JetBrains releases RustRover IDE for Rust development

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

RustRover Reception

  • Many commenters find RustRover (and JetBrains IDEs in general) polished, powerful, and especially good for Rust in large or complex projects (e.g., nested Cargo workspaces).
  • A few report specific issues, like a broken profiling “jump to source,” but overall experience is described as strong.
  • Some users switched from RustRover to lighter editors (Zed, Helix, etc.) mainly to “live inside” tools that are themselves Rust or more minimal, not because RustRover is bad.

VS Code and Other Editors

  • VS Code with rust-analyzer is widely praised as “IDE-like” and often sufficient, especially for mixed Rust + web repos.
  • Complaints focus on Electron’s memory usage; one person reports extreme RAM/swap usage, others suspect extensions or long uptimes.
  • Neovim, Helix, and similar editors are promoted for speed, configurability, and LSP/Tree-sitter integration; others push back that reaching JetBrains-level functionality requires substantial setup and ongoing maintenance.

Multi-language / Rust + Web Support

  • There is frustration that RustRover removed JavaScript/TypeScript support to keep those behind paid JetBrains products.
  • Some argue this leaves no single JetBrains IDE that “seamlessly” supports Rust + modern web in one place, though others counter that IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate with the new Rust plugin plus web plugins works fine.
  • Mixed-language monorepos (Rust backend + TS/JS frontend, C#/Vue, Java/npm, etc.) are a recurring use case; VS Code is seen as handling this gracefully, JetBrains as more hit-or-miss depending on product and setup.

Licensing, Pricing, and Product Mix

  • RustRover has a “free for non-commercial use” license; some welcome this, others dislike the fragmentation across many paid IDEs.
  • Several wish for modular, per-language pricing instead of needing the “all products pack” for occasional use of extra languages.
  • Others argue the all-products pricing is inexpensive relative to developer salaries and offers excellent ROI.

Fleet and Future Direction

  • Fleet is discussed as a possible unified, modular IDE with better remote dev and multi-language story; it’s in long-running preview but still actively developed.
  • Some hope Fleet will replace today’s many separate JetBrains IDEs; current state (including Vim-mode quality) is viewed as not yet ready by several commenters.

Telemetry and Privacy

  • The non-commercial RustRover build has mandatory anonymous usage statistics; this is controversial.
  • Some question GDPR compliance and whether data is truly anonymous (e.g., installation IDs, IPs).
  • A JetBrains representative in the thread claims GDPR compliance and no personal information, but technical details remain unclear to skeptics.

Tooling Philosophy & Workflow

  • One camp emphasizes “just works” IDEs with strong refactoring, debugging, and cross-language consistency.
  • Another values lightweight, scriptable editors, accepting higher configuration and breakage risk in exchange for control and minimalism.
  • There’s mild culture clash over reliance on heavy IDEs vs. command line and traditional Unix-like workflows.