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Overview

What is IntelliJ IDEA?

IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE that aims to give Java and Kotlin developers everything they need out of the box, including a smart code editor, built-in developer tools, framework support, database support, web development support, and much more.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

IntelliJ IDEA has become the go-to IDE for developers working on various projects across different industries. With its support for …
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Intelligent IntelliJ

9 out of 10
May 06, 2022
I use IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition for all my development needs. In addition to the great features, it allows for plugins which my …
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The power packed IDE

10 out of 10
March 30, 2022
The IntelliJ IDEA is a central tool that I use on almost a daily basis for most of my development. I am an SAP Hybris developer so have to …
Continue reading

The best Java IDE

10 out of 10
September 30, 2021
Incentivized
My team is migrating from other IDEs to IntelliJ, I've had experience with other JetBrains IDEs and it's been a great change for me, we …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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For Individual Use

$16.90

On Premise
per month

All Products Pack (For Individual Use)

$28.90

On Premise
per month

For Organizations

$59.90

On Premise
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.jetbrains.com/idea/buy

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $16.90 per month
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Product Demos

VSTS plugin for Android Studio and IntelliJ IDEA

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How to set up IntelliJ IDEA CE for JavaFX on Windows 7

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AWS Toolkit for IntelliJ - Setup Demo and Deploy a Lambda Function to AWS

YouTube

Announcement | Introducing the AWS Toolkit for IntelliJ IDEA

YouTube

JavaFX Tutorial | JavaFX Connect to MySQL Database (2021) - Basic Demo

YouTube
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Product Details

What is IntelliJ IDEA?

IntelliJ IDEA, a JetBrains IDE, is an integrated development environment for Java and Kotlin development. It helps users produce high-quality code more efficiently, is designed to provide everything needed out of the box, and takes care of routine tasks so users can stay focused on the bigger picture.

IntelliJ IDEA Features

  • Supported: Advanced Code Editor
  • Supported: Code Understanding
  • Supported: Collaborative and Remote
  • Supported: Out-Of-The-Box Experience

IntelliJ IDEA Screenshots

Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA interface overview: the Project tool window (left) outlines the code structure and the Editor (right) is used to read, write, and explore the source code.Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA analyzing the context. It then suggests the most applicable and relevant code.Screenshot of the Search Everywhere window, where users can search for files, actions, classes, symbols, settings, UI elements, and anything in Git, all from a single entry point.Screenshot of inspections to help find probable bugs and dead code, detect performance issues, and improve the overall code structure by providing quick-fixes for any code that contains potential concerns.Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA's support for frameworks with dedicated assistance for Jakarta EE, JPA, Reactor, Spring and Spring Boot, and other popular frameworks.Screenshot of the AI Assistant that provides AI-powered features for software development. It can explain code, answer questions about code fragments, provide code suggestions, generate documentation, and commit messages.

IntelliJ IDEA Video

Overview of IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE that aims to give Java and Kotlin developers everything they need out of the box, including a smart code editor, built-in developer tools, framework support, database support, web development support, and much more.

IntelliJ IDEA starts at $16.9.

Eclipse, NetBeans, and Android Studio are common alternatives for IntelliJ IDEA.

Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.1.

The most common users of IntelliJ IDEA are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(336)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

IntelliJ IDEA has become the go-to IDE for developers working on various projects across different industries. With its support for front-end technologies, major frameworks, and advanced code completion, users have been able to develop websites quickly and efficiently. The exceptional speed and performance of the IDE have been praised by users, surpassing other popular IDEs like Eclipse. The versatile nature of IntelliJ IDEA makes it widely used for Java development, including building Android applications, maintaining version control, and integrating with tools like DB connections and Maven. Organizations have found IntelliJ IDEA to be the standard IDE for code development, reducing development time and offering enterprise features not found in other IDEs. Freelance Java developers also find IntelliJ IDEA highly beneficial in terms of faster backend code writing, learning new skills, and improving programming proficiency. With its compatibility with JVM-based languages like Java, Scala, and Kotlin, IntelliJ IDEA provides better code formatting, Git support, and unit test case running. The robustness and user-friendliness of the IDE make it a preferred choice for software engineers working on Java and Spring-based projects. Additionally, IntelliJ IDEA's customizable nature and strong reliability have made it a trusted tool among developers across industries such as healthcare, web application development, and enterprise application development.

Clean and customizable user interface: Users have consistently praised the clean, customizable, and intuitive user interface of IntelliJ IDEA. Several reviewers have mentioned their appreciation for the ability to personalize the IDE according to their own needs, allowing them to work efficiently and stay organized.

Extensive plugin support: Many users have highlighted the extensive plugin support in IntelliJ IDEA as a major advantage. The wide range of plugins available, such as those for Markdown documents, OpenApi specifications, and PlantUML diagrams, enhance the development experience by providing additional functionalities and increasing productivity.

Excellent language support with code completion: Reviewers have frequently commended IntelliJ IDEA for its excellent support for different programming languages. They specifically mention the auto-completion feature based on DOM model and browser that allows them to complete code quickly and efficiently. This feature has been particularly useful for completing projects within tight deadlines or complex coding tasks.

Default Number of Plugins: Some users have expressed that the default number of plugins in IntelliJ IDEA is excessive, and they suggest starting with a smaller set of plugins and allowing users to add them later according to their needs.

Activiti Workflows Support: The Activiti workflows support in IntelliJ IDEA is considered lacking by some users, especially on complex projects. They feel that improvements are needed to enhance its functionality and usability.

Dependency Management Reliability: Dependency management on complex projects is not considered reliable by some users. This issue may cause difficulties in managing project dependencies effectively and can hinder development progress.

Users recommend trying the free edition of IntelliJ IDEA and learning its shortcuts and menus to enhance productivity. They suggest that Eclipse users switch to IntelliJ, except for Android developers. IntelliJ is highly recommended for professional developers and those working with a limited number of technologies. To improve the experience, it is suggested to have 16GB of RAM. According to users, IntelliJ's pricing is worth it if a company's revenue exceeds the annual cost. It is highly recommended for Java and related projects, especially if there have been issues with Eclipse. Users believe that IntelliJ is the only true multi-role IDE for Mac users and advise learning its keyboard shortcuts. They also highlight the value offered by plugins for IntelliJ.

While Visual Studio is recommended specifically for .NET development, users generally recommend IntelliJ for other use cases. They find that IntelliJ supports multiple languages and frameworks out of the box, making it versatile and worth trying out. For general Java development tasks, users find IntelliJ much easier and cleaner than Netbeans and Eclipse.

Lastly, users appreciate that IntelliJ is easy to use overall.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-22 of 22)
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Dushyant Pathak (DKP) | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is our preferred IDE for developing enterprise Java applications. Over 10000 developers use the IDE across over 300k repositories, which drives the core infrastructure of the bank, generating revenue in billions. We use it to write code, build and test our Java applications. Since our firm is a banking organization built on a complex, in-house technology and infrastructure system, an IDE is the fundamental building block.
  • Excellent plugin support for running Java applications
  • Easy to use and intuitive code editor with great syntax highlighting
  • Great inbuilt build tool support to run and debug applications from the browser
  • Its version control integration is slightly complex compared to vs code, not allowing us to stage, unstage changes easily, meaning most developers are forced to use the terminal
  • It is extremely heavy on RAM consumption and often hangs up on low RAM machines
  • Despite being the defacto Java IDE, It doesn't provide additional features to help move debug recurring Java errors
IntelliJ IDEA is most well suited for enterprise-level Java application development due to its inbuilt IDE and code running, debugging features as well as plugin support. The most common Maven and Java commands needed to run an application are easily available, making it easy to focus on the actual development, than setup.

IntelliJ IDEA, however, lacks end-to-end support. It doesn't help us anywhere post the completion of development. It also lacks support for other languages, making other IDEs like vs code more useful for frontend applications. It is also a pain to use in machines with limited RAM.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use coding in Java and Scala. It helps to format and view code better. It also has support for git, Gradle, and Maven. It also has support for running unit test cases. It provides widgets for project creations. There are many shortcuts available. You can also set it to use Eclipse shortcuts.
  • Provides IDE for JAVA
  • Has GIT support
  • Provides various runners for code and tests
  • Find and Replace in all files at once feature is missing
  • Some Eclipse shortcuts are not supported
  • Git is left unsynchronized at times
Well suited for java development and testing. Since it has support for git, Maven, and Gradle it becomes easier to manage projects in Intellij IDE. Intellij supports various views for programming, debugging, and testing. Debug mode is supported and is easy to use. Can be used for Java, Spring Spring boot, and Scala projects as well.
March 30, 2022

The power packed IDE

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
The IntelliJ IDEA is a central tool that I use on almost a daily basis for most of my development. I am an SAP Hybris developer so have to work with thousands of files and also refer through the existing codebase for making new changes or fixing the issues present in the existing system. At the same time, working on new features and customizing the Out of the box functionality is also needed, which is taken care of by the IDE. In addition to coding, I am closely involved in version control and also utilize jrebel to do hotfix changes on my local.
  • IDE for coding in different languages
  • Version control support
  • huge marketplace for adding addons
  • low footprint on disk space
  • memory management
  • user specific profiles for different projects
  • flexibility in adding new facets to existing projects
Only the memory is a concern, as IntelliJ takes up much of the available memory, especially while debugging.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is a widely used IDE in our company. Most of the Java and Scala programmers rely on this awesome IDE, which has everything that you need in a day-to-day software development. Some of the users mainly use it as a database exploring requirements. There's nothing that this awesome tool doesn't support.
  • It makes your development easy. Smart code completion can make you write code faster than ever.
  • Advanced refactoring takes care of applying complicated changes to the code safely.
  • IntelliJ IDEA offers an amazing set of integrated developer tools that make development more productive.
  • Uses a lot of resources and almost makes your machine unusable.
  • Error messages can be improved. It's a bit confusing to understand the IntelliJ IDEA error messages.
  • Sometimes the SDKs are not properly installed when we open an existing project.
Web development: IntelliJ IDEA offers advanced support for the most important web frameworks and standards. This includes ultimate code assistance for HTML5, CSS3, SASS, LESS, JavaScript, ActionScript, and other languages.
HTML and CSS Editor: IntelliJ IDEA's advanced editor provides you with the very best coding assistance for working with HTML and CSS.
Tharsanan Kurukulasingam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My day-to-day work involves Java development and version control related tasks. IntelliJ IDEA is a very use full editor that solves many aspects of the development. Switching between branches, committing the changes is very straightforward. I find it very easy to write Java code in this IDE because of the simple and straightforward UI.
  • UI is very intuitive
  • Built-in IntelliSense for Java
  • A lot of plugins to try out
  • Performance and CPU usage
  • It would be great if Intellij has a workspace concept
  • Intellij can improve on handling large projects.
Write Java code--IntelliJ IDEA is the best IDE for Java I ever used. The built-in IntelliSense make the development very easy and fast.

Intuitive UI--A very simple but complete UI learning curve for a beginner is very low compared to other IDEs. Personally this UI makes me comfortable while working.

Handling large projects--In this area, IntelliJ IDEA has some downsides. When opening a large project in IntelliJ IDEA, often my laptop hangs. So to work with large projects, I would recommend Eclipse.

Version control--Super easy in Intellij IDEA. It's easy to switch between branches, committing, seeing annotations, history, etc. The built-in version control system is super cool.
Dinesh Pabbi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am an indie developer and a student so I work with web technologies a lot. I usually use IntelliJ when i have to develop a website quickly. IntelliJ allows me to quickly use the front end technologies and with its support of all the major new frameworks (Front end) and advanced code completion, version control capabilities, it is a complete professional developer suite for an indie developer and a team of developers alike.

What I like about This IDE:
1. Support for all the major new frameworks and technologies in front end (ActionScript, SASS, LESS)
2. Version control
3. HTML, CSS, and Javascript editor is just awesome.
4. This IDE is very quick, I mean I have not seen any other IDE being this fast. I have used Eclipse and that IDE is not close to this IDE in terms of performance.

What I don't like:
1. Well, as a student I had trouble buying it since its costly, but hey all good things do come at a cost, right?
2. Since it is feature rich, it has a somewhat big memory footprint so it requires a little more RAM usage.

  • It made development in javascript a breeze. Auto-completion was on point and more importantly, the auto-completion was based on DOM model and browser. This allowed me to complete the code so much faster than I ever could before. I completed the Javascript part of my university technical fest website in 4 days!
  • It has built in support for version control, so whenever you feel like you need to backtrack to a previous state or version of website you saved , you can easily do it! This has saved me several times when code broke or when i could not figure out the problem in code so I just backtracked and re-did everything again.
  • The plugin support is really great . First of all it has plethora of plugins . Since I am trying to learn Scala, I installed the Scala plugin and I was good to go. It never felt like this IDE was not made for it.
  • The console that comes with the IDE is somewhat laggy.
  • Of course , this IDE is a memory hog as I mentioned earlier, but i think for all the features it provides it is worth it.
  • There were some minor bugs (Only happened once!) which lead to disappearance of my code entirely . But when I restarted it all came back to normal.
Due to its cost, I believe it is best suited for enterprise since its subscription model is really costly at 199$ per year. I got it on a students' subscription but again, this is a very professional IDE and if you want to use it only for web, I believe it would be going over the top since for simple web development there are cheaper alternatives. But if you are a java and a web developer and can afford it, go for it!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I got IntelliJ IDEA as a Github Student Developer account during my undergrad one year back. I must say this is one of the most versatile IDE for Java development. We used this IDE to build Android application for one of the client and keeping version control in IDE is very easy as compared to other available IDE'S. However, I have to migrate to some other open source available IDE'S because, it is paid for professional development.
  • It is freely available in the Github Student Developer pack.
  • It is easy to use.
  • The complete package is bit heavy.
  • It is not memory friendly.
Coding in Java is very easy and its versatility makes it easier to debug the large programs. Developing Web applications using this IDE is fun however making professional projects on this IDE is not economical because of its annual fee for its usage. However, it can be used by novice and professionals to develop various applications.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As far as I am concerned, I am a huge fan of IntelliJ. I use IntelliJ for my development purposes. I am a software engineer who works on developing applications using Java and Kotlin. Kotlin is a programming language introduced by IntelliJ. It is built upon Java but it is easier to understand than Java. Anyways IntelliJ is a standard IDEE used across my organization. Bootup time is faster than its competitors Eclipse and STS.
  • I use IntelliJ mainly for application development. It has advanced features and it is intelligent in many ways. I mainly develop the code using Kotlin which is developed by IntelliJ.
  • It has seamless connectivity with third-party tools like Git, Docker. I am a huge fan of using Git with inbuilt IntelliJ connectivity. The same for Docker as well.
  • There are two versions in IntelliJ, which is community version and ultimate. Community is free of cost and for ultimate they charge $500 per year which I feel is little bit much.
  • I wish they could have added spring and spring boot capabilities to free version of IntelliJ also.
My everyday software development is done in IntelliJ. Different types of testing suites can also be added to it. Before it used to be a problem to integrate cucumber testing suites to IDEE but IntelliJ has made life easier and more sophisticated. Anyone planning to use IntelliJ for front-end web development, I don't prefer this because there are much more better tools than this in the market. If it is back-end development, this is the best choice one can get in the present scenario.
Joshua Cariño | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is used by most of our developers. It is the go-to Development Environment in the organization as it has a rich feature set.
  • Themes. There are a lot of themes out in its marketplace that we could use to customize the IDE to our liking. I like best the themes that automatically identify file types and change its icon, so it is easy to identify a file type even without looking at its extension.
  • Has a lot of Configuration Options.
  • The IDE is very slow to start. It's very heavy on system resources, unlike other IDEs I've used. It would also sometime not detect maven projects, had to reimport, or re-open files repeatedly for it to identify the project files.
  • Sometimes produces very generic errors that are very hard to pinpoint where or what the issue is.
IntelliJ IDEA is very well suited for Web App Development, but with a very rich feature set, the UI is quite complicated to use. I hope they could clean up the UI further and make menu navigation and classification easy.
Rahul Rajput | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have been using IntelliJ IDEA for more than 2 years. As a Data Engineer at my company Datametica, I have been using IntelliJ IDEA to work in Scala and Spark, and I also need to work with Shell scripting too. This software is so easy to use and is very helpful in rapid development.
  • It auto imports all the packages from the pom.xml in my Scala development.
  • Makes easy suggestions to improve code.
  • Helpful when migrating code from one version to another.
  • Heavy to use/run.
  • Sometimes it gets stuck/freezes and work will be lost.
  • Costly.
It is well suited in Android and Scala development, I would definitely recommend it to all of my friends for this. The dark theme is really relaxing on the eyes. I would say it is much heavier on your PC and much costlier than other available software.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is being used extensively, but not exclusively, here at my place of work. Every team I've been on has relied heavily on it, and many other teams and departments do too. It solves the problem of having to use multiple tools with an IDE that doesn't integrate well with Maven or Node or Apache or Spring. IntelliJ IDEA is very powerful and boosts efficiency.
  • Unit testing: Fully integrated into IntelliJ IDEA. Your unit tests will run smoothly and efficiently, with excellent debugging tools for when things get tricky.
  • Spring integration: Our Spring project using Maven works flawlessly in IntelliJ IDEA. I know firsthand that Apache is also easily and readily supported too. The integration is seamless and very easy to set up using IntelliJ IDEA's set up wizard when importing new projects.
  • Customization: IntelliJ IDEA comes out of the box with a bunch of handy shortcuts, as well as text prediction, syntax error detection, and other tools to help keep your code clean. But even better is that it allows for total customization of shortcuts you can easily create to suit your needs.
  • UI: The two provided themes leave a lot to be desired. The light theme is hard on the eyes, and the dark theme is very blank and looks old school. Functionality is great, but the UI could use some attention.
  • Price: If you're not using the Community version, IntelliJ IDEA can be quite pricey depending on your needs.
  • CPU demands: With bigger projects, IntelliJ IDEA certainly isn't the most efficient IDE out there. But it gets the job done!
IntelliJ IDEA is fantastic for all things Java. If you're starting or already working on a Java project, look no further than IntelliJ IDEA. If you want Gradle build integration or are using Maven or Apache, IntelliJ IDEA can do it all. It really is a complete development system with countless customization features available.
Johan Sarmiento | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently, my company is using IntelliJ IDEA in the development of Java projects. Its use is in the development of a desktop application at a recognized bank where the entire platform is based on this application, as well as the back-end where we use DB Sybase, and Java Maven for its integration. We also use the front-end with the Javascript in this tool.
  • User-Friendly
  • Nice interface
  • Easy integration with the git
  • Easy integration with almost any type of database, without interruptions or errors.
  • Improve the use and understanding of cucumber tests.
It is suitable for developing projects where it requires the use of all layers and the use of version control software. I think it would be inappropriate to use it only as a database client because for that there are other applications that are specifically dedicated to that.
February 15, 2019

Fast track development

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is being used by many people in my organization. We use it for development, database access, and Salesforce querying. It's quite easy to write SOQL queries and get results using the Illuminating Cloud plugin for Salesforce. We also access databases such as Oracle on IntelliJ IDEA. The keyboard shortcuts are great.
  • It's a great tool which is very intuitive
  • It's very convenient for database access
  • With the Illuminating Cloud plugin, we can do SOQL queries very easily
  • I wish the licensing was easy. I have to buy a separate license for IntelliJ IDEA and Illuminating Cloud.
It is a great tool for Java/J2EE programming and integrating with version control systems such as Git and SVN, and databases such as Oracle. We can also integrate with maven and perform build automation on it. We also use this for SOQL querying for our Salesforce development, configuration, and data migration from one environment to another.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My company is a non-profit healthcare delivery institute and running a lot of clinical and consumer-facing IT applications. Recently we developed a web application inside our patient portal, which is a tool where our patients can enter their family history information and the system returns genetic risk assessment scores. We used IntelliJ IDEA to develop the application. We used Javascript and HTML5 for front-end, Oracle 11g for storing data, Java for back end service, and Cerner's patient portal for container of the application.
  • Compared to Eclipse, basically it is a easier to learn which results in faster learning curve. Good for small or mid-sized projects. Generally speaking developers can be productive in a short training and use.
  • Very rich plug-in capability, such as out of the box support for version control systems.
  • User friendly interface. Responsive and interactive than other IDE tools.
  • Pricing matters. It is not terribly expensive, but there are other open source based tools as function as IntelliJ
  • It’s smaller ecosystem compared to Eclipse, since it has been all private for long and a single-company product. Nonetheless, there are good support and rich knowledge sources online.
  • The tool itself used to be unstable, slow, and crash, especially scanning or indexing directories.
The biggest advantage of IntelliJ in our project was its source control capabilities. We had to work with old codes from previous version of the application and new environment. Integration was simple in IntelliJ and well managed in there. Our project wasn't a big project, it was a web application for patients, but we believe it will work well at an enterprise level, and critical applications such as the ones in clinical / acute care settings.
December 03, 2018

The best Java IDE

James Pautz II | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is generally used widely by the technical teams at my company. We aren't required to use one IDE or another, but since IntelliJ IDEA is an excellent IDE that is cross-platform, it is widely adopted. A few of my co-workers use Eclipse, and I used to as well, but I've made the switch and have been happy with IDEA.
  • The UI is clean, has an excellent built-in dark theme, and is customize-able. I was able to easily switch the keyboard shortcuts to Eclipse's shortcuts, making the switch to IDEA seamless.
  • The code-completion is fast and intuitive
  • Code validation is very helpful
  • It is slow to initially load
  • It uses a fair bit of memory
If you are writing Java in almost any context, it is a worthwhile IDE. I'm mostly doing scripting with Java and it works great.

I don't think it is the best GUI for source control. I find its Subversion implementation clunky at best. I haven't used the Git integration, but I can't imaging it being much different.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is used as an Integrated Development Environment. It is being used across the whole organization. It is very helpful for software developers to develop software efficiently.
  • There is a vast number of integrated plugins that make them more efficient compared to other IDEs.
  • Built-in integrations with Version Control Systems such as Tortoise SVN and GIT helps software developers to avoid the integration chaos with the project repositories.
  • The shortcuts are not the same as other IDEs, which made it difficult during transformation from other IDEs to IntelliJ IDEA. It would have been very helpful if the shortcuts are as same as Eclipse IDE. Because Eclipse was a widely used IDE and many people transform from Eclipse to IntelliJ and in the initial days, they find it difficult to learn/remember the new shortcuts.
It is well-suited for dynamic software development that involves many libraries/plugins integrations with the workspace. Also well-suited in places where the code repository is maintained by a version control.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is Jetbrain's product for Java development work. This IDE is used in our product development department as the IDE of choice for back-end development work that is mainly done in Apex (a subset of Java language proprietary of Salesforce). IntelliJ IDEA comes with Illuminated Cloud plugin that we use to deploy our code to Salesforce development orgs. This IDE offers full feature support for multiple frameworks and comes equipped with Git, bash terminal, debugger, and auto-linter.
  • If I have to select a single IDE to use for multiple languages and frameworks, I'll go with IntelliJ IDE.
  • The IDE offers quick and easy IntelliSense that is superior in most cases to Eclipse.
  • Comes with out of the box support for Version control systems like Git. The built-in Terminal debugger comes in handy as well.
  • The IDE is a resource hog and takes a long time initializing after startup to index all the code files.
  • The IDE can randomly crash sometimes and code search hangs if selecting large directories to scan.
  • If you don't have the community edition then the pricing for the product can be fairly expensive.
The IDE is ideal for Java related development work. However, if you want to maintain only a single IDE in your arsenal IntelliJ IDEA will do a great job. Since at our company we do most of our development atop the Salesforce platform we need to use the Illuminated Cloud plugin to integrate into the IDE. Since this tool is fairly resourced intensive, many developers might just be better off going with Visual Studio code for some lightweight work.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ IDEA is a full-featured integrated development environment (IDE) for development of Java and Groovy applications. As there is no mandatory IDE for developers in the organisation, it is usually chosen for personal use by developers. It increases productivity in development by supporting many different build systems, language-specific plugins, auto-completion for class names and static error analysis for written code.
  • Fast and comprehensive auto-completion for class names and variable names; best static code analysis engine by far
  • Interface is more responsive than competing IDEs such as NetBeans or Eclipse
  • Features like "go to definition" and "go to implementation" on class members help cut down on lead time when contributing to existing projects
  • Current version (2018.1) has some hiccups in the UI in the Linux distribution - menus floating where they're not supposed to
  • User interface is less sluggish than competitors but still has some room for improvement where speed and responsiveness is concerned
IntelliJ IDEA is, in my opinion, the gold standard for Java development. I would recommend it for medium-to-large Java projects, in medium-to-large teams, where its code analysis features help with understanding the codebase and more productive collaboration. The enterprise version of IntelliJ IDEA is required for Java EE applications, and it is fairly pricey. However, if Java applications are your organisation's bread and butter, IDEA is still positioned as a worthwhile investment.
Андрей Жеребцов | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In addition to the main work, I am a freelancer developer of Java. I write backend code for different clients and IntelliJ IDEA has helped me to do it faster and much easier. I also try to constantly learn something new and improve my programming skills, all this I also do in this IDE.
  • My opinion is that it is the most convenient and powerful IDE of all. I think so since I worked for a while with many other IDEs.
  • The program is available on many platforms, so for me, it's not a problem to start a project on your Mac, and then finish it at home on a Windows desktop.
  • Clear and customizable user interface. I set it up as convenient for me, I saved the "look" and can easily apply it when I need it.
  • The most important plus is the shortcut keys, sometimes I play the keyboard as a piano.
  • Its automatic completion of code is just the best the developers could do. It seems to be reading my thoughts and can finish the code for me.
  • Very fond of RAM. IntelliJ is like Chrome among the IDE.
  • Too many functions and options make it difficult to use it effectively, it takes time to get used to it. I mean that it will be quite difficult for a beginner to start working with the program.
  • For comfortable work, you need a powerful computer. On my MacBook Air is not very comfortable to work with.
IntelliJ IDE is well suited for creative projects in Ruby, Java, AspectJ, HTML, and CSS. Personally, I use Java only for Java projects. It makes my job easier. It is very good that I quickly understood that IntelliJ IDEA is one of the best IDEs and definitely did not change it for anything else.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have used IntelliJ IDEA since its early version back in 2000. We develop enterprise applications using Java, Scala & Javascript & HTML with build support from Maven and Gradle.

Code refactoring has always been the stand out feature of IDEA, it allows the developer to quickly change the structure of the code without pulling you out the 'zone'. Daily use brings a familiarity that allows you to do so much without thinking, coding with IDEA quickly becomes second nature.

For TDD , the failing test, passing test, refactor lifecycle becomes so easy to do.
  • Great language support. You can develop full stack solutions using Java, Scala, Javascript and much more all from within a single IDE.
  • Excellent refactoring functionality. It is aware of the syntax/layout requirements of each supported language and manages all this for you.
  • Excellent test framework support. It's easy to write tests, run them and get instant feedback.
  • Highly customisable. Need to tweak the compiler settings? Maven settings? No problem, IntelliJ IDEA lets you configure just about anything.
  • Good plugin support from the community. There's a bunch of decent plugins available from the community for those rare cases where IDEA doesn't have anything built in.
  • IDEA has grown into a huge product - it supports so many languages and does so much. The downside to this is that it can be a bit daunting for new users as there is so much to learn.
  • Refactoring in Javascript can sometimes be a bit hit or miss. It's fine for simple projects but for large, multi-file apps it is sometimes not aware of all the usages of a particular file or variable.
It's great for developing large, complex full stack applications as it supports so many different frameworks and languages. It will integrate with other JetBrains products like TeamCity to give you instant feedback about your builds. It is less useful if you just want to write some scripts or quickly edit some files.
October 18, 2017

I love my IntelliJ

Rahul Chaudhary | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IntelliJ is used across my organization to obviously deliver better code. Developers are free to choose between different editors, but I have mostly seen IntelliJ at work. IntelliJ is for Java, as most people would already know, and if your project is Java, and specially spring based, then this editor is the best in my opinion.
  • It is compatible with the newest Java.
  • It is compatible with Java frameworks such as Spring, and Maven.
  • It supports version control.
  • It is very stylistic, and it feels good to code in it.
  • It has good syntax highlighting, lots of customization, useful commands to enhance your workflow.
  • It has lower CPU consumption. I keep 3-5 projects open at a time, and there is no lag.
  • IntelliJ has terminal inbuilt, which I like, but it does not have a scroll lockdown i.e. if you are tailing some files which are actively receiving new data, then the cursor will keep on focusing on that new data.
  • Why is it so damn costly!!!
  • Terminal, and editor are not linked together. E.g. I run `git pull` command on the intelliJ terminal, but the view does not update automatically based on file system changes.
  • Version control view is hard to understand. Or maybe its just me.
There are many editors out there, and the most popular ones are free of course, so why make this investment? I used to like Atom editor a lot, but you have to install a whole ton of software to make it work the way you want it to. IntelliJ, on the other hand, is customized to meet most needs. There are linters, code checks, terminal, etc all built in. Working with intelliJ has taught me to write even better code. The "code inspection" tool finds even the slightest mistake like spellings in your code, and I tend to fix them, making my code base better every day. IntelliJ simply amazes me in how much better I have become.

But despite lots of benefits, IntelliJ is costly. Its major competitor, Eclipse, does all of these, for free! But IntelliJ in IMHO is easier to work with. Better style, better code inspection, etc, etc makes the price worth it. If you are worried about price, Eclipse as I said, works equally good, with most of benefits provided, if not all.
Kevan Dunsmore | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use IntelliJ IDEA as our primary IDE for software development. We use it to develop Java, Scala, Python, Ruby, Node.js and front end Javascript code for our entire platform. As part of that development, we write unit tests, integration tests and end-to-end tests for our software. Intellij IDEA is used by all development groups.
  • Smart code development - completion and suggestions are a strong point.
  • Code presentation - folding and highlighting make reading code easy.
  • Tool integration - Download extension plugins for any type of file you want to edit.
  • Source control integration - Use any source control system you like. We use Git and the integration is super simple.
  • IntelliJ IDEA is a *big* product - the learning curve is very steep. I've been using it for years now, so it doesn't affect me too much anymore but developers new to it often get overwhelmed. Perhaps limiting the options, in a similar way to the separate IDE products (RubyMine, PyCharm, etc) would help streamline and reduce the curve.
  • The plugin system is rich but very difficult to navigate and find plugins that might be useful.
I use it for pretty much everything, from Java development to scripting. However, some of the developers will use it only for larger development tasks and wouldn't use it for, say, bash scripting, where they feel it is somewhat heavyweight for a task like that.
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