Over the last few months, we have seen several projects (Fedora, Ubuntu, CachyOS, and GNOME) go either Wayland-only or Wayland-by-default, leaving the venerable X11 display server behind. Now, JetBrains is joining the bandwagon by announcing that starting from its 2026.1 Early Access Program (EAP) releases, IntelliJ-based IDEs will automatically run natively on Wayland in supported desktop environments.
The company states this move allows Linux users to try the native Wayland mode early, giving it time to gather feedback and prepare for a stable version rollout later. This native support is mostly focused on the WLToolkit subsystem, which is fully open-source and handles the heavy lifting for the display protocol interactions.
Native Wayland support was initially introduced in the 2024.2 EAP builds of IntelliJ IDEA, but you needed to manually enable it by adding the JVM option -Dawt.toolkit.name=WLToolkit to your IDE"s custom VM options before restarting the app.
You may notice a few changes in the UI when running these Wayland-by-default versions of IntelliJ IDEs. For instance, some windows and dialogs, like Project Structure or various alerts, may not always center on your screen or stick to their previous locations. This happens because the window manager in Wayland has complete control over where windows sit, and apps cannot always override that.
You will also find that the splash screen when the IDE starts up does not show because the system cannot reliably center it. Certain popups, such as the Search Everywhere or Recent Locations windows, might stay confined within the main IDE frame.
Plus, window decorations, like title bars, control buttons, shadows, and rounded corners, may not perfectly match your desktop"s current theme. JetBrains noted that the Wayland community is actively addressing some of these minor glitches that other apps also experience.
According to JetBrains, you can still switch back to using X11 by adding the JVM option -Dawt.toolkit.name=XToolkit to your VM options in Help | Edit Custom VM Options, then restarting your IDE.
The company also noted that Wayland support for Remote Development mode is still in the works and will "continue to operate as before and not enable native Wayland support automatically."