New JetBrains RustRover IDE: Quick Start for Developers

New IDE with Rust Support: First Look at RustRover

The Rust ecosystem continues to develop rapidly, and now developers have another powerful tool. JetBrains, known for its development environments for Java (IntelliJ IDEA) and Python (PyCharm), has released RustRover — a dedicated IDE fully tailored for Rust. Previously, Rust support was available as a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, but now it is a standalone product that promises to become an indispensable assistant for Rust developers.

In this article, we will look at the key features of RustRover that make it attractive for both beginners and experienced developers.

Key Features of RustRover

• Smart autocomplete and code analysis — the IDE understands Rust semantics, offers correct completions for methods, structs, and traits, and warns about potential errors on the fly.
• Built-in debugger — full debugging support with breakpoints, variable inspection, and call stack. Works with both native and WebAssembly (WASM).
• Integration with Cargo — dependency management, building, and testing directly from the interface. RustRover automatically picks up Cargo.toml and synchronizes changes.
• Refactoring — symbol renaming, function extraction, module moving, and other operations safe for Rust's strict type system.
• WebAssembly (WASM) support — special project templates for building to WebAssembly, simplifying frontend tool development in Rust.

Why is this important?

Rust is renowned for its performance and memory safety, but its learning curve remains steep. RustRover addresses this by offering visual hints about reference lifetimes, automatic fixes for common errors, and convenient code navigation. For example, when working with closures and iterators, the IDE suggests types, which is especially useful for beginners.

Additionally, RustRover supports popular frameworks such as Actix-web, Rocket, and Tokio, providing snippets and templates for a quick start. This significantly speeds up writing server applications, network utilities, and parallel computations.

How to get started?

Installing RustRover does not require complex setup. Simply download the distribution from the official JetBrains website, specify the path to the installed Rust compiler (rustc) and the Cargo package manager. The IDE will automatically detect the toolchain and offer to create a new project or import an existing one. For WebAssembly, you will additionally need to install wasm-pack.

Currently, RustRover is available in Early Access Program for free. After the release, a paid subscription is planned, but a free license will be available for educational purposes and open-source projects.

Summary

RustRover is a significant step forward for the Rust community. It combines the power of JetBrains IDEs with the specifics of the language, making development more convenient and productive. Whether you are learning Rust or already using it in commercial projects, it is worth trying this environment today.

Stay tuned for updates on PythonLib — we will publish detailed guides on working with RustRover and comparisons