JetBrains just announced they're raising prices about 20% starting October 1st. They held prices steady for 8 years, so this wasn't exactly shocking, but it still hurts when you're already paying premium prices for text editors.
The Math That Actually Matters
Here's what this means for real teams: if you're using IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate commercial licenses, you're looking at $599 per developer per year (going up to $719 in October). Personal licenses are only $169, but you can't use those for business work legally. Multiply that by your team size and you'll see why CTOs are suddenly interested in VS Code.
For a 10-person team using commercial licenses, you're talking about $5,990 annually for IntelliJ Ultimate, or around $1,090 if most of your team can use PyCharm Professional instead. That's before you add AI features, hardware that can actually run these memory-hungry beasts, and the time spent fighting configuration issues.
Who Actually Needs What (Real Talk)
Don't buy the same licenses for everyone - that's just wasteful:
Senior developers working on complex shit: Yeah, they probably need IntelliJ Ultimate or whatever the premium version is. When you're debugging some nightmare multi-threaded Java mess at 2am, the refactoring tools and database integration are worth the money.
Frontend developers: WebStorm is probably enough unless they're constantly jumping into backend code. At $79/year commercial vs $599 for IntelliJ Ultimate, do the math.
Python people doing data science: PyCharm Professional for the Jupyter integration and scientific libraries. The community edition doesn't have the tools they need for real data work.
Junior developers: Start them on Community Editions. They're learning fundamentals anyway - don't blow budget on features they won't use for months. Upgrade individuals as they grow into the tools.
That one developer who insists on Vim: Let them use Vim. They'll be faster in their weird terminal setup than forcing them into an IDE they hate.
The Stuff They Don't Tell You About
Hardware: These IDEs are RAM hogs. IntelliJ will eat 4GB+ on any real codebase, and 2025.2 is fucking brutal with the AI indexing constantly running. I watched a developer's 8GB MacBook Air thermal throttle so hard during indexing that the keyboard got too hot to touch. If your devs are on 8GB laptops, they'll spend more time watching spinning wheels than writing code. Budget for 16GB minimum, 32GB if you don't want them to quit.
Learning curve: If your team is used to VS Code, expect 2-3 weeks of "where the hell is everything?" and reduced productivity. One dev spent an entire sprint trying to figure out how to open a terminal in IntelliJ (hint: it's Alt+F12, but who the fuck remembers that?). The power is there, but it's buried under 47 different menus and keyboard shortcuts that feel like they were designed by someone who hates mice.
AI features are becoming required: JetBrains includes basic AI, but the useful stuff costs extra. Plan for another $200-400 per developer annually if you want competitive AI assistance. Their "AI Free" tier gives you 10 requests per month - that's like 2 hours of actual coding. GitHub Copilot is cheaper at $19/month but less integrated, meaning you'll bounce between tools constantly.
The All Products Pack Trap
They sell this bundle for all their IDEs, and it looks like a deal until you realize most developers only use one IDE 90% of the time. Unless your team is constantly jumping between Java, Python, JavaScript, PHP, and C++, you're paying for licenses that collect digital dust.
Buy the pack if: Your developers actually work across multiple languages daily
Skip the pack if: Your team has a primary language and occasionally touches others
Should You Panic-Buy Before October?
If you're 100% committed to JetBrains and have the cash flow, prepaying for 2-3 years at current prices saves money. But that's a big "if" - you're betting your team won't want to switch tools and that JetBrains won't piss you off with some future decision.
I've seen teams regret long-term commitments when they wanted to switch to different tools later.
Alternatives That Don't Completely Suck
VS Code: Handles most development work, it's free, and your developers probably already know it. The extension ecosystem is huge. The only real downsides are the Microsoft data collection and weaker refactoring for complex codebases.
Community Editions: IntelliJ IDEA CE and PyCharm CE are actually pretty good for basic development. You lose the database tools and some advanced features, but they're solid.
Vim/Neovim: If your developers are into that masochistic lifestyle, modern Vim distributions are surprisingly capable. Zero ongoing costs, works over SSH, never gets slow.
When These Expensive Tools Actually Pay Off
Look, if your senior developers are debugging gnarly distributed systems, refactoring legacy codebases, or jumping between databases all day, JetBrains tools can save hours per week. The refactoring and debugging features are genuinely better than free alternatives.
But if your team is building typical web apps, CRUD systems, or working with simple tech stacks, VS Code will handle 95% of what they need. Don't pay premium prices for features you don't use.
The real question: Are your developers being slowed down by their current tools? If they're productive in VS Code, don't fix what isn't broken. If they're constantly fighting with their IDE or spending too much time on manual refactoring, the JetBrains tools might pay for themselves.
