JetBrains believes that remotely running applications on a server with Projector may be valuable in high-security contexts, huge projects, and other contexts where thin clients are valuable. Projector is a self-hosted technology that runs IntelliJ-based IDEs and Swing-based apps on the server, allowing you to access them from anywhere using browsers and native apps. Even though it is generally a good thing that JetBrains IDEs and Swing apps are desktop applications, there’s a number of corner cases, like thin clients, that require a special approach. JetBrains detailed in the release note the rationale behind Projector:Īs you may know, Swing is a graphical widget toolkit for Java. Resource-hungry applications like Android Studio may run on a powerful server while developers need only a web browser on a thin client. JetBrains recently released the first major iteration of Projector, a technology that allows developers to run and operate Swing GUI applications remotely.