JetBrains Space: Everything You Need To Know
You’re a developer. And, you find development environments hard to create, manage and collaborate. You’re not alone.
Creating, managing, and collaborating through a development environment on large-scale projects has always been a challenge.
JetBrains aims to solve the problem by providing an online collaborative platform for teams. This all-in-one solution ensures you complete everything from a central solution without leaving it.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at JetBrains Space. We start by learning more about its user interface, impact on collaboration, ability to manage issues and projects, etc.
Let’s get started.
What is JetBrains Space?
JetBrains Space is a tool for teams that facilitates collaboration among team members. With complete access to the toolchain, teams can complete project, team, and software management. Moreover, it thrives on providing full transparency to the whole process with features such as blogs, documents, issue trackers, chat, etc.
For collaboration, Space comes with full Git Hosting support. Once you set up your project, you can invite and onboard team members in no time. Space supports CI/CD pipelines, package management code reviews, and automation.
And, if you’re a JetBrains IDE user, you can enjoy seamless Space integration with JetBrains IDE, enabling you to use all the IDE’s capabilities to develop software.
Also, JetBrains Space is a versatile project management solution that you can use for multiple use cases. These include software development, game development, app development, and so on.
JetBrains also offers the JetBrains Space Desktop app for convenience.
JetBrains Space Features
JetBrains Space is a feature-rich development platform. It offers a wide range of features, from excellent Git hosting to carrying out team collaboration tasks or deploying new development environments in minutes.
Let’s look at Space features below.
#1. User Interface and Customizability
Space offers an intuitive user interface for its users. If you’re unsure about its user interface or feature, you can always try it before buying any subscription.
You’ll notice a simple yet intuitive dark-theme dashboard as soon as you sign up (either creating your organization or joining your existing JetBrains organizations).
You can also change the theme or the sidebar’s position according to your choice. The bottom right section of the dashboard lets you customize your dashboard from the get-go.
The main menu is located on the left-hand side of the dashboard. At the top, you have two big blue buttons that let you create or import a new repository.
Below that, you have Issue Boards (where all issues are listed), Documents (create noteworthy pages to track information in your project), People (list all the people along with their profile information), and Settings.
Under more settings, you get Code Reviews, Jobs, Dev Environments, Deployments, and Packages (more on each of them later).
And most importantly, you’ll notice that you can create a new development environment at the top right of the screen.
The sidebar is entirely customizable, where you can hide or show the features available at any time.
You can customize the dashboard, which lets you arrange the dashboard elements such as code reviews, project members, etc.
And, if you want to customize the project settings more, you’ll need to go to “Settings” on the sidebar, which opens up options such as Info, Access, Webhooks, Responsibilities, etc.
Overall, JetBrains Space offers an excellent user interface. It has minimal yet valuable options available. Furthermore, you can customize the sidebar and dashboard as you like.
#2. Manage Git Repositories
JetBrains Space lets you manage git repositories directly from the dashboard. You can start with either creating a repository or importing a Git repository. Once a Git repository is created/imported, you get all branches. You can edit or browse the code or look into commits to learn more about it. The best part is that it works seamlessly with JetBrains IDEs.
#3. Automate CI/CD Pipelines
Space lets you automate CI/CD pipelines, which is essential for the success of your project. You can build, test, and deploy your projects as a developer. You’ll need to use the script file using a domain-specific language (Kotlin-based) to automate. Once scripts are ready, you can use the Automaton UI to visualize Script results, including artifacts, tests, etc.
#4. Spin Up Dev Environments in Seconds
Space offers an intuitive way to create remote dev environments in seconds. This is known as warm-up functionality. Under it, you can expect Space to download dependencies, do indexes, and build your project, saving you much time.
On average, prebuilt snapshots only take 1 minute to load, whereas if you build it yourself, it can take anywhere between 30-40 minutes.
#5. Collaboration
Collaboration is baked right in JetBrains’ Space. It does it by integrating process management and software development tools. You can easily integrate code reviews via bi-directional mirroring or hosting your code.
Space seamlessly integrates with JetBrains IDEs, enabling core reviews and merge requests without relying on extra tools. In fact, you can also review code from mobile with available Android and iOS apps.
#6. Team Management
Administrators can use Space’s excellent team management to ensure transparent collaboration among team members. This includes managing permissions, roles, meetings, blogs, vacations, etc.
Once a space is set up, it becomes the home for teams. It includes all the necessary information accessible through member profiles. JetBrains Space offers a team calendar containing all the activities to give everyone an eagle-eye view. This also makes it easy to know teammates’ availability and absences.
#7. Top-notch Project Management and Issue Tracking
With JetBrains Space, you get a proper project management tool. With it, you can manage your project with an excellent collaboration process.
You can manage your project from the Project Dashboard. It gives you an eagle-eye view of the project with information on member’s activities, code reviews, documents, etc.
What’s best about JetBrains project management is overcoming a team’s static properties. Within a project, you can add members, grant them access, or make the project visible to key players without directly changing team members’ permissions or roles.
JetBrains Space also offers a feature-rich issue tracking that lets you manage workflow seamlessly. With Space’s issue tracking, you can do the following:
- Create issues instantly
- Convert items to a checklist, making it easy to break down into smaller tasks.
- Link issues to code reviews, commits, and merge requests.
- Track time spent on issues
- Discuss issues with team members while keeping track of each conversation
- Add custom issue fields as per your requirements.
#8. Integration and Extensibility
JetBrains Space offers tons of features. However, there are instances when you need to integrate additional features via plug-ins—for example, integrating BI tools to improve data analysis and visualization. In that case, you can easily integrate and expand the Space using HTTP API, Space Client SDK, Webhooks, and applications. You can also use interactive bots or Slash commands to extend Space functionality.
As for customization, you can add custom fields, use external tools for no-code workflows, use Kotlin workflows, or import data into Space to design and manage a customized Space.
JetBrains Space Pricing
JetBrains Space offers two pricing models: Cloud and On-Premises.
Both models offer a free tier with limitations on searchable messages, applications, computation credits, storage, data transfer, custom issue filed, and guest members.
If you opt for the Cloud, then you’ll have the following options;
- Teams: $8 per team member if billed annually ($10 per team member if monthly). It offers decent resources that let you work up to 20 applications.
- Organization: The organization package starts at $20 per team member if billed annually ($25 per active member if you go for monthly). Here, you can manage unlimited applications with the option to create unlimited custom issue fields. It also offers unlimited searches. The limitations include computation credits, storage per member, data transfer, and guest member count.
- Enterprise: Enterprise is a top-tier package aimed at enterprises. It has the highest resource available, starting at $99 per month if billed annually ($125 if you bill monthly).
The on-premise plans are slightly different compared to the cloud ones. The free plan, for example, offers limitations on automation workers and applications. You can use an on-premise free plan for up to 10 members. It is excellent for trying out JetBrains Space, but if you want to do something substantial, you’ll need to move to its two of the other paid options:
- Organization: The plan costs $25 monthly and offers unlimited applications, searchable messages, and custom issue fields. You get 10 concurrent automation workers.
- Enterprise: The enterprise plan offers everything included in the organization plan with more concurrent automation workers and access to the JetBrains All Products Pack. It is priced at $125 per month.
Why Should You Use JetBrains Space?
JetBrains Space is a perfect developer tool, especially for remote teams. For instance, organizations can bring every team member under one roof, offering them a more collaborative tool to work on projects.
Out of the box, you can speed up dev environment setups. Also, you can use JetBrains IDEs to work on your code or invite team members to code reviews.
Additionally, you also get to do the following:
- Automate CI/CD
- Communicate and collaborate with excellent in-built tools
- Manage projects with transparency and full control
- Excellent issue tracking
- Share information seamlessly
However, you must also be aware of the challenges of JetBrans Space. These include:
- It is not beginner-friendly and requires time to learn
- Performance is not optimal and can lead to slowdowns
- The price is on the high side.
- The free plan is limited
Conclusion
JetBrains Space is an excellent all-in-one software development platform. It allows organizations to plan and manage projects with confidence, transparency, and control.
It comes with plenty of features, including the ability to do code reviews, automate CI/CD, manage Git repositories, and proper team management.
Next, check out the best free resources to learn Git.
