JetBrains: $270M revenue, 405K paying users, $0 raised (twitter.com)

Article summary

JetBrains, a developer tools company, reported $270M in revenue and $100M in net income in 2018, with 6M users and 405k customers. The company has not raised any external funding since its founding in 2000. JetBrains' success can be attributed to its popular integrated development environments (IDEs) such as IntelliJ and PyCharm. The company's financial performance is notable in the developer tools market.

Main themes

• JetBrains financial performance
• IDE market comparison
• Developer tool preferences
• Language and build system support
• Resource intensity of IDEs
• Individual developer needs and preferences

What commenters say

• JetBrains' IDEs are considered the state of the art for many programming languages and offer high return on investment for developers.
• The company's success can be partly attributed to its free offerings for students, which helps to create a loyal customer base.
• Some developers prefer JetBrains' IDEs over alternatives like VS Code due to their features and stability, while others prefer the remote editing capabilities of VS Code.
• The effectiveness of an IDE depends on the language and build system being used, with some languages like C and C++ being more challenging to support.
• JetBrains' CLion IDE for C and C++ has received mixed reviews, with some finding it slow and buggy, while others appreciate its features and improvements.
• The resource intensity of modern IDEs is a point of contention, with some considering it a necessary trade-off for their features and others seeing it as a failure of design.
• The choice of IDE ultimately depends on individual preferences and needs, with different developers having different priorities and experiences.