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Java Development: Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA?

Posted by Cliff on from the decisions-decisions dept.

Java_Good_COBOL_Bad asks: "For Java development, would most people recommend using Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA? I am currently using Eclipse and it took a long time to get the environment set up. I understand that Eclipse is a framework that can be used for many things, not just Java development, but all I really need is an IDE for Java. So, I wonder if Eclipse is more complex than I need. I have never used IDEA before. Is it more straight-forward? Has anybody here migrated from Eclipse to IDEA? How steep was the learning curve?"

3 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. don't forget netbeans- "ide religion" by acomj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If your doing java development netbeans is an option. Eclipse has forced it to become much better. Although it doesn't use SWT. I prefer eclipse, but have friends who swear by net beans. Unlike most people in this situation we still talk to one antoher (java ide's seems to cause religous battes, like vi vs emacs.. etc..). This kind of battles are silly.

    http://www.netbeans.org/
    http://community.java.net/netbeans/

    than there is sun's java studio...what is this?? I don't know , but its free now and seems to be yet another ide.

    http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/devtools/free/i ndex.html?cid=16052

  2. Hey! It is a reasonable question. by klahnako · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use CodeGuide5, which's interface is optimized for dealing with Java and it's refactorings. I also have Eclipse installed, but I find it tedious to use because it is too generic. I keep Eclipse for it's most robust CVS client so I can access some temperamental CVS servers.

    I find it a valid question that IDEA is worth the few hundred dollars it may cost in order to have a more streamlined experience.

  3. Eclipse: great, but sucks. by clambake · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Eclipse has a billion and one plugins, it runs on all platforms, it's awesome... Oh, but also it sucks. Absolutely anti-intuitive (perhaps holdover from it's IBM days? IBM couldn't design a UI to save thier lives). Inconsistancy, primarily, is my main beef. In one set of menus, FooBar is right on top, but on another it's two levels deep, but on the right-click context menu it's three levels deep in a completely different heirarchy... on one pane, but on another pane the right-click context menu for FooBar it's only one level deep, but is named slightly differently. It makes it's a nightmare to find what you are looking for even when know exactly what it is...