JetBrains RustRover

What hackers pick instead

• JetBrains IDEsLong-time developers praise JetBrains IDEs for deep code intelligence, refactoring, navigation and debugging, but critics cite heavy resource use, buggy recent updates and clumsy AI integration.233recommend
• IntelliJ IDEAThe go-to IDE for Java and Kotlin, praised for built-in refactoring, code navigation and JVM debugging; the common complaint is heavy memory and resource use.206recommend
• Microsoft Visual StudioA full Windows IDE praised for its powerful C++ and C# debugger, code navigation and productive WinForms tooling, though many find it slow, bloated and pushy with Copilot.165recommend
• DelphiRecommended for building native Windows desktop apps very quickly with a visual drag-and-drop designer, though critics complain about aggressive licensing and a company that lost its way.126recommend
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Every quote

The 29 most detailed of 34 comments. Each links to the original.

1. I'm running intellij (RustRover) right now, and its sitting on about 4.5gb of ram. That still seems very inefficient to me.

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

2. It's often just faster to do that, especially with an IDE which allows for quick non linear navigation through the files

   Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”

3. Just debugging rust for example is a night and day difference between vscode and rust rover.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “VS Code deactivates IntelliCode in favor of the paid Copilot”

4. the only thing they have a stronglehold over is their amazing rust analyzer in rustrover

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Claude Code gets native LSP support”

5. I still love RustRover and PyCharm! Switching to anything else would be a big downgrade.

   Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”

6. RustRover is a slow dog at times, but even it outperforms emacs for a lot of things

   Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs”

7. Rustover is particularly helpful because of how rust is worked with

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product”

8. it's just 'Go to definition/implementation' every time from the IDE

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Lisette a little language inspired by Rust that compiles to Go”

9. RustRover are better for me

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

10. I ended up unable to get a working run configuration, or at least one that showed me anything at all

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “IDEmacs: A Visual Studio Code clone for Emacs”

11. slowed RustRover down to a crawl, where syntax highlighting couldn't keep up- it was unusable

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

12. it seems to start over rebuilding more things than when I edit something in vim

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Writing a blatant Telegram clone using Qt, QML and Rust. And C++”

13. They will bring a 9950x with nothing else running to a crawl.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”

14. IntelliJ (PyCharm/RustRover) turn it into a space heater

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Zed DeltaDB”

15. it's been a huge disappointment every time

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot”

16. It felt much slower than I remember

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

17. it's outright wrong half the time

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “No More JetBrains Products for Me”

18. an IDE is more than a text editor, so your claim that RustRover with 4.5GB of ram is inefficient is misguided

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code”

19. I've never seen it go above 2-3GiB of RAM, but I don't write the most complex of software in Rust.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “An Incoherent Rust”

20. it isn't unusual to have RustRover, Rider, Webstorm, and Intellij open at the same time

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “JetBrains Thinkrail”

21. do everything in RustRover. The compiling is decoupled from the editor.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “I switched from VSCode to Zed”

22. It is astonishing no other IDEs have offered direct competition.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development”

23. I was amazed to see IDEA/RustRover doing exactly this

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Text Rendering Hates You”

24. Jetbrains if on a sufficiently powerful PC.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “I switched from VSCode to Zed”

25. I have my laments about JB (PyCharm / RR)

    Mixed · Oct 2026 · in “JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025”

26. still use goland, rust rover, and clion

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “JetBrains cancels Fleet”

27. if RustRover made things worse and I fell back to rustacean.vim

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Claude Corps”

28. now they all feel outdated and unnecessary

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “JetBrains Thinkrail”

29. forced you to use their horrible new UI

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft”