A developer abandons JetBrains after years of paying $85 annually for CLion, citing unbearable performance issues including sluggish startup times, CPU-heavy indexing, and slow file creation. Despite appreciating the IDE's design and tooling capabilities, the constant lag made productive coding nearly impossible on both modern and older hardware.

Switching to Zed following its v1 release, the developer finds an editor that delivers instant responsiveness, sane defaults, and seamless VS Code compatibility. The AI integration stays out of the way while still providing value. After experiencing Zed's speed firsthand, the relationship with JetBrains has effectively ended.

Performance problems plagued every aspect of CLion usage - from splash screens that felt endless to remote development disconnections. The massive installation footprint also limited usage on space-constrained machines. These cumulative frustrations transformed everyday programming into a waiting game rather than a creative flow state.

Zed emerges as a compelling alternative for developers prioritizing speed and responsiveness over feature-rich IDEs. While JetBrains products offer solid architectural foundations, their resource consumption creates friction that undermins productivity. Sometimes the fastest tool isn't the most feature-complete one.