It’s interesting to see how JetBrains is approaching the AI space with Junie. Having used both JetBrains IDEs and VS Code, there is a clear difference in the philosophy behind their AI tools. Most of the AI extensions I’ve used in VS Code, like GitHub Copilot, Roocode, and Cline feel like a supercharged autocomplete, though they keep improving by the day with new updates.
Junie, on the other hand, feels less like a pair programmer and more like a dedicated agent. It’s designed to take on larger, multi-step tasks. I’ve found that it’s not just about writing code; it’s about understanding the entire project. For instance, you can tell it to “create a full CRUD API” and it will go and do just that, creating all the necessary files, models, controllers, and services, all on its own. This is a big departure from the typical VS Code extension, where you’d have to prompt the AI for each file or component individually.
Another thing I’ve found to be a unique feature is the ability to create guidelines.md files. This lets you specify your team’s coding conventions, preferred libraries, and project structure. Junie then follows these rules when generating code, which is a big help for maintaining consistency across a project. It’s a level of control that I haven’t seen in other AI tools.
I have to say, Junie’s “Brave” mode, which lets it execute terminal commands, is a pretty cool feature. It’s a testament to how deeply integrated it is within the JetBrains IDE environment. It feels like a genuine extension of the IDE’s core functionality.
Of course, the one limitation for me is that Junie is currently exclusive to JetBrains’ paid IDEs. As a long-time user of VS Code, I can’t help but hope that JetBrains will eventually make this agentic functionality available as an extension for VS Code. I’m aware there’s a JetBrains AI Assistant extension already, but it doesn’t have the full, multi-step capabilities of Junie. But the existence of that extension gives me hope that one day Junie’s full power would be available in my preferred editor. Until then, it remains a compelling reason to consider using a JetBrains IDE for larger, more complex projects.