JetBrains Fleet was first announced back in 2021 as a built from scratch alternative to their existing IDE product line (including IntelliJ IDEA, Rider, CLion, WebStorm and more). It was clearly a response to the exploding popularity of Visual Studio Code. Built on a completely different code base and with a brand-new UI/UX, Fleet also competed directly with JetBrains existing product line, which lead to some confusion. The end result:
Fleet started as our attempt to explore a new generation of JetBrains IDEs, developed in parallel with those based on the IntelliJ Platform. Over time, we learned that having two general-purpose IDE families created confusion and diluted our focus. Rebuilding the full capabilities of IntelliJ-based IDEs inside Fleet did not create enough value, and positioning Fleet as yet another editor did not justify maintaining two overlapping product lines.
Starting December 22, 2025, Fleet will no longer be available for download. We are now building a new product focused on agentic development.
While Fleet as it exists is going away, the product itself is apparently being refactored for a new purpose:
While we worked on AI within the editor, a new development workflow began to take shape. Developers started delegating meaningful tasks to agents – updating tests, cleaning code, refactoring modules, exploring unfamiliar code paths, and even building new features. These tasks run asynchronously and return full patches. The developer doesn’t write the code themselves. They guide the agent and review its output. This is fundamentally different from the classic IDE workflow, which is based on immediate feedback, synchronous control, and a single stable local state.
The agentic loop relies on structured task definition, context assembly, multiple asynchronous runs, isolated execution, and review-first workflows. Combining them in a single tool results in a disjointed experience, so the Fleet team chose to stop competing with IDEs and code editors and instead build a product focused on agentic workflows. This led to a pivot to a new product: an agentic development environment. Based on the Fleet platform, this new environment will ship as a new product with a new name. The technology, team, and long-term direction continue – but the product identity and the target market evolve.
Honestly, this sounds like the source of the exact same problems that ultimately resulted from the creation of Fleet in the first place! I suppose only time will tell.
Key Links
If you are interested in checking out Fleet before it goes away, hurry, as you will only have until Dec 22nd to download the application. If you want to learn more about Fleet and its cancellation, check out our video below.