How-To's

Meet ReSharper, ReSharper C++ and ReSharper Ultimate

We’d like to give a preview of updates to JetBrains .NET product line that will become effective as soon as ReSharper 9 and other JetBrains .NET tools are released in coming weeks.

TL;DR: ReSharper editions (C#, VB.NET and Full) are going away. Instead, the ReSharper product line will now consist of 3 items:

  • ReSharper (formerly Full Edition: C#, VB.NET, XAML and other languages traditionally supported by ReSharper; no C++ support),
  • ReSharper C++ (C++ support only)
  • ReSharper Ultimate (includes both ReSharper and ReSharper C++, as well as dotCover, dotTrace and doMemory.)

Please see details below, along with answers to some of the questions that we expect to be asked.

How exactly is the set of ReSharper products going to change?

ReSharper is currently available in 3 editions: C# Edition (includes all features except for VB.NET support), VB.NET Edition (includes all features except C# support), and Full Edition (includes everything that ReSharper has to offer.)

Starting with the release of ReSharper 9 next month, C# Edition and VB.NET Edition are going away, Full Edition becomes referred to as simply ReSharper, and two additional products become available. The diff looks as follows:

  • ReSharper C# Edition. Will no longer be available.
  • ReSharper VB.NET Edition. Will no longer be available.
  • What has been known as ReSharper Full Edition will now be referred to as simply ReSharper. This will include all ReSharper functionality available in the current Full Edition, including support for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, XAML and build scripts. However C++ support will not be available in this product. If you have an active ReSharper upgrade subscription to C#, VB.NET or Full Edition by the time of ReSharper 9 release, you will be able to upgrade to ReSharper 9 for free.
  • ReSharper C++. This is a new offering in the ReSharper product line and will only provide C++ support.
  • ReSharper Ultimate. This is also new. ReSharper Ultimate will provide all ReSharper functionality including C++ support, and it will also include all other commercial JetBrains .NET tools: the set that currently consists of dotCover, dotTrace, and dotMemory.

Here’s how the new products relate to each other: ReSharper and ReSharper C++ are distinct products but ReSharper Ultimate unites them and adds other .NET tools:

How ReSharper, ReSharper C++ and ReSharper Ultimate relate

Why change anything?

There are two major reasons behind introducing these changes:

  • We wanted to get the positioning of ReSharper and .NET tools in sync with reality. For instance, isolating C# and VB.NET editions don’t make much sense anymore as ReSharper now supports over 10 programming languages. However separating C++ support from everything else does make sense as C++ and .NET applications are usually developed separately.
  • We wanted to streamline concurrent usage of ReSharper with other .NET tools. Traditionally, many customers have been hesitant to use dotTrace, dotMemory and dotCover alongside the widely popular ReSharper. This has happened for various reasons, notably those related to price and compatibility. For example, profilers would sometimes be seen as costing too much without being fully applicable in a day-to-day .NET developer workflow, and integrating all these tools in Visual Studio could increase memory consumption to intolerable levels. Both of these problems are now solved: one (price) with recent pricing changes and integrating .NET tools into the single-license ReSharper Ultimate product, the other (compatibility) with a considerable effort of getting all JetBrains .NET tools to reuse a shared set of libraries and thus drastically decreasing memory consumption when more than a single tool (for example, ReSharper and dotCover) is integrated in the same version of Visual Studio and used concurrently.

What is ReSharper Ultimate?

ReSharper Ultimate is introduced as the top-level product in the ReSharper product line that combines all individual tools for .NET developers that JetBrains produces, as well as ReSharper C++. After the release of ReSharper 9, ReSharper Ultimate will include:

  • ReSharper
  • ReSharper C++
  • dotMemory
  • dotTrace
  • dotCover

A ReSharper Ultimate license makes a single developer eligible to use all 5 products on a single developer workstation. You can install them all at once, or at any time you feel you need them, and use a single license key to activate any of them.

Purchasing licenses to separate products will also be possible. For example, if you don’t need ReSharper but you need dotCover, dotMemory or dotTrace, you will still be able to purchase them separately. However if you need more than two of these tools, and also if you need any of these tools and ReSharper, then ReSharper Ultimate would be the easier and most probably the cheaper way to go.

Why would I be interested in ReSharper Ultimate?

There are several reasons why purchasing ReSharper Ultimate licenses can be beneficial:

  • Using both .NET languages and C++. If a single developer uses Visual Studio to code both in C# (or VB.NET, or TypeScript, or other languages supported by ReSharper) and in C++, they would probably want to have ReSharper help out in both worlds. Purchasing both ReSharper and ReSharper C++ for this developer is an option but ReSharper Ultimate is priced roughly the same and additionally makes the developer eligible to use dotCover, dotTrace and dotMemory.
  • Easier procurement and license key management. As opposed to maintaining several sets of licenses to individual JetBrains .NET tools that could be subject to different licensing terms and require renewal at different dates, you get a single license key per developer that you don’t have to renew any more often than once a year.
  • Uniform maintenance. Traditionally, JetBrains .NET tools have distributed using different licensing schemes, which would introduce unnecessary confusion at times for customers with licenses to more than a single tool. To make things easier, ReSharper Ultimate always includes a 1-year subscription meaning you won’t have to monitor subscription expiration dates for every tool, but instead you can upgrade them all for free during a year after purchase date. As soon as the first year of free subscription expires, you can renew all covered products for one more year, in one go.
  • Price. ReSharper Ultimate pricing is crazy appealing. For example, if you’re a company from the US and you’re considering buying commercial licenses to all JetBrains .NET tools, here’s how much you’d have to shell out to buy them separately:
    $349 (ReSharper) + $229 (ReSharper C++) + $249 (dotMemory) + $249 (dotTrace) + $199 (dotCover) = $1275. This is way overboard, right?
    In contrast, a single ReSharper Ultimate license that qualifies a single developer for all these products is worth only $599, which is over 50% off the package! You’re essentially getting 5 JetBrains .NET tools for the price of 2.

What if I want my ReSharper to support both .NET languages and C++?

If this is the case, you have two options:

  • Purchase both ReSharper and ReSharper C++. For a company based in the US, two commercial licenses would cost $349 (ReSharper) + $229 (ReSharper C++) = $578.
  • Purchase ReSharper Ultimate. For a company based in the US, a single ReSharper Ultimate license would cost $599. This is just a tad more expensive than the combo of two ReSharper licenses suggested above, plus the Ultimate license would also make you eligible to use dotMemory, dotTrace and dotCover.

ReSharper C++ release however is going to be delayed

While ReSharper 9 and updates to other .NET tools are expected to be released in early December, ReSharper C++ will not reach release quality by this time and will only be available as Beta. The ReSharper C++ team expects to deliver the final release in early 2015.

Therefore if you’re looking to purchase a license to ReSharper C++, you have the option to either hold off until the final release of ReSharper C++ (and use the free Beta before it goes live) or purchase ReSharper Ultimate that will cover ReSharper C++ as soon as the latter goes live.

You’ll be able to use the free ReSharper C++ Beta in any case, the choice goes down to spending money earlier (by purchasing ReSharper Ultimate) or later (by purchasing a ReSharper C++ license as soon as it’s available for purchase.)

Upgrades and renewals

Will I be able to upgrade my existing ReSharper Full/C#/VB.NET license to ReSharper 9?

Sure. If you have a license without free upgrade subscription or with an expired free upgrade subscription, this would be a paid upgrade.

However if you have a ReSharper C#, VB.NET or Full Edition license with a free upgrade subscription that is active by the time of ReSharper 9 release, you’ll be able to upgrade to ReSharper 9 for free.

Will I be able to upgrade my existing ReSharper Full/C#/VB.NET Edition license to ReSharper 9 Ultimate?

Yes, you can upgrade to ReSharper Ultimate from your current license at any time for an upgrade fee.

Will I be able to upgrade my existing dotTrace/dotCover/dotMemory license to ReSharper Ultimate?

No, there’s no explicit way to upgrade existing dotTrace (formerly dotTrace Performance), dotMemory (formerly dotTrace Memory) or dotCover licenses to ReSharper Ultimate as we don’t anticipate high demand on this upgrade path. If real demand proves us wrong, we’ll reconsider and find a solution.

For how long will I receive free updates for the products covered by ReSharper Ultimate license?

Every ReSharper Ultimate license includes 1-year subscription to all updates across all tools that it includes. After your subscription expires you can continue using the latest installed versions of the tools, and you will be eligible to receive free bug-fix updates as well (those that have 3 digits in version number).

Please note that there are no traditional “per major version” licenses to ReSharper Ultimate: when you buy (or upgrade to) a ReSharper Ultimate license, you always receive 1 year of free upgrades.

Questions?

The considerable changes outlined above can be hard to understand, and communicating them is not an easy task as well. If you have any questions, please ask them in comments, and we’ll try our best to clarify.

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