JetBrains Air
Ranked 5 of 9 AI code editors by recommenders
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.
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.
34 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 21
- approval share
- 38%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works with any agent, locally or remotely
“You can use any agent you want, they can work locally, in separate worktrees, or remotely”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025” “a bet on multi-vendor is something that speaks sanity to me”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” Speeds coding without giving up control
“I've been enjoying using Air inside the IDE as a way to get the acceleration without giving up coding.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “I still want the deterministic side, even in cases where I'm letting the machine do the work.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” Good agentic coding harness
“JetBrains Air is a great agentic coding harness”
Comment from 29 Aug 2026 in “Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX” “it's quite nic for agentic coding”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “OpenChamber: An Agentic Development Environment” Useful for some tasks
“I've been greatly enjoying jetbrain's air IDE for some tasks.”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Claude Managed Agents Overview” “I like what we're doing with JetBrains Air.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No Claude subscription support
“Authentication with Claude Pro/Max/Team plans is not permitted by Anthropic’s Terms of Service”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “air seems super meh and not being able to leverage a plans allowances makes it a non starter”
Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “No integration to Claude subscriptions seems like it probably makes dead in the water”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” - Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”
Cannot add other AI providers
“the choice of AI providers was very limited, and I found no ways to add the ones I use”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “I mean the OpenAI API integration but on a different hostname, like another URL that is OpenAI compatible”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “not being able to plug this into eg. OpenRouter or a local agent is a bummer”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” Little edge over Cursor and rivals
“where's the moat? It seems like just another Cursor/Antigravity.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “I did not see any immediate advantages in Air over the Codex application”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development” “Their biggest AI attempt – Air – was way worse than Conductor”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025” Feature-incomplete, not yet mature
“They now have both Air and ThinkRail in a feature-incomplete state”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “ThinkRail from JetBrains” “The bad experiences all so far have been smoke-test-level issues.”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”
Other AI code editors people recommend
The four most recommended other AI code editors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor | 853 | 820 | 51% | 13 | 1 yr65 owners | — |
| Google Antigravity | 337 | 576 | 37% | 13 | 1 mo26 owners | — |
| Windsurf | 42 | 27 | 61% | 10 | — | — |
| AWS Kiro | 36 | 37 | 49% | 11 | — | — |
| JetBrains AirThis page | 13 | 21 | 38% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
39 of the 43 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they all look basically identical”
“I think they said they will discontinue Air”
“Thought they were going that way with Air, until they killed it yet again.”
“I tried Air before and found it underwhelming.”
“They now have both Air and ThinkRail in a feature-incomplete state”
“Their biggest AI attempt – Air – was way worse than Conductor”
“we have such product already, you can try it here”
“they have refused to support elixir which is my daily driver language”
“You can use any agent you want, they can work locally, in separate worktrees, or remotely”
“It was alright, but I found it a bit more cumbersome to use then Pi.”
“don't control the key aspects of the tech which is a deal breaker for most”
“air seems super meh and not being able to leverage a plans allowances makes it a non starter”
“AIR looks interesting, but I can't say this is the "AI IDE moment" yet.”
“The fact this requires dedicated API keys makes it a no go at both home and work.”
“I mean the OpenAI API integration but on a different hostname, like another URL that is OpenAI compatible”
“I don't have high confidence in Air.”
“No integration to Claude subscriptions seems like it probably makes dead in the water”
“Authentication with Claude Pro/Max/Team plans is not permitted by Anthropic’s Terms of Service”
“the push to PaaS is not performing as well in my opinion”
“Sorry, but unless you can use a subscription then I can't afford to use your tool.”
“the choice of AI providers was very limited, and I found no ways to add the ones I use”
“The bad experiences all so far have been smoke-test-level issues.”
“I like what we're doing with JetBrains Air.”
“I'm happy about our Air launch because we're being AI "realists"”
“It's re-imagined for this hybrid world.”
“I still want the deterministic side, even in cases where I'm letting the machine do the work.”
“I've been enjoying using Air inside the IDE as a way to get the acceleration without giving up coding.”
“I don't think it will be successful.”
“a bet on multi-vendor is something that speaks sanity to me”
“No support for my Claude subscription”
“where's the moat? It seems like just another Cursor/Antigravity.”
“not being able to plug this into eg. OpenRouter or a local agent is a bummer”
“I did not see any immediate advantages in Air over the Codex application”
“they have work to do to get it out of preview”
“If only they would update it to work with their remote development kit”
“JetBrains Air is a great agentic coding harness”
“it's quite nic for agentic coding”
“as a JetBrains customer I've been waiting for JetBrains to show what a good Agentic IDE should look like”
“I've been greatly enjoying jetbrain's air IDE for some tasks.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.