Copilot's JetBrains Plugin Is Garbage - Here's What Actually Works

Look, Copilot works great in VS Code. In IntelliJ? It's garbage. Takes 3+ seconds for suggestions, crashes during demos, suggests imports that don't exist.

The JetBrains Plugin is Hot Garbage

Response times that make you want to punch your monitor: In VS Code, Copilot suggestions appear instantly. In IntelliJ IDEA? 2-3 seconds on a good day, sometimes 10+ seconds when the servers are having a bad time. I timed it because I'm that petty, and others report similar issues. The Reddit community confirms the plugin is painfully slow, and GitHub discussions show it's using absurd amounts of memory.

Context awareness is non-existent in large projects: Working on a 400-file Spring Boot app, Copilot would suggest variables that didn't exist and imports from the wrong packages. It's like it could only see the current file and maybe one import statement - a known limitation that developers complain about.

Random crashes during demos: Nothing more embarrassing than showing a client your "AI-powered development workflow" and having Copilot shit the bed mid-presentation. Happened twice in Q3 2025.

The final straw: They added premium request limits. Hit my limit by 3pm every day during crunch time. The new billing model charges $0.04 per request after 300/month, turning $10/month into $15-20 depending on usage.

Found better options that don't suck:

• Cursor: Actually works well, but you abandon your IDE
• Codeium: Free, surprisingly good, with better performance than Copilot for many use cases
• JetBrains AI: Costs extra but response time under 1 second

What Actually Broke My Patience

Multi-file refactoring is a joke: Needed to update JWT stuff across a bunch of files. Copilot generated imports that didn't exist and suggested methods from the wrong version. Spent hours fixing its "helpful" suggestions.

Rate limiting during crunch: Hit my limit by 3pm every day when I actually needed it. Productivity tanked.

Model lottery: They added better models but you can't choose which one handles what. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes garbage.

The Alternatives That Don't Suck

Cursor actually works: Switched to Cursor mid-year. Can see my whole codebase, multi-file edits work. You have to switch editors though.

Continue.dev if you hate easy setup: Continue.dev is free and works with any model. Setup took me a weekend because their docs suck. Once it works, it's pretty good.

JetBrains AI if you're stuck: If you can't leave IntelliJ, JetBrains AI Assistant works better than Copilot's plugin. Costs extra but at least it's fast.

Privacy Stuff

Legal team freaked out: Company doesn't want code leaving our network. Copilot sends stuff to Microsoft, triggered a long review process.

Continue.dev with local models: Runs on your hardware. Setup was hell - spent a weekend getting CodeLlama working. But legal approved it fast, and no code leaves the building.

Tabnine wanted too much: $75k/year for our team. Fuck that.

When to Switch

JetBrains users: The plugin performance alone is reason enough. Try JetBrains AI Assistant first or Codeium if you're cheap.

You hit rate limits: If you code all day and burn through requests, alternatives with unlimited usage make sense.

Multi-file refactoring: Cursor can actually do this, Copilot can't.

When to Stay

VS Code users: Copilot works fine here. No real reason to switch unless you want to save money.

GitHub-native teams: The integration with Issues/PRs is pretty good.

Anyway, I switched because IntelliJ performance was garbage. If Copilot works for you, cool. But if it doesn't, there are options that don't suck.

Codeium (couple hours)

Downloaded plugin, signed up, worked immediately. Suggestions were more conservative than Copilot but response time was way better.

After a week I was back to normal productivity. Still using Codeium months later. Multiple reviews confirm it's a solid free alternative.

Continue.dev (entire weekend)

Wanted local models for work compliance. The docs are shit, spent forever getting CodeLlama working in Docker with Ollama. Amazing once set up but painful.

Still use Continue.dev for sensitive projects. The setup tutorials exist but assume you know what you're doing.

Team switch

Convinced 3 devs to try Codeium. They bitched for a week about shortcuts then admitted it was faster. Took 3 months for everyone to switch.

Saved $2k/year, spent it on better monitoring instead.

What Actually Matters

Shortcuts: Most use Tab to accept like Copilot. Not a big deal.

Speed: Test with your real codebase in your actual IDE. JetBrains vs VS Code performance is different.

Context: Cursor sees your whole codebase, Copilot doesn't.

Bottom Line

VS Code happy: Don't switch.

JetBrains slow: Try Codeium or JetBrains AI.

Multi-file edits: Only Cursor really works.

Privacy paranoid: Continue.dev with local models.

It's not about finding perfect - it's about finding something that doesn't piss you off. Most alternatives cost less and work fine.