Integrated development environment (IDE) IntelliJ IDEA is moving to a JetBrains distribution model that’s single and unified. The move will complete in version 2025.3.
JetBrains developer Aleksey Stukalov said this replaces separate downloads for the Community and Ultimate editions. However, in this new setup, all Ultimate features will still require a subscription to unlock.
“But even without a subscription, the IDE will remain fully functional,” Stukalov confirmed.
In addition, it will be free to use for commercial and non-commercial projects. And JetBrains is including more features than in the Community Edition.
“And yes, before you ask, our commitment to open source remains as strong as ever,” he added.
Initially, the move to a single IntelliJ IDEA installer would happen in several stages.
Open source builds and CI/CD pipelines
Because JetBrains wants to support open-source workflows and improve transparency, it will begin by publishing open-source builds directly to GitHub Releases, he said.
“Also we are introducing ready-to-use CI/CD pipelines powered by GitHub Actions. With just a few steps, anyone can fork the project and produce a working build from the source,” Stukalov explained.
“This step is entirely non-intrusive and won’t affect your day-to-day workflow.”
As a result, building IntelliJ IDEA from source will become easier, Stukalov said.
Subsequently, JetBrains is updating the IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2 licensing experience for Ultimate users. As a consequence, expired subscriptions won’t cause lock-out.
Instead, users would retain access to the same version of the IDE, but with the feature set matching what is available for free, as in the Community Edition.
“You will still be able to open your projects, write code, and stay productive,” Stukalov said.
Over time, the boundary between open-source and proprietary components blurred. Today, even the Community Edition includes some functionality that is not open source. This was never the original intention, he pointed out.
More on the JetBrains distribution model for IntelliJ
And your perpetual fallback license will still work as before. Therefore you retain access to the last major version available when your latest uninterrupted year of subscription began, he added.
“With the unified distribution, this means you can activate older versions that match your fallback license. Alternatively, you can use the latest version of IntelliJ IDEA with access to its current free feature set,” Stukalov said.
This step only affects Ultimate users. Current Community Edition users will be automatically updated during patching, Stukalov added.
For more details on the changes, click here.
In addition, the news was covered by How to Geek. Corbin Davenport, reporting for How to Geek, noted the merged IDE will still have those proprietary components.
“But JetBrains will offer a separate Open Source edition starting with IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2. This is a similar situation as Chromium with Google Chrome: the open-source version will have fully reproducible builds.”
Most recent version 2025.1.4 of the IntelliJ IDE had been mostly focused on fixing issues rather than introducing new features. “IntelliJ is one of the most popular IDEs out there,” wrote Arol Wright in a separate How to Geek report.
( Photo by Arif Riyanto on Unsplash )
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