JetBrains makes another IDE free for non-commercial use

JetBrains has been making a bunch of its products and services "free," lately, as we have seen with IDEs like CLion for non-commercial use, the new free tier introduced in the AI Assistant, the removal of the commercial license for its Language Server Protocol API, and more.

Now, the company has announced that RubyMine, its IDE for Ruby and Ruby on Rails, is now free for non-commercial use, just like CLion. The company says that it's doing this because it wants to lower the barrier for new developers and has been listening to feedback from the Ruby and Rails community.

JetBrains defines "non-commercial use" as any development where you are not earning money from your work. This covers a lot of ground, including students, hobbyists, open-source contributors who are not paid for their contributions, and people creating content (even if it's not free), like tutorials or streams. The main rule is that if you are using RubyMine to build a product that generates revenue, you need a commercial license.

Of course, a free license is not without its conditions. Apart from the fact that you are not allowed to use it for paid work, there are also other limitations. For instance, the Code With Me feature is the "Community" edition, not the full version.

Another thing to note is that you cannot opt out of data collection. JetBrains promises that the data is anonymized and limited to statistics about which IDE features you use, like which frameworks or file templates are popular. The company states it does not collect personal information or look at your code.

To get a non-commercial subscription, do the following:

1. Install and run RubyMine version 2025.2.1 or newer.
2. Select the "Non-commercial use" option in the license dialog box.
3. Log in to your JetBrains Account or create one.
4. Accept the non-commercial use agreement.

The license is valid for a year and will automatically renew as long as you have used the IDE at least once in the last six months of your subscription period.

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Posted Wednesday 3 September 2025 at 3:52 am AEST (my time).

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