JetBrains, the makers of the popular cross platform commercial IDEs such as IntelliJ and Resharper just announced free versions of two of their IDEs, Rider and WebStorm. Rider started life as a .NET focused IDE but over time morphed into being a game development focused product with native support for Unity, Godot and Unreal Engine programming. WebStorm is a web focused IDE for JavaScript and TypeScript development.Details for the JetBrains announcement:Whats happening?Earlier this year, we implemented a new licensing model for our recently introduced IDEs,RustRoverandAqua, making them free for non-commercial use. Were now extending this model to WebStorm and Rider. If youre using these IDEs for non-commercial purposes, such aslearning,open-source project development,content creation, orhobby development, you can now do so for free.For commercial projects, nothing will change our existing licensing remains in place. Other JetBrains IDEs are not affected by this update, either. Well evaluate the outcomes of this free non-commercial licensing initiative to see if it can be expanded.Why are we doing this?In making non-commercial development free, we aim to make JetBrains IDEs more accessible to a broader audience. We hope the new licensing model will further lower the barrier to using our IDEs, helping you learn, grow, and stay creative.Weve explored various ways to achieve this goal. As many of you have asked for more community editions, this was one of the possible options that we considered. However, JetBrains IDEs often have monolithic functionality, with all features deeply integrated and essential for productive work. Creating additional community editions would risk offering a feature set that doesnt meet the needs of the many different types of users we have.If you want to check out the new free version of JetBrains Rider you need to download Rider 2024.2.7 which was also released today.Key LinksRider HomepageRider & WebStorm Free Version AnnouncementYou can learn more about the new free versions of WebStorm and Rider and the limitations involved in the video below. This video was sponsored by TechSmith the makers of Camtasia (which is what I use to create all of my videos). You canlearn more about Camtasia hereand use code GAMEFROMSCRATCH at checkout for 15% off.