes could see WebStorm instead of vs-code , for example.  I can understand why they won't do it, but  I don't have to agree

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I'm a professional dev myself. A relative of mine is considering swapping careers so I was thinking to show them some HTML/CSS/JS basics. Having an IDE to help them out with their first steps is an obvious choice compared to just a text editor. I'm actually surprised that IntelliJ and PyCharm have a CE, but WebStorm doesn't. Personally I love your IDEs (I use them daily; previously I've purchased them myself, nowadays my company pays for them) so it's a real shame this new person I'm introducing to "the way of the code" 🙂 won't be able to experience their first steps in WebStorm. We're going to have to go with VS Code, it seems... Cases like this one aren't covered by your student plan, FYI, just to point it out. And they're obviously not going to buy a license if they don't even know yet if this is the correct career path for them.

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@.... If he doesn't know if that is the correct career path for him he shouldn't be looking into a Jetbrains' IDE in the first place. Don't take me wrong, I can't live without IntelliJ and I can't stand VSCode or actually any other tool out there; but if you are completely new to this you are unlikely to be capable of understanding why would anyone choose an IDE that takes up a lot of space and has a lot of menus, and sidebars, and panels and oh! is way to cluttered if you can do the exact same thing with a simple text editor like code. Jetbrains products are professional tools and they are meant for professional users. The first time i made an electron app with more than 2000 lines of code was when i realized that vscode wasn't practical in large applications, but if your are just making some basic HTML5 project you're probably better off with code anyway. If you're just playing around with stuff and not doing real work you won't find any advantages in using Webstorm over any text editor.

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Lazaroofarrill I couldn't disagree more. You think a user will be lost with WebStorm menus, just wait until they face a blank NotePad window and get no help with code completion, no indications of compile errors until running the compiler, no links to API documentation, and no way to navigate between classes, no way to refactor code, no way to see a project's organization at a glance, no way to launch a terminal window from inside NotePad, no version control support, etc.

For the extra cost of a learning curve added by learning an IDE, there are 10x as many language, framework, and API learning impediments removed by using an IDE.

That said, JetBrains might think of enabling a "Beginner Mode" or similar to clear away as much of the clutter as possible. Then the IDE could offer benefits with less learning curve.

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Jack Frosch Well that's just my personal experience. When I first started programming C++ I was faced with two choices at the time Codeblocks and QtCreator. With QtCreator I had to setup Qt5 Version. Open a new project select the correct type of project to build only to find myself with a .pro archive. cmakelists, include folders and unknown libraries included by default that didn't show up in my "Learn C++ as if you were in first year" book. With codeblocks on the other hand i could create a main.cpp anywhere i wanted write the main function and hit build and run. Nowadays I wouldn't open Codeblocks even if you paid me, but at the time it's simplicity was quite more appealing than that of qtcreator, an extremely superior IDE. When I see new students in my college using Codeblocks i go nuts like: what are you doing use qtcreator, us Visual Studio, use Clion. why are using that piece of ...? But it's really hard to let go; when your are just a beginner you look for the solution that looks more simple the less clicking and the less choices  the better.

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The first text editor I have used was vs code. The second was PyCharm. PyCharm is such a fantastic editor ... I love it! It's amazing! And I am thrilled to test WebStorm for my next JavaScript based project, and if it is nearly as great as PyCharm, I will happily pay the individual's fee. I strongly agree with Jack Frosch and @...; I think your great product is sadly losing on many opportunities to be installed on many machines, either by experienced programmers or people new to programming. I really believe that a Community Edition as to it is available for PyCharm will be a great leap for the popularity of JetBrains / WebStorm ... I have spent a lot of time learning how to code online in 2020 and I have never come across "WebStorm" before. Instead, I've read "Visual Studio Code" everywhere. And I would be very happy to see the community mentionning and recommending your products (or WebStorm, more specifically) as well. :)

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Nikos 7 how would the quality decline from a community edition? If anything, it should rise due to the increased market-share (which means more funding).

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Yes there should be a community edition of Webstorm or else the sales of Webstorm will fall as many users will not use it once their trial is over.

 

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If you can't afford £40 per year as a dev, you are in the wrong job. Don't be so dang cheap.

Webstorm is 10x better than VScode for a reason.

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Nikos, firstly, we have no idea what life circumstance a person finds himself / herself in. Maybe she lives in a third-world country where the equivalent of £40 a year is a week's worth (or worse, a month's worth) of wages.

Or, maybe the aspiring developer is going through a $9.99 Udemy tutorial where the instructor is using Webstorm and wants to use the same tool. It seems ridiculous to ask that student to pay the equivalent of £40 for a tool to use in a $10 course.

Btw, most instructors will not use a tool that students have to pay for if a free alternative is available. Thus, instructors learn to use the community edition and free tools thereby expanding that tool's mindshare with every student.

VSCode is killing Webstorm in mindshare. I watch about 10 web development tutorials a week. Out of 100 videos see, I might see one or two instructors even mention WebStorm. They are almost always using VSCode in their tutorials. I'd be willing to bet if Jetbrains spun Websorm off into a separate company that could not receive subsidies from IDEA sales, it would be out of business in a month.

As for superiority, Sony's Beta Max was demonstrably better than VHS, but who cares?  VHS won the mindshare battle and ultimately the personal video player war. Technical superiority does not defeat mass appeal.

Finally, your reasoning of affordability to professionals could be extended to IDEA, yet there's an IDEA community edition. Why is that?

So my view remains the same. Jetbrains needs to have a Webstorm community edition to grow its presence among instructors, students, and web developers.

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Do you think Apple cares about what people can afford in other countries? No. I want a technically superior well-integrated product. VS Code is an absolute nightmare to set up (10 plugins to do the same thing eg), and I'm staying well away.

I've worked in companies where the vast majority use web storm on world-leading class teams. 

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Nikos, Apple does not care, which is why their iPhone market share globally is crushed by Android.

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when is it coming out

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I am learning Javascript and downloaded a 30 days trial version of WebStorm. So far, I love WebStorm as an IDE for my experiences with JS. I am thinking what to do when the 30 days evaluation expires. I see there is this  EAP builds available for free. However, I am not sure if this free version has a time limit. Does anyone know how long you can use it ? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

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EAP builds come with the built-in EAP license that is valid for 30 days only, it's not unlimited and will expire after 30 days

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Nikos 7 like "I'm so cool and rich, I'm working in world-leading class teams, I don't want a > $270M revenue company to provide some opportunities for those poor loosers (and potentionally gain more revenue by long term and less greedy strategy)".

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Dragongling I see NO reason for Microsoft to do anything that is good for any human being on this planet. Everything they have done, every seemingly generous move, has always ended in a sick and twisted backstab and I genuinely have no reason to believe that VSCode is any different.

I still believe that VSCode >>>>> XYZ JetBrains IDE, what those things do can be done a thousand times quicker and a thousand times better with VSCode.

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Torus, I don't trust Microsoft either. It's not about trust anyways. I can't completely trust any software without copyleft, it's only about deals that worth it and that are not.

I completely agree with Jack Frosch. I believe community edition will benefit everyone in a long term.

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