The WebStorm and Rider IDEs are now free for non-commerical use. This means if you want to use them for something like learning, open-source development, content creation, or hobby development, you can do so now for free.
What daheck is WebStorm?
What daheck is Rider?
Rider is a cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) for .NET development created by JetBrains. It’s designed to help developers work with C#, .NET Core, .NET Framework, ASP.NET, Unity, and other .NET-based applications. Rider is particularly popular among developers who work with both .NET and other JetBrains tools because it combines the powerful features of JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA (used for many language support and features) with ReSharper (a well-known .NET productivity tool).
Why daheck did they make only WebStorm and Rider free?
According to various surveys like Stack Overflow, 68% of developers code outside of work as a hobby, and nearly 40% for professional growth or self-paced learning. This share is even higher for game and web development. For example, game developers often begin their careers by creating games as a hobby, using free game engines. This is why JetBrains made their choice to apply the new licensing model to WebStorm and Rider.
How to use them for free?
It's simple. Just download WebStorm from jetbrains.com/webstorm and Rider from jetbrains.com/rider. They are free now so you won't need to pay a single cent. Go and try them out!
Is it worth switching from vscode?
The answer is: maybe.
The JetBrains IDEs require devices with better performance, so people who don't have powerful enough devices may face some problems. You can try them using Codespaces and JetBrains gateway without installing though, even on noob devices. A benefit of vscode is that you can just have a single IDE for everything, unlike having tens of different JetBrains IDEs installed. Moreover, you can install just the tools you want - instead of installing all there is. The choice is upto you, but I personally like Visual Studio Code more.