IntelliJ IDEA Moves to the Unified Distribution

https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2025/07/intellij-idea-unified-distribution-plan/

21•bartekpacia•6mo ago

Comments

akazantsev•6mo ago

> If you are currently using Community Edition, your IDE will automatically update to the unified distribution via the usual patch update process. You will get access to additional features at no cost and a more seamless experience. You will also be able to try Ultimate features with just one click.

IDEA Ultimate will be removed, and IDEA Community will become the "main" IDEA.

akazantsev•6mo ago

I have a subscription for all JetBrains products, and I installed Ultimate just twice to access the profiler. This move makes 100% sense to me. I always install the Community Edition because I'm too lazy to log in to the toolbox. So, I no longer need to install another IDE to access the advanced features.

mdaniel•6mo ago

I actually used to have them both installed (both flavors of PyCharm, too) in order to be able to say with confidence what behavior(s) were present in each tier, since the Apache 2 products are so strong it makes it hard to keep track of where exactly that line lives

brawll•6mo ago

what I am inferring from this is that basically community edition was almost as good as Ultimate and in certain aspects community ed. might've been even better.

mdaniel•6mo ago

Ooo, ooo, do Rustrover and CLion next :-P

But, in all seriousness, I repeatedly see complaints about having to manage CLion's install separate from IJ or PyCharm so they really do need to un-snowflake CLion back onto the main platform

onlyhumans•6mo ago

Will android studio also be merged?

bartekpacia•6mo ago

You can install the "Android" and "Android Design Tools" plugin in IntelliJ IDEA – it's basically everything that Android Studio is.

But truth be told, these plugins always lag ~1 release behind Android Studio.

dostick•6mo ago

Is Android Studio still an “official” Dart/Flutter IDE? The refactoring of Flutter/Dart is broken with issue open for five years already. It’s sad how Jetbrains stopped caring. By now VSCode plus Dart plugins is almost better choice.

ezst•6mo ago

As I understand it, in the new scheme, ultimate subscription is essentially about turning on proprietary addons for as long as the subscription lasts. That uncouples the features from a specific build and release carrying them.

How does this bode with the older promise that "you forever own what you paid for", which was distinctive (and appreciated) of the old scheme? Can you still choose to keep your addons with an ancient version of the IDE?

kosher88•6mo ago

Yes, perpetual fallback license still works as before, giving you access to the last major version available at the time your most recent uninterrupted year of subscription began. With the unified distribution, this means you can activate subscription (paid addons) in older versions that match your fallback license.

ezst•6mo ago

Interesting! How is it going to work between IDE version and addons compat? At one point those constantly updating addons will become incompatible with older IDEs?

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