IDE users turn into something evolutionary anthropologists refer to as “fanboys”. IntelliJ loyalists scoff at Eclipse fanboys, Eclipse fanboys get mad, and once everyone starts naming eclipse plugins and waving software licenses around? All hell breaks loose. Should they pick the one used in most tutorials or preferred by their teacher and colleagues? The one with more positive reviews online or with the most users? It’s no wonder beginners find themselves confused when deciding what IDE to install as their default, after moving up from the world of lightweight student development environments. To settle this once and for all, we need to look at both IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse from the perspective of a confused (but objective) junior Java developer with a new laptop.Ĭonsidering the subscription costs of the Ultimate edition of IntelliJ (sometimes dubbed “ the Cadillac of Java development ”), we’re going to assume our junior developer is not looking to spend cash on an IDE subscription license at this point.

So in this comparison, we’ll be talking (mostly) about the free version of IntelliJ offered: IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition.

IntelliJ IDEA was released in 2001 by JetBrains, an established company known previously for its Resharper plugin for Visual Studio.

The Community Edition, available for free and aimed mostly at Java and Android application developers, offers support of a number of languages including Java (obviously), Kotlin (which was developed by JetBrains), Groovy, Clojure, Scala and others.

Jetbrains download