Item: IntelliJ IDEA
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with IntelliJ IDEA

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have been using IDEA for our Android, Web / PHP, Java, React, and React Native projects for almost a decade now - I like how compact and customizable it is - while providing unparalleled non-LLM predictions and code analysis. Having the same IDE across all these platforms is a huge time saver and convenience. It also integrates well into their ecosystem (like Hub, YouTrack, and TeamCity), and self-hosting these is easier than ever since they are available as docker images.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Intuitive UI/UX.
Code analysis.
Customization
Plugins

Cons

There are way too many side menus accomplishing the same or similar goal. It would probably be much better if they were merged together.

Return on Investment

Their startup discount of 50% is pretty helpful for smaller companies.
The way IDEA can fit almost any language or project is a great way to save on purchasing several different IDEs.

Usability

There is always room for improvement, but I haven't met any IDE that I liked more so far. Even if it did not fit a use case right out of the box, there is always a way to configure how it works to do just that.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, NetBeans, Eclipse, Xcode and Arduino

Back in the day, there weren't too many PHP IDEs with proper syntax and code checks, but PHPStorm and IDEA worked great. So great that when I needed a Java IDE the next time, I gave it a go and have never looked back since (okay, I did keep checking the competition and sometimes actually had to use them, but I preferred to stay on IDEA).

Key Insights

Do you think IntelliJ IDEA delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with IntelliJ IDEA's feature set?

Yes

Did IntelliJ IDEA live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of IntelliJ IDEA go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy IntelliJ IDEA again?

Yes

Other Software Used

TeamCity, YouTrack, Microsoft Visual Studio

Likelihood to Recommend

When you have to jump into a new project to fix something, going through all the issues and recommendations is a perfect starting point; in the worst case, you improve the code without fixing the one you came for - but often, the current problem will be among those. Inline suggestions are also helpful, even if you only look at the part of the code from which you suspect the issue is coming. Being able to control clicks to see the declaration or the calls to it is a very intuitive way of navigating the code.

Comments

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An IDE(A) that works for everything.