# JetBrains Air

13 Hacker News commenters recommended JetBrains Air and 21 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People like it as an agentic coding harness that works in the IDE with any agent, locally or remotely. Common caveat: no Claude subscription or other AI provider support.

## Why people recommend it

- Works with any agent, locally or remotely (2 comments): "You can use any agent you want, they can work locally, in separate worktrees, or remotely" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49979985)) "a bet on multi-vendor is something that speaks sanity to me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800144))
- Speeds coding without giving up control (2 comments): "I've been enjoying using Air inside the IDE as a way to get the acceleration without giving up coding." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800609)) "I still want the deterministic side, even in cases where I'm letting the machine do the work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800660))
- Good agentic coding harness (2 comments): "JetBrains Air is a great agentic coding harness" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487660)) "it's quite nic for agentic coding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234594))
- Useful for some tasks (2 comments): "I've been greatly enjoying jetbrain's air IDE for some tasks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47700164)) "I like what we're doing with JetBrains Air." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800835))

## What people warn about

- No Claude subscription support (4 comments): "Authentication with Claude Pro/Max/Team plans is not permitted by Anthropic’s Terms of Service" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803240)) "air seems super meh and not being able to leverage a plans allowances makes it a non starter" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49886087)) "No integration to Claude subscriptions seems like it probably makes dead in the water" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803263))
- Cannot add other AI providers (3 comments): "the choice of AI providers was very limited, and I found no ways to add the ones I use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49801791)) "I mean the OpenAI API integration but on a different hostname, like another URL that is OpenAI compatible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812556)) "not being able to plug this into eg. OpenRouter or a local agent is a bummer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799724))
- Little edge over Cursor and rivals (3 comments): "where's the moat? It seems like just another Cursor/Antigravity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799974)) "I did not see any immediate advantages in Air over the Codex application" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799662)) "Their biggest AI attempt – Air – was way worse than Conductor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49981145))
- Feature-incomplete, not yet mature (2 comments): "They now have both Air and ThinkRail in a feature-incomplete state" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50219882)) "The bad experiences all so far have been smoke-test-level issues." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800989))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Windsurf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windsurf.md): 42 recommend
- [AWS Kiro](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kiro.md): 36 recommend
- [ThinkRail by JetBrains](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-thinkrail.md): 11 recommend
- [Zed Delta](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zed-delta.md): 9 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.jetbrains.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "JetBrains Air", https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-air/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).