JRebel is a tool that hot-swaps your re-compiled classes and other changes on-the-fly to your web server while running within Eclipse. JRebel removes some of the hassle of doing web app development, as discussed in threads on this forum.
The ZeroTurnaround company
announced a new version 4.5 of JRebel today, along with a new free-of-cost edition. They also announced a new free-of-cost
Social edition for use while online with the Internets for non-commercial purposes.
I’ve been using JRebel for a few days with my fledgling Vaadin work. It certainly makes live easier. Seems to fix all the mysterious problems with “Hey, where’d aren’t my changes and updates running?”. I
blogged on this. Installation involves some voodoo, but their instructions tell you exactly what to do.
Normally this would have been classified as advertising and got deleted (as one key forum contributor requested). But as JRebel actually is really useful for Vaadin development and their model for “free” is novel, let’s keep the tread.
Any and all comments of JRebel (and alternatives) are welcome.
I don’t like their licensing model - subscription pricing for a tool that you quickly become reliant on is a pain.
I bought a personal license for myself, as I couldn’t persuade my employer to pay for a tool that would become a recurring cost and that could rise in price, which is exactly what it has just done.
I couldn’t use the Free edition, as almost all the work I do with Vaadin is commercial. I can’t imagine that there are a lot of people doing much non-commercial J2EE work, so I’m not entirely convinced that - if people stick to the license terms - that there will be much “good” coming from it - especially if the monthly “announcements” say “JRebel has saved me 30mins over the last month” reflecting the amount of non-commercial redeploys it’s done!
In an ideal world, I’d find a tool, try it out - and if I liked it, I’d pay for it once, and keep using it. As I have done with IntelliJ IDEA. If there’s a new version, and it contains features I want, I’ll pay for upgrade. If it doesn’t, I won’t.
But then, I’m a techy geek, not a business person.
I agree with the subscription vs pay-once for tools. Maybe these should be “Jrebel Forever Edition” with a bit larger price tag…
Also would have been better if they have allowed commercial development with “social edition”. I am sure that everyone will get tired in spamming their dear followers after a while and buys a license
Interesting… the JRebel Forever edition… for some reason, it reminds me of a Spice Girls tour or something, but hey, the thought’s not a bad one. Perpetual licensing. Of course… then we’d have to find a price. What do you guys think is reasonable?
(btw - I’m ZeroTurnaround’s CEO, so your wish may just come true )
If 5 years is forever in IT, then my employer is immortal! (Started in 1973, we’re still using some tools licensed in around 2000).
Buying a five year license for JRebel is, essentially, 5x1 year license cost; - I don’t want upgrades, I don’t want maintenance or support, I just want to buy a tool that works for me and then keep using it.
I agree that JRebel Forever would be a horrible name. The first thing that comes to my mind is Duke Nukem Forever. The next one is “Vaadin Forever” - some of the team has sometimes called Vaadin 7 release that everyone have been waiting for too long already…
Pricing is a question of perception. Without checking what 5 year license would be costing my gut feeing is that “JRebel Forever” could cost something in ballpark of $500 - $1000. Being over $1000 would seem to be “unfair” for such “small” software “component”. And this only if Zeroturnaround would be clearly promising “eternal upgrades”. Still - promise of “eternal upgrades” is something that no-one would not want to give.
Another approach could be to bind the licensing to some “out of our hands” development. With Oracle in the helm of Java, we might have more reliable roadmaps ahead for Java versions. People who dislike subscription still buy upgrades. Maybe if the current version of Jrebel would only support Java 7, a paid upgrade would be required for the next version of Jrebel that would support Java 8. It is easy to see this a fair - Zeroturnaround have to make some work to get Java 8 supported. This model can be seen as perpetual, but at the same time it is like subscription because developers would be forced to buy a paid upgrade in couple of years to keep using the bleeding edge.
I mostly agree with Joonas here; In my humble opinion, a reasonable price for a perpetual JRebel license - without eternal upgrades - would be ~500 USD.
Maybe you can create a forum category that supports such third-party product announcements for those who are interested, like how there’s one for Add-Ons.
How this fits the Vaadin General Help topic mystifies me since it’s Java-related, not Vaadin-related, and a “free OSS” version with a commercial license option
means that lots of software will fit and thus be justified to post in the general help forums.
On that note, I’ll check them out because it does sound interesting! (Damn advertising works on me again!)
