Abdelrahman Omran

As someone who has relied on JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA for years, I’ve always appreciated their focus on high-quality developer tools and their commitment to integrating new technologies thoughtfully. But with the recent shift in how they handle AI tools like Junie , it’s clear that their business side is struggling to keep up with their technical reputation.

In the past few months, JetBrains has introduced multiple business models for their AI offerings. They started with a more inclusive proposition, then moved to a tiered structure with Ultimate and Pro plans, and now have landed on a credit-based system where users must buy additional credits once the quota runs out — which can happen in just a few hours of heavy prompting. Each of these changes was introduced without a clear opt-out for existing subscribers who joined under different terms.

The result is a sense of instability. JetBrains, usually known for rock-solid tools, now appears disoriented — uncertain and constantly shifting when it comes to their AI pricing. For developers, this is more than just a minor inconvenience: the Ultimate plan used to provide a month’s worth of AI assistance, and now it may only last a few hours unless you pay extra. That makes the top-tier package far less practical and simply not competitive with other industry options.

The bigger issue is predictability. Users have no way to know how many prompts, hours, or days their quota will last — or how much they’ll need to pay to use it reliably. For engineers who use AI actively in their daily work, costs could balloon to thousands of dollars per month.

To be clear: I understand the massive investment required to train, maintain, and continuously improve AI tools. It’s not cheap, and companies like JetBrains want a sustainable model. But if the service isn’t affordable and predictable, users will look elsewhere.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to keep using JetBrains. IntelliJ has been a cornerstone of my and my team’s development workflow, and I was rooting for Junie to succeed. But right now, the AI agent just isn’t in a workable state. So, we’re actively exploring alternatives such as Anthropic Claude Code, Cursor, and others.

I sincerely hope JetBrains rethinks this approach, because I’d be happy to come back and check their progress again in the future. At the end of the day: AI in IDEs should make us more productive — not more anxious about when the meter is going to run out.