New IDE with Rust Support: First Look at RustRover

New IDE with Rust Support: First Look at RustRover

The Rust ecosystem continues to actively develop, and JetBrains, known for its professional integrated development environments (IDEs), has introduced a new solution for Rust programmers — RustRover. Unlike the Rust plugin in IntelliJ IDEA, RustRover is a standalone, specialized IDE built from scratch for working with Rust. Today we share our first impressions of this tool.

What is RustRover?

RustRover is a commercial IDE from JetBrains focused exclusively on the Rust language. It is available in Early Access Program and has already attracted the attention of the community. The main advantage is deep integration with the language, without unnecessary features typical of universal environments.

Key Features

• Smart code autocompletion — the IDE understands Rust semantics, including closures, traits, and macros. It suggests only relevant options, speeding up code writing.
• Built-in Cargo support — dependency management, building, testing, and running directly from the interface. No need to switch to the terminal.
• Source-level debugging — RustRover uses an lldb-based debugger, supports breakpoints, variable inspection, and call stack. Works with both native and WebAssembly projects.
• Refactoring and navigation — symbol renaming, find usages, go to definition. All of this works lightning fast even in large projects.
• Real-time error analysis — syntax highlighting, type checking, and fix suggestions right while typing.

Performance and Interface

RustRover runs on the same engine as other JetBrains IDEs but is optimized for Rust. Project startup and code indexing are faster than in IntelliJ IDEA with the Rust plugin. The interface is minimalist: dark and light themes, customizable toolbar, built-in terminal. For beginners, there are built-in project templates — from console applications to libraries.

Integration with Rust Tools

The IDE is fully compatible with rustfmt (code formatting), clippy (static analysis), and rust-analyzer (language server). When opening a project, RustRover automatically checks for these tools and offers to install them if they are missing.

First Impressions

RustRover feels like a mature product, despite its early access status. It is stable, does not freeze on medium-sized projects, and offers all the necessary features for professional Rust development. The only downside is the price: after the EAP ends, the license will be paid. However, for those who work extensively with Rust, this is a justified investment.

How to Try It?

You can download RustRover from the official JetBrains website. We recommend installing it alongside other IDEs — it does not conflict with them. If you write in Rust regularly, RustRover will become your primary tool.

Stay tuned for updates on PythonLib — we will continue testing RustRover and sharing news from the Rust world!