REVIEWS / DEVELOPER TOOLS / OWNER INSIGHTS
🦉 WE READ 118 OWNER COMMENTS
JetBrains Fleet: what owners actually say
Owners were drawn to Fleet's promise of a lightweight, multi-language editor but instead found a sluggish, plugin-less tool that JetBrains has now killed.
What owners complain about
- Sluggish despite 'lightweight' promise COMMON
Multiple users report Fleet was slow to start—even with smart mode disabled—and laggy for a bare text editor; one commenter said it 'competes with Electron apps' and others noted it launched slower than VS Code loaded with extensions.
- No plugin/extension ecosystem COMMON
Fleet did not support custom (non-bundled) plugins for most of its life, leaving users unable to install even popular add-ons like a Vim plugin without manual workarounds; lack of extensions is cited as a key reason developers lost interest.
- Product abandoned COMMON
JetBrains announced Fleet will be discontinued after Dec 22, 2025, with minimal updates in the months prior; users express frustration and disappointment that the product they invested hope in is being scrapped for an 'agentic development' focus.
- Not feature-complete for serious work SOME
Commenters note Fleet wasn't a viable alternative to full IntelliJ/JetBrains IDEs—missing features and robustness needed for professional development—and say existing JetBrains users wouldn't look for a tool like Fleet.
- Remote development latency/control concerns SOME
Several users express discomfort with remote/cloud IDE models, citing latency and erosion of tool ownership; some note JetBrains' remote editing was already clunky before Fleet.
What owners love
- Strong concept for remote and collaborative coding
Some users appreciated the vision of a cloud-connected, collaborative IDE that could run a backend on a remote server and feel nearly local, addressing increased remote development needs since COVID.
- Useful for cross-language projects
One user praised Fleet for multi-language work (Python plus C++, Java, PHP, TypeScript) where individual JetBrains IDEs have bugs or missing features for non-primary languages.
- Thoughtful design philosophy
A commenter commended JetBrains for analyzing what makes VS Code successful and thoughtfully incorporating those ideas rather than doing a mindless clone.
- Fair JetBrains licensing terms
Users note the individual subscription pricing is reasonable (around $150/year to start), with loyalty discounts, offline keys, and clear renewal notices, making it feel fair.
Surprising patterns
- Fleet was originally built for Kotlin Multiplatform development before being repositioned as a VS Code competitor, according to one commenter.
- Several users who were initially hopeful about Fleet ended up switching to Zed editor, which they describe as delivering the fast, lightweight experience Fleet failed to achieve.
- JetBrains salvaged Fleet's UI work by adopting its theme language (Islands) as the default new theme for the 2025.3 versions of their other IDEs.
- Some users only discovered Fleet after hearing about its cancellation, indicating extremely low visibility during its active development.
WHO SHOULD SKIP IT
Developers who need a stable, long-term lightweight editor with a rich extension ecosystem should skip Fleet, as it is being discontinued, never gained meaningful plugin support, and multiple owners report it failed to deliver on its speed or feature-completeness promises.
Synthesised from 118 real owner comments across 4 platforms. Every point is grounded in the comments — no marketing, no AI guessing. How we do it →