CLion Is Now Free for Non-Commercial Use

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall Reception

  • Many welcome CLion becoming free for personal and open‑source work, especially as a “real” C++ IDE with strong debugging, refactoring, and code intelligence, and see it as good for Linux and hobbyists.
  • Some say they won’t switch from existing toolchains but are glad a high‑quality proprietary alternative now exists alongside VS Code and classic editors.

Telemetry and Privacy

  • The non‑commercial license forces anonymous telemetry with no in‑IDE opt‑out; paid licenses can disable it.
  • One camp views this as an acceptable trade: free users “pay” with telemetry that is said to be anonymized and used for feature usage metrics and product improvement, possibly also to detect commercial abuse.
  • Another camp sees forced telemetry as unethical or “spyware”: privacy is framed as a right, not something to buy; “consent or pay” is compared to disallowed models under EU rules.
  • Concerns raised:
    • Anonymized data can often be deanonymized or combined into fingerprints.
    • Normalizing telemetry encourages less-ethical products to push the line.
    • “Privacy only if you can afford it” is criticized as regressive.
  • Counter‑arguments:
    • Users can simply not use the product or pay for a license.
    • Some argue GDPR may not apply if data is properly anonymized (others dispute this, unclear in the thread).
    • Blocking telemetry via firewall/hosts is discussed; legality vs license terms is debated.

Scope of “Non‑Commercial” Use

  • Questions about edge cases (e.g., starting a hobby project that later becomes commercial) remain largely unanswered; people assume enforcement targets obvious business abuse rather than individuals.
  • Some speculate telemetry could support later legal action if a huge commercial success emerges from a “non‑commercial” installation.

Comparisons and Alternatives

  • VS Code (and VSCodium), Vim/Neovim, Emacs, Kate, Helix, Eclipse, NetBeans, Notepad++, Sublime, Doom Emacs, and others are listed as telemetry‑lighter or open alternatives.
  • CLion is praised for C++ (and Rust/Zig via plugins), debugging, and project understanding; VS Code is seen as snappier but more “file‑oriented” and dependent on extensions.
  • Several complain about JetBrains performance, memory use, indexing pauses, and weak Remote SSH/devcontainer support; others report smooth use on modern hardware.
  • JetBrains keymap complaints are answered by noting built‑in profiles (including VS/VS Code via plugin).

JetBrains Business Model and Ecosystem

  • Discussion of JetBrains’ “perpetual fallback” licenses: yearly subscribers keep the last major version forever; this is contrasted positively with pure subscriptions.
  • Pricing is seen as fair in rich countries but expensive in lower‑income regions; student and some complimentary licenses are mentioned.
  • Some note more JetBrains IDEs (Rider, RustRover, WebStorm, CLion) gaining non‑commercial tiers, with speculation on what happens to existing Community Editions.
  • JetBrains’ AI tools (AI Assistant, Junie) and integrations are mentioned as their answer to Cursor/Windsurf, though quality and rollout are viewed as mixed.