As somebody who likes and uses JetBrains IDEs, I find this fragmentation of their AI strategy (if they have one) frustrating. They now have both Air and ThinkRail in a feature-incomplete state, while the existing AI Assistant – for me far more useful than either Air or ThinkRail – seems to be getting neglected. There are numerous harnesses already, with or without GUIs and editing capabilites; good integration with existing IDE functionality is where there are very limited offerings and where JetBrains could differentiate itself.
As a point of comparison, Zed does the agentic side panel overall better (though still not perfectly), but Zed is still by its nature more limited than e.g. PyCharm or CLion or RustRover or Rider.
Don’t forget about Junie either! I guess they’re throwing everything at the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
That said, I bet that’s how eventually we’ll end up with actually good ADEs (and a bunch of dead projects), by taking what works and changing or discarding what doesn’t - for example GitKraken Kepler has a really nice ticketing system integration but also the older versions I’ve tried had vibe slopped UI.
If nothing else, competition should push everyone who is capable to keep up to do better. It is kind of a bummer sometimes, though - I also wanted their Fleet to succeed, but that was before Zed became really good.
The other read is that the surfeit of solutions is company teams quickly vibe coding greenfield 80%-complete answers to management's "More AI" demands.
Without having to tackle those hard and time-consuming tasks of strategy, integration, etc.
Yes, Junie, Air all got mixed up too much, and it was a bad decision to override some important keyboard shortcuts with Air too.
But, they still have a solid IDE, they just need to figure out what they can do without losing that edge.
I am all for experiments, that's where all the innovations comes from. But don't push VSCode bullshit on me. If I wanted to use that shit, I would use NVIM/Vim. But not VSCode.
Which one exactly? I used to love Webstorm and Rider, but there were so many workflow-breaking bugs in each new release of Webstorm that I switched to VS Code. I still use Rider, but I've stopped my All Products subscription, because new releases usually decreased the amount of well-working features (and new features often didn't work at all).
Around 2022 I'd have agreed 100%, but these days not so much.
Oh yes to that! It is also built in to IDEA, and It's just so good! I looked for other alternatives, but nothing comes close to their database tool. Works so well.
Oh, I've never really tried that one. It probably goes much further than the DB integrations in Webstorm etc., right? Do you have any favorite features that could be interesting to look at?
I use only one, IntelliJ IDEA, which has all integrated, except Rider I believe.
It has full Rust, Java, Python, Web stack, things that I work with.
There were few issues here and there occasionally, but last few months I have not faced any issues, and it's been really robust. It gets slow with LLM providers running in the background on my 7 year old laptop though. But on desktop it flies.
Just to add another note, Initially I was a bit skeptic about their new UI. But, they have improved it a lot, and it's really good. Even though I hide most of the UI elements in favor of `double shift`
I don't mind the new look, I also enjoyed the previous UI refresh. But I don't think UI changes are a good use of JetBrain's resources while the core functionality is frequently broken.
One example: In August 2024, new Vue projects stopped working correctly with Webstorm - not terrible on it's own, stuff can happen. The issue was reported on August 19th[0]. Someone posted a workaround, and on August 29th, they announced that a future version will fix the issue.
That future version was released on October 23rd[1]. In the intervening two months there was no indication in Webstorm that the LSP crashing was a known issue with a workaround. Users just had to search for the issue, stumble upon the thread, and manually update the component. They couldn't release this tiny version bump for two months, or at least add a link to the issue thread.
This would be fine if Webstorm were free, but it's pretty freaking expensive, and I didn't get any money back for the product being defective for 1/6th of the year.
Yeah, seems that way - at least the editor space has a lot more competition than GPUs, so we don't have to put up with it.
In the end, I'd love to see Jetbrains pull themselves together and return to their former glory. But I don't know if I'll ever give them another chance since their pricing structure heavily punishes unsubscribing. Since the bugs pushed me over that ledge, it'd seem that they should offer lower prices, not higher ones!
Many companies currently struggle to come up with a lasting strategy.
They need to figure out what make sense here in terms of a product. I rather have a somewhat fragmented ecosystem right now than no relevant product from JetBrains whatsoever.
I love JB, IntelliJ IDEA is just great, but I am using it less and less with agents now.
I see JB Toolbox has "Junie CLI" available for me. Have you tried both that and ThinkRail or Air?
Which would you recommend for someone who is currently mostly working on the Claude App (which also manages worktrees seamlessly, which looks like what ThinkRail does)?
Junie is integrated in the AI Assistant. It's just one of several agents you can use with it (alongside Codex and various ACP plugins). One option on a dropdown menu.
To this day i don't understand the difference between Junie and AI chat. Anyway, I use PyCharm on a fallback license as a read-only tool nowadays, sad but true.
Junie is an agent. The AI Assistant is the UI for agents (typically in a sidebar). You can switch to other agents if you want (such as Codex or Claude Code), and there are actually a ton that you can add with just a few mouse clicks.
The "Install From ACP Registry ..." allow you to use pi, OpenCode, Kilo Code, Cline, Cursor, Copilot (and a ton of other agents that I've never heard of) if you want.
I feel somewhat bad for JetBrains. Their entire world was flipped upside down. My first intro to a coding harness was through their IDE. Not even a month later and I stopped using their platform altogether. After the year is up I won’t be renewing any of my company’s subscriptions.
They have to try to push this stuff out to survive but none of it is innovative. Not sure why anyone would pay for this when it can be one-shot with a single good prompt. Sure, it looks fancy but I never cared about that.
I can't imagine JetBrains keep existing in the following years. Every programmer I talked to in the past year (myself included) said their job was mostly reviewing generated code. I can imagine why people still use IDE to review code, but I can't name a reason to use something as heavy as JetBrains products just to review things written by others, AI or not.
I have been a paying user for about a decade. Ironically, when I recommended their products to vim/emacs users, they usually were like "thanks, but I know vim/emacs will always exist", and now I realize they really had a point.
You always review large code diffs by comparing them side-by-side? You never need to drop into an IDE to follow the path a branch takes? How do you review large diffs without an IDE, do you remember what every function does in a million-loc codebase?
But vscode and vim do this just as well (in my experience). JetBrains products' advantages over the most lightweight solutions for me are:
- Faster intellisense at least for C# and Java
- Faster syntax errors and other linting-warnings
- Refactor tools
- Debugger and stack state viewer
I still use Rider, but I just don't think faster intellisense/linting matters to me nowadays. Refactor tools feel like something that should come with harnesses. The debugger still helps, but to be honest LLMs are better at debugging than me if you let them dump whatever information they need.
Plus, even with LLMs' help, making and managing a plugin for Rider is a much heavier process than the counterparts for vim/vscode.
IntelliJ is excellent for doing the code review. The git and diff is top notch.
Then there is the DataGrip stuff, I use it all the time.
And the HTTP client (.http files!) is also good. It has built in scripting.
Notice here that none of these activities is writing code.
This enhances the understanding of what I am building with the agents. I’m sure the lazy dev will just skip this and will never see any of this, just let Claude completely take over.
Interesting that you say that, the VCS / diff UI of Jetbrains has always been my favourite by far of any git UI I have tried, I feel like they have an opportunity to capitalise on that a bit more.
For a while I agreed with you, but then I realized I want my agent to have access to the same find references, index, and rename tools, and the rest of the refactor tools that JetBrains have always provided me. And I wanted to be able to use those, even if it means I'll have to pay for Jetbrains.
Just like it was inefficient for me to manually rename variables and classes, it's token inefficient for my agent to do that.
Yeah! Refactoring, is already a solved problem, and deterministic with IDE (unless you have an untyped Python codebase), now we are reinventing the wheel, in more broken ways?
Want to add an additional parameter without creating a thousands of error? Change signature, Extract a part of code to another function? Extract Method.
People are taking these small, but extremely useful conveniences, without waiting, without paying for tokens, for granted.
You can pay a corporate that steals other's hard work without any consequences, $20/m at least. But can't pay another one that is actually putting up a respectable product for so many years, and you at least own it, even if you decided to stop paying?
I have been a paid user for 12+ years. Things got difficult more me this year, but I still renewed, because it's that important a tool for me. And, probably, this is just the hill I die on, owning something, that can't be whisked away at someone else's whim.
Obviously, they are still a corporate, but, until now they've respected me as a consumer unlike many other corporations. I value that.
They have their issues. But, which application does not?!
Their Git merge UI, is just top-notch. And keeps on improving
I might use another coding agent, once JetBrain's credit runs out, but I review, and make all minor changes through the IDE
Project management is just a bliss.
Working with multi-language project? No IDE can manage this how good JetBrains does.
VIM binding is just so good, I don't miss VIM editor.
And the most important point is, they do not push something I do not want continuously. Don't want AI, turn it off, and it's not even there. My data is not being used to train some big LLM, or I am not counted as a product, is really important too.
Yeah, I hope they survive this messy shit, with the core that I have respect for. I hope they don't ruin that.
It's not nostalgia/pity. It's something I have use for.
And, also, it's kind of having a principle, my own. I have issues with corruption manifested by all of these AI corporations. It's an itch that I can't scratch, so I am trying my best to stay away from them.
It's not JetBrains is good and all. But, they're not worse, yet.
Oh look another account created only 12 minutes old doom posting. Getting tired of the unhinged and provocative commentary written by people or bots with ulterior motives.
Why feel bad about it though? If they're unable to innovate and they're stuck in their old ways, and they cannot find/advertise the benefits of either paths by using their products, why would it need to still be around? Isn't this the reason capitalism exist in the first place, the good get rewarded and the bad eventually fold?
rbehrends 23 hours ago
As a point of comparison, Zed does the agentic side panel overall better (though still not perfectly), but Zed is still by its nature more limited than e.g. PyCharm or CLion or RustRover or Rider.
KronisLV 23 hours ago
That said, I bet that’s how eventually we’ll end up with actually good ADEs (and a bunch of dead projects), by taking what works and changing or discarding what doesn’t - for example GitKraken Kepler has a really nice ticketing system integration but also the older versions I’ve tried had vibe slopped UI.
If nothing else, competition should push everyone who is capable to keep up to do better. It is kind of a bummer sometimes, though - I also wanted their Fleet to succeed, but that was before Zed became really good.
ethbr1 19 hours ago
Without having to tackle those hard and time-consuming tasks of strategy, integration, etc.
t_mahmood 23 hours ago
But, they still have a solid IDE, they just need to figure out what they can do without losing that edge.
I am all for experiments, that's where all the innovations comes from. But don't push VSCode bullshit on me. If I wanted to use that shit, I would use NVIM/Vim. But not VSCode.
Timon3 22 hours ago
Which one exactly? I used to love Webstorm and Rider, but there were so many workflow-breaking bugs in each new release of Webstorm that I switched to VS Code. I still use Rider, but I've stopped my All Products subscription, because new releases usually decreased the amount of well-working features (and new features often didn't work at all).
Around 2022 I'd have agreed 100%, but these days not so much.
bulbar 4 hours ago
Their IDEs are still better than VS. I personally also wouldn't want to resort to VS Code with independent extensions.
lbreakjai 22 hours ago
t_mahmood 22 hours ago
Timon3 22 hours ago
hn_throw2025 20 hours ago
t_mahmood 22 hours ago
It has full Rust, Java, Python, Web stack, things that I work with.
There were few issues here and there occasionally, but last few months I have not faced any issues, and it's been really robust. It gets slow with LLM providers running in the background on my 7 year old laptop though. But on desktop it flies.
t_mahmood 22 hours ago
Timon3 21 hours ago
One example: In August 2024, new Vue projects stopped working correctly with Webstorm - not terrible on it's own, stuff can happen. The issue was reported on August 19th[0]. Someone posted a workaround, and on August 29th, they announced that a future version will fix the issue.
That future version was released on October 23rd[1]. In the intervening two months there was no indication in Webstorm that the LSP crashing was a known issue with a workaround. Users just had to search for the issue, stumble upon the thread, and manually update the component. They couldn't release this tiny version bump for two months, or at least add a link to the issue thread.
This would be fine if Webstorm were free, but it's pretty freaking expensive, and I didn't get any money back for the product being defective for 1/6th of the year.
[0]: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WEB-68756/Vue-LS-2.x-Co...
[1]: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/articles/WEB-A-233538543/WebS...
t_mahmood 21 hours ago
So many years I couldn't use Gnome properly because of an NVIDIA bug. We paid handsomely for our GPU, and they give a shit about us.
Timon3 20 hours ago
In the end, I'd love to see Jetbrains pull themselves together and return to their former glory. But I don't know if I'll ever give them another chance since their pricing structure heavily punishes unsubscribing. Since the bugs pushed me over that ledge, it'd seem that they should offer lower prices, not higher ones!
bulbar 4 hours ago
Sad to see that perspective. Many companies (at least in Germany) punish you for sticking with them.
Jetbrains is that rare company, where the important long term customers are rewarding by giving them a discount.
bulbar 4 hours ago
They need to figure out what make sense here in terms of a product. I rather have a somewhat fragmented ecosystem right now than no relevant product from JetBrains whatsoever.
pqb 23 hours ago
The have also the Junie [0] alongside their "AI Chat" within the Jebrains IDEs.
[0]: https://junie.jetbrains.com/
brabel 23 hours ago
rbehrends 23 hours ago
sparkling 23 hours ago
rbehrends 23 hours ago
Example: https://gist.github.com/rbehrends/4d9febe5c5c008961b309dd4a6...
The "Install From ACP Registry ..." allow you to use pi, OpenCode, Kilo Code, Cline, Cursor, Copilot (and a ton of other agents that I've never heard of) if you want.
PippaSedai 1 day ago
They have to try to push this stuff out to survive but none of it is innovative. Not sure why anyone would pay for this when it can be one-shot with a single good prompt. Sure, it looks fancy but I never cared about that.
raincole 1 day ago
I have been a paying user for about a decade. Ironically, when I recommended their products to vim/emacs users, they usually were like "thanks, but I know vim/emacs will always exist", and now I realize they really had a point.
abhi_kr 23 hours ago
raincole 23 hours ago
But vscode and vim do this just as well (in my experience). JetBrains products' advantages over the most lightweight solutions for me are:
- Faster intellisense at least for C# and Java
- Faster syntax errors and other linting-warnings
- Refactor tools
- Debugger and stack state viewer
I still use Rider, but I just don't think faster intellisense/linting matters to me nowadays. Refactor tools feel like something that should come with harnesses. The debugger still helps, but to be honest LLMs are better at debugging than me if you let them dump whatever information they need.
Plus, even with LLMs' help, making and managing a plugin for Rider is a much heavier process than the counterparts for vim/vscode.
bni 22 hours ago
Then there is the DataGrip stuff, I use it all the time.
And the HTTP client (.http files!) is also good. It has built in scripting.
Notice here that none of these activities is writing code.
This enhances the understanding of what I am building with the agents. I’m sure the lazy dev will just skip this and will never see any of this, just let Claude completely take over.
__jonas 23 hours ago
stephbook 23 hours ago
t_mahmood 23 hours ago
tomjen3 23 hours ago
Just like it was inefficient for me to manually rename variables and classes, it's token inefficient for my agent to do that.
t_mahmood 22 hours ago
Want to add an additional parameter without creating a thousands of error? Change signature, Extract a part of code to another function? Extract Method.
People are taking these small, but extremely useful conveniences, without waiting, without paying for tokens, for granted.
RunSet 23 hours ago
I don't, since I read their privacy policy[0] before deciding to never use their software. Might I add: VSCodium[1] exists.
[0] https://www.jetbrains.com/legal/docs/privacy/privacy/
[1] https://vscodium.com/
bulbar 4 hours ago
t_mahmood 23 hours ago
I have been a paid user for 12+ years. Things got difficult more me this year, but I still renewed, because it's that important a tool for me. And, probably, this is just the hill I die on, owning something, that can't be whisked away at someone else's whim.
Obviously, they are still a corporate, but, until now they've respected me as a consumer unlike many other corporations. I value that.
They have their issues. But, which application does not?!
Their Git merge UI, is just top-notch. And keeps on improving I might use another coding agent, once JetBrain's credit runs out, but I review, and make all minor changes through the IDE
Project management is just a bliss.
Working with multi-language project? No IDE can manage this how good JetBrains does.
VIM binding is just so good, I don't miss VIM editor.
And the most important point is, they do not push something I do not want continuously. Don't want AI, turn it off, and it's not even there. My data is not being used to train some big LLM, or I am not counted as a product, is really important too.
Yeah, I hope they survive this messy shit, with the core that I have respect for. I hope they don't ruin that.
sparkling 23 hours ago
t_mahmood 22 hours ago
And, also, it's kind of having a principle, my own. I have issues with corruption manifested by all of these AI corporations. It's an itch that I can't scratch, so I am trying my best to stay away from them.
It's not JetBrains is good and all. But, they're not worse, yet.
lloydatkinson 23 hours ago
PippaSedai 21 hours ago
I’ve used JetBrains products for at least 15 years and this is my genuine opinion. At least what I commented actually contributed to the topic?
embedding-shape 1 day ago