Why WebStorm Lacks a Community Edition and How it Affects its Popularity

The Database Tools and SQL plugin for WebStorm allows users to query, create, and manage databases efficiently. However, despite its impressive features, WebStorm lacks a free community edition, which is a significant drawback for individual developers and hobbyists.

In an ideal world, all integrated development environments (IDEs) would have both paid and free versions. Unfortunately, this is not the case with many popular IDEs, including WebStorm. The lack of a community edition prevents me from recommending it to a large group of developers, as they cannot afford the subscription fee.

For instance, I am a developer who lives in a third-world country where affording a paid IDE is challenging. I can complete my projects within 2-3 days, and paying for an IDE that offers similar features to other free alternatives seems unreasonable.

The popularity of Visual Studio Code (VSCode) over WebStorm can be attributed partly to the fact that WebStorm does not have a community edition. If WebStorm had offered a free version, it might have been more appealing to developers who cannot afford paid subscriptions.

What's New in WebStorm 2022.1 EAP

WebStorm 2022.1 EAP offers several improvements and new features, including the ability to reverse engineered code. This feature is especially useful for developers working on complex projects.

In conclusion, while WebStorm is an impressive IDE, its lack of a community edition limits its appeal to individual developers and hobbyists. I believe that offering a free version would have made it more popular among web developers.

Download WebStorm 2022.1 EAP

You can download the latest version of WebStorm 2022.1 EAP from the official website. The new features and improvements offer significant value to developers, especially those working on complex projects.

Alternatively, if you're looking for a free alternative, Intellij Community Edition is an excellent choice. While it may not offer all the features of WebStorm, it provides sufficient coding assistance and project management capabilities.

For Go developers, GoLand is another option that offers extended support for JavaScript, TypeScript, and databases. You can download GoLand from the official website.

In summary, while WebStorm lacks a community edition, it still offers impressive features and improvements in its latest version. However, individual developers and hobbyists may find it challenging to afford the subscription fee. Offering a free version would have made WebStorm more appealing to web developers, which could have increased its popularity.

Webstorm community edition download