- How much time (i.e. labor hours) will it take to find and vet an alternative solution Y to solution X (provided that you already know that X will solve your problem/save you time)?
- How do you value your time?
- What's your tolerance for community-only support vs. commercial support?
The list goes on, but gratis isn't always better just because you don't need to pull out your wallet.
You usually need to vet all editors. You download a free trial or you download an open source version. After a month the paided on stops working until you pay causing friction. The open source editor keeps working and even provides updates.
In general choosing open source saves you time with yearly licease management, licease audits and removes the risk of surprise price increases and product shutdown.
Commercial support can be invaluable and can provide more value over community support. Commercial support for a code editor is wasteful in terms of cost/value and wasteful timewise (who is calling spending time about a macro feature not working).
The list goes on, but gratis isn't always better just because you don't need to pull out your wallet.