: The Hex-Rays decompiler is a separate license add-on. Without it, you can only view the disassembly graph (IDA View).
The IDA Pro decompiler is a force multiplier for reverse engineering. It turns pages of assembly into readable pseudocode, letting you focus on rather than mnemonics . While it cannot perfectly reconstruct original source (comments, local variable names, macros are lost), it provides an accurate, working model of a binary's behavior.
Reading if (x == 5) is significantly faster than tracing CMP and JZ instructions.