IntelliJ ultimate is the main IDE. Everything else is a version of IntelliJ that has been configured for a specific language. IntelliJ should, theoretically, be able to behave like any of the sub-IDEs, but the reverse is not true.
The simplified setup for modules in the language-specific IDEs alone makes them worth it IMO. It’s great that the plugins in IntelliJ cover basically everything but CLion, AppCode and Rider - but if I’m working on Python, JavaScript, PHP or doing database work I’ll still fire up Pycharm, WebStorm, PHPStorm and DataGrip respectively because there’s less overhead getting my project imported (and DataGrip is more useful as a standalone DBA tool because I open it and all of my connections are right there).
Given the individual license cost difference between IntelliJ Ultimate and the All Products Pack is minimal it’s worth it, especially given it’s cheaper than IntelliJ + CLion separately.
Even just using the correct language terms is helpful. IntelliJ modules contain packages, because that's how Java works, which makes it super confusing when your modules are python packages and its subunit (called package in the UI) is a python module.
Yeah by the time you need two IDEs you might as well just get the suite.
It also worked out well for me because I bought Ultimate on sale, and the suite was discounted for existing owners. So it's really been good savings. Regardless, given the time savings the IDEs give me, they pay themselves off pretty quickly.
As much as that is true, I have a license for all of them and always use a few of them instead of the main IDE: CLion, Goland and Rider being the ones that are really much better for their respective domains because they are so different.
