Open Source in Focus: Projects We’re Proud to Support

Lena Morozova

At JetBrains, we love seeing the developer community grow and thrive. That’s why we support open-source projects that make a real difference — the ones that help developers learn, build, and create better software together. We’re proud to back open-source maintainers with free licenses and to contribute to initiatives that strengthen the ecosystem and the people behind it.

In this post, we highlight five open‑source projects from different ecosystems, written in established languages like Python and JavaScript or fast‑growing ones like Rust. Different as they are, each shares the same goal: elevating the developer experience. Together, they show how the right tools boost productivity and make workflows more enjoyable.

Ratatui

Born as the community-driven successor to the discontinued tui-rs library, Ratatui brings elegance to terminal UIs. It’s modular, ergonomic, and designed to help developers build interactive dashboards, widgets, and even embedded interfaces that go beyond the terminal.

JetBrains IDEs help me focus on the code rather than the tooling. They’re self-contained, so I don’t need to configure much to get started – they just work. With powerful code highlighting, automatic fixes, refactorings, and structural search, I can easily jump around the codebase and make edits.

— Orhun Parmaksız, Ratatui Core Maintainer

The upcoming 0.30.0 release focuses on modularity, splitting the main crate into smaller, independently usable packages. This change simplifies maintenance and makes it easier to use widgets in other contexts. And with new no_std support, Ratatui is expanding to power a wide range of use cases beyond the terminal.

Django

If Ratatui brings usability to the terminal, Django brings it to the web. Originally created in 2003 to meet both fast-paced newsroom deadlines and the demands of experienced developers, Django remains the go-to framework for “perfectionists with deadlines”. It eliminates repetitive tasks, enforces clean, pragmatic design, and provides built-in solutions for security, scalability, and database management – helping developers write less code and achieve more.

JetBrains IDEs, especially PyCharm, boost productivity with built-in Django support – including project templates, automatic settings detection, and model-to-database migrations – as well as integrated debugging and testing tools that simplify finding and fixing issues. The version control integration also makes it easier for contributors to refine and polish their work.

— Sarah Boyce, Django Fellow

Backed by a thriving global community, Django’s roadmap includes composite primary key support, built-in CSP integration, and a focus on making Django accessible by default. Every eight-month release delivers incremental improvements while maintaining backward compatibility – clear proof that long-term stability and innovation can coexist.

JHipster

Both Django and JHipster help developers move fast, but they take different paths. JHipster began as the “anti-mullet stack” – serious in the back, party in the front – created to help developers quickly bootstrap full-stack applications with Spring on the backend and Angular.js on the frontend. Today, it’s still one of the most comprehensive open-source generators, offering a complete full-stack solution with built-in security, performance, and best practices.

JHipster has always been about great productivity and great tooling, so naturally, we’ve always been IntelliJ IDEA fans – we even have our own JHipster IntelliJ IDEA plugin! What I love most is the clean UI, the performance, and all the plugins that make my life so much easier. I use Maven and Docker support all the time, and they’re both absolutely top-notch.

— Julien Dubois, JHipster Creator

The project is now split into two teams – JHipster Classic, which focuses on the original full-stack generator written in JavaScript, and JHipster Lite, which develops a modernized, DDD-oriented version written in Java and targeted primarily at the backend. This structure allows the community to experiment more freely and attract new contributors.

As AI-assisted generation evolves, JHipster’s mission remains the same: empowering developers with the latest cutting-edge technology and a true full-stack approach.

Biome

Once the structure is in place, consistency becomes the next challenge. That’s where Biome, a modern, all-in-one toolchain for maintaining web projects, comes in. It supports every major web language and maintains a consistent experience between the CLI and the editor. The goal of its creators was simple: make a tool that can handle everything from development to production, with fewer dependencies, less setup time, faster CI runs, and clear, helpful diagnostics.

I’m a long-term user of JetBrains IDEs! RustRover has greatly improved since launch – its debugging features and new JavaScript module mean I can maintain all Biome projects, even our Astro-based website, in a single IDE. It’s great that JetBrains really listens to users and their feedback.

— Emanuele Stoppa, Biome Creator

Biome’s roadmap includes adding Markdown support, type inference, .d.ts file generation, JSDoc support, and embedded-language support. As a community-led project, Biome welcomes contributions of all kinds – every bit of help makes a difference.

Vuestic UI

When it’s time to polish the frontend, Vuestic UI takes over. This open-source project focuses on accessibility, theming, and a delightful developer experience. Built for Vue 3, it offers a flexible, easy-to-use component library that scales effortlessly from quick prototypes to enterprise-grade dashboards.

The right development environment makes a huge difference when building complex open-source tools like Vuestic UI and Vuestic Admin. Our team relies on JetBrains IDEs every day for their best-in-class refactoring tools that let us make bold changes with confidence, fast and reliable code navigation, and rock-solid performance. Most of what we need works right out of the box – no extra plugins or setup required. For us, JetBrains isn’t just a preference – it’s a productivity multiplier.

— Maxim Kobetz, Senior Vue.js Developer

After 12 years in frontend development, WebStorm – along with IntelliJ IDEA and PyCharm – has always been my trusted toolkit. Even now, when I’m not coding every day, I know I can rely on WebStorm for quick tweaks – every update feels smooth and never disrupts my workflow. It’s intuitive, beautiful, and just works the way I expect it to.

I know switching IDEs is always a time sink, but with JetBrains, it’s absolutely worth it – you’ll never want to switch again.

— Anastasiia Zvenigorodskaia, Community Manager at Vuestic UI & Viuestic Admin

These projects showcase a common truth: Great developer experience happens when tools get out of your way. With JetBrains IDEs enhancing everything from code navigation to collaboration, these teams turn ideas into usable, elegant tools.

Whether you’re crafting a command-line tool, prototyping a web service, or polishing a UI library, these tools highlight a shared goal – making development faster, more intuitive, and more enjoyable. Explore them, contribute if you can, and keep shaping the kind of developer experience you’d want for yourself.

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