IntelliJ IDEA vs Eclipse: Which Is Better for Beginners

According to Stack Overflow&#;s yearly developer survey, Rust has been the most loved language for seven years in a row, albeit not one of the most popular ones. Rustaceans are drawn to the language due to its high performance, code safety features, and its amazing compiler.

In a relatively short time, Rust has gained backing from huge companies like Mozilla, Amazon, Huawei, Google, and Microsoft. For all these reasons, a lot of curiosity has developed around the language and a lot of people want to try it out.

In this article, I&#;ll share with you seven of the best Rust IDEs and code editors to optimize your coding experience, help you shorten development time, and provide you with tools to make the process of reading and writing code in Rust easy and efficient.

What we&#;ll cover:

What should a good Rust IDE offer?

A good IDE or code editor is ergonomic and can help increase your productivity. Some of them come with tooling to help you complete your code as you write, as well as for debugging your Rust apps before compilation.

Other features that you might expect from a good editor for a popular language such as Rust include syntax highlighting, hotkeys to speed up your workflow, and code generation. Without further ado, let&#;s dive into this list of some of the best Rust IDEs out there.

Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Visual Studio Code is an open source and free-for-use project created by Microsoft and available for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It supports a lot of major languages, including Rust.

Currently, VS Code is one of the best code editors around and the most-used editor for Rust development. With the help of plugins like , VS Code provides Rust developers with features like:

• Error highlighting (and suggestions for possible fixes)
• Support for debugging
• Syntax highlighting
• Code completion
• Code generation and refactoring to improve quality of code

One of the main factors that make VS Code popular is that it is lightweight. It also comes with keyboard shortcuts to help increase productivity and language intelligence features like code navigation to help you find files, definitions, implementations, and symbols easily.

VS Code also comes with Git support out of the box, which is useful for maintaining different versions of your project. Other VCS plugins can also be found on VS Code&#;s extensions marketplace.

While similar to editors like Atom in terms of features, unlike Atom, VS Code is known for being fast and rarely causing lags when performing activities like searching and switching files. Another editor that is highly performant is Sublime Text, which we&#;ll talk about below.

Compared to editors like Vim and Emacs, VS Code is easy to set up and use. Since it was designed as a code editor, it doesn&#;t come with as many features as a standard IDE; nonetheless, it is highly extensible and its collection of features is impressive.

According to the docs, VS Code is currently the best-supported editor for Rust. You can download VS Code to see for yourself. Make sure you install as well!

CLion

CLion is a premium IDE created by JetBrains. Though created for C and C++, you can use it with Rust through the IntelliJ Rust plugin. It&#;s available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Unlike Atom, VS Code, and other open source editors, organizations and individuals have to pay for CLion. It is free for students, teachers, open source projects, and coding schools; however, most developers will probably not qualify for the free license.

If you don&#;t mind paying a small monthly or yearly subscription fee, CLion can be your Rust IDE. It is easy to use, and its modern, intuitive user interface requires no learning curve. You can hit the ground running building your Rust project.

CLion is a full-blown IDE packed with a lot of features and, as a result, it is heavy and CPU- and RAM- intensive. Compared to an editor like VS Code, it tends to run more slowly. With mid-sized to large-sized projects, you might experience lags and freezes.

With the help of IntelliJ Rust, CLion is able to provide Rust developers with the following features:

CLion has a clean user interface and comes with a number of themes that you can customize to suit your taste. Download CLion to try it out for yourself.

IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA, while originally built for Java by JetBrains, can also be used to code Rust. Like CLion, this is possible through the IntelliJ Rust plugin. It&#;s available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

You can choose from regular and custom themes to improve the look of IntelliJ IDEA&#;s very nice, friendly UI. Similar to CLion, IDEA is available to organizations and individuals for a fee, while students, teachers, coding schools, and contributors to open source projects can get it for free.

IntelliJ IDEA uses IntelliJ Rust to provide Rust developers with the following features:

• Keyboard shortcuts
• Accessibility features
• Smart coding assistance
• Error detection
• Code completion
• Automatic refactoring
• Inspections and context actions
• Code highlighting
• Live templates
• Debugger

IntelliJ IDEA provides Rust developers with version control tools out of the box, along with tools for collaborating with others in real-time.

Inside the IDE, you can clone your project, manage branches, merge conflicts, commit, and push changes. It also helps you seamlessly integrate your Rust project with container orchestration systems like Docker and Kubernetes.

One &#;drawback&#; of IntelliJ IDEA is that since it is an IDE, it is obviously not lightweight. It uses up more RAM and CPU power than VS Code, Atom, Spacemacs, Neovim, and other code editors. This can make opening large projects or working on multiple projects at a time really slow.

You can download IntelliJ IDEA to see all its features in action.

Atom Editor

The Atom code editor supports Windows, Linux, and macOS. While Atom is older than editors like VS Code, it has become less popular in recent times. It has a reputation for being sluggish, and it is clunkier than VS Code.

However, Atom has a customization flexibility that can only be topped by Spacemacs. Almost every feature is available as a package that can be easily added or removed. You can also create new features and tailor them to your taste.

Like VS Code, Atom has a great design, and you can create custom themes in it. Atom also has a huge, vibrant community behind it that both manages existing plugins and works on new ones.

Unlike editors like Emacs and Vim, Atom has a shallow learning curve. You can simply install it and start editing your Rust code immediately with its very intuitive interface.

With the help of packages like , which uses under the hood, Atom is able to provide Rust developers with features such as:

• Auto complete
• Syntax highlighting
• Version control
• Rust language snippets
• Go to definition

Download Atom to give it a try.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a minimalist but efficient code editor. It supports dozens of languages, including Rust. It looks bare compared to editors like VS Code and Atom, but that simplicity makes it much faster than those other editors.

Sublime is easy to use; it sports a user-friendly interface that requires no learning curve at all. It can run on Linux, Windows, and macOS. While its UI is not as customizable as Atom&#;s, it has a of lot of installable themes that can change the color scheme of your Rust code.

In terms of size, Sublime Text is much lighter than its modern editor counterparts, and it is super easy to set up. It is also quite extensible and customizable with the help of the plugins in its package manager.

Since Sublime Text is not open source, it has a rather small team behind it compared to its counterparts, making updates and bug fixes relatively infrequent.

There are many Sublime plugins available that make coding in Rust faster, easier, and convenient. With the help of packages like , it provides Rust developers with features like:

• Auto-completion
• Go-to function
• Code Folding
• Trimmer
• Emmet
• Color Picker
• Markdown Preview
• Git
• Syntax Highlighting
• Error Detection

You can download Sublime for free, but there are premium versions as well. Sublime will prompt you to upgrade to a paid license, but if the free version and plugins provide all the features all you need, you can simply ignore these popups.

Spacemacs

If you like your workflow to be keyboard-centric, Spacemacs might be the editor for you. With the help of key bindings, you can use the keys on your keyboard to carry out different commands and make the process of development faster and more efficient.

A drawback here is that it can take a while to get the hang of editors like Spacemacs; it has a steep learning curve. Unless you are already familiar with Emacs principles and codes, you might end up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out how to perform different functions.

If you have no experience working with Emacs or Vim for Rust development and you want to hit the ground running with your Rust project, Spacemacs is not the editor for you.

Spacemacs supports a lot of languages including Rust. Leveraging and , Spacemacs is able to provide Rust developers with features like:

When it comes to customization, Spacemacs is ahead of editors like VS Code and Sublime Text. Almost every part of the editor can be tweaked, and its functionality can be greatly enhanced through packages. Although VS Code&#;s functionality can also be extended through plugins, it&#;s somewhat restrained.

If you prefer to customize your development environment to your taste rather than work in an environment with an opinionated design, Spacemacs might be for you.

Although this might sound trivial, some people actually find Spacemacs more fun and adventurous to use than editors like VS Code and Atom. Others try it out of curiosity. So if you love to learn and are feeling adventurous, then it might be worth giving Spacemacs a try.

Neovim

Neovim is a flavor of Vim, the Unix text editor. It is very lightweight, fast and flexible, but its flexibility also means that it requires a lot of customization. If you don&#;t mind the time and energy that that takes, then it might be the editor for you.

If you like a minimalistic approach to editing, Neovim could also be a great option for you because you get to do all of your editing without having to leave your terminal. Neovim is also very light, which makes it very fast and responsive.

This free and open source editor has a vibrant community behind it, and it supports a lot of languages, including Rust.

Since Rust is a memory-efficient language, Neovim could actually be a good match as it is also light on memory resources. This may matter if you are using a small, inexpensive machine and managing how your CPU resources are used is a high priority.

With the help of , Neovim is able to provide features such as:

• Syntax highlighting
• Code completion
• Git integration
• Code folding
• Go-to definition
• Error detection
• Code navigation

Neovim&#;s key bindings allow you to perform all kinds of functions with your keyboard and not have to use your mouse. This can make for an efficient coding experience if you can use them well. Neovim is also very extensible, as there are plugins available for all kinds of features.

As modern editors like VS Code and Atom tend to collect users&#; personal information, classic editors like Neovim are considered more secure.

Check out this Github guide to installing Neovim to get started.

Conclusion

All editors have their benefits, drawbacks, and place in the world of development. In the end, it probably depends on what you are comfortable with, your previous experience with editors, the kind of project you want to work on, and other factors.

If you are comfortable with performing most tasks with your keyboard and editing code from your terminal, then editors like Neovim and Spacemacs might suit you better.

If you are looking for something more modern with a shallow learning curve, then you can pick from VS Code, Atom, and Sublime Text.

However, if these feel incomplete and you need a more sophisticated, full-fledged development environment with a lot of tooling out of the box that is perfect for coding and debugging large projects, consider CLion or IntelliJ IDEA.

You can play around with all of them and see which one feels best to you.

LogRocket: Full visibility into production Rust apps

Debugging Rust applications can be difficult, especially when users experience issues that are difficult to reproduce. If you’re interested in monitoring and tracking performance of your Rust apps, automatically surfacing errors, and tracking slow network requests and load time, try LogRocket.

LogRocket is like a DVR for web and mobile apps, recording literally everything that happens on your Rust app. Instead of guessing why problems happen, you can aggregate and report on what state your application was in when an issue occurred. LogRocket also monitors your app’s performance, reporting metrics like client CPU load, client memory usage, and more.

Modernize how you debug your Rust apps — start monitoring for free.

Integrated development environment

"IntelliJ" redirects here. For the company formerly named IntelliJ Software, see JetBrains.

IntelliJ IDEA is an integrated development environment (IDE) written in Java for developing computer software written in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, and other JVM-based languages. It is developed by JetBrains (formerly known as IntelliJ) and is available as an Apache 2 Licensed community edition,^[2] and in a proprietary commercial edition. Both can be used for commercial development.^[3][4]

History[edit]

The first version of IntelliJ IDEA was released in January and was one of the first available Java IDEs with advanced code navigation and code refactoring capabilities integrated.^[5][6]

In , JetBrains released the source code for IntelliJ IDEA under the open-sourceApache License ^[7][8] JetBrains also began distributing a limited version of IntelliJ IDEA consisting of open-source features under the moniker Community Edition. The commercial Ultimate Edition provides additional features and remains available for a fee.

In a InfoWorld report, IntelliJ received the highest test center score out of the four top Java programming tools: Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans and JDeveloper.^[9]

In December , Google announced version of Android Studio, an open-source IDE for Android apps, based on the open source community edition.^[10] Other development environments based on IntelliJ's framework include AppCode, CLion, DataGrip, GoLand, PhpStorm, PyCharm, Rider, RubyMine, WebStorm, and MPS.^[11]

System requirements[edit]

Features[edit]

Coding assistance[edit]

The IDE provides certain features^[14] like code completion by analyzing the context, code navigation which allows jumping to a class or declaration in the code directly, code refactoring, code debugging^[15] , linting and options to fix inconsistencies via suggestions.

Built in tools and integration[edit]

The IDE provides^[14] integration with build/packaging tools like Grunt, bower, Gradle, and sbt. It supports version control systems like Git, Mercurial, Perforce, and SVN. Databases like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and MySQL can be accessed directly from the IDE in the Ultimate edition, through an embedded version of DataGrip, another IDE developed by JetBrains.

Plugin ecosystem[edit]

IntelliJ supports plugins through which one can add additional functionality to the IDE. Plugins can be downloaded and installed either from IntelliJ's plugin repository website or through the IDE's inbuilt plugin search and install feature. Each edition has separate plugin repositories, with both the Community and Ultimate editions totaling over plugins each as of ^[16]

Supported languages[edit]

The Community and Ultimate editions differ in their support for various programming languages as shown in the following table.^[17]

Technologies and frameworks^[17][edit]

There was a free plugin from Atlassian for IntelliJ available to integrate with JIRA,^[30]Bamboo, Crucible and FishEye. However, the software, called IDE-Connector, was discontinued on June 1, ^[31]

Software versioning and revision control[edit]

The two editions also differ in their support^[17] for software versioning and revision control systems.

See also[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

• Saunders, Stephen; Fields, Duane K.; Belayev, Eugene (March 1, ), IntelliJ IDEA in Action (1st&#;ed.), Manning, p.&#;, ISBN&#;
• Davydov, S.; Efimov, A. (May ), IntelliJ IDEA. Professional'noe programmirovanie na Java (V podlinnike) (1st&#;ed.), BHV, p.&#;, ISBN&#;

References[edit]

No, for Android Dev only the UE (Ultimate Edition) it is not probably worth the money. The CE (Community Edition) supplies you with most (if not all) what you actually need to develop a real-world Android project.

IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition is very much worth his money if you have to use it for a wider spectrum of languages/frameworks/projects.

Have a look at the comparative table here:

delsacollection.com?IC

As you can see, if you have to use it for web development, or in an enterprise-level environement, you will have to buy the UE. For Java/Android only, the UE is quite an overkill.

answered Dec 5, at

When it comes to the list of best IDEs, there is no doubt in putting Eclipse and Intellij there. Along with NetBeans, Eclipse and IntelliJ form the big 3 IDEs of Java development. However, often the two are pitched against one another (IntelliJ vs Eclipse) every now and then.

Interestingly, both IDEs came to see the light of day back in i.e. almost 2 decades ago. Now, both have succeeded in becoming trendsetters in the IDE niche. Although initially released as Java IDEs, each has added support for many programming languages and other technologies over the years.

IntelliJ is a beginner-friendly IDE that offers out-of-the-box support for Java, Groovy, Kotlin, and XML. It also provides support for other programming languages via plugins. Eclipse offers out-of-the-box support for Java only but supports more programming languages than IntelliJ IDEA via its extensive plugin system that makes it a better choice for experienced developers.

Today, we will be comparing Eclipse and IntelliJ and discussing which one to choose when you have to make a pick among the two. Let’s start with the introduction of the two popular IDEs.

What is IntelliJ?

IntelliJ IDEA is a dedicated Java IDE developed by JetBrains. It is among the best Java IDEs. The Java IDE focuses on developer productivity and flaunts an ergonomic design. It provides support for JVM-based languages to the likes of Groovy and Kotlin.

To fulfill different user requirements, IntelliJ IDEA comes in 2 variants; Ultimate and Community Edition. The IDEs are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The Community Edition is the free and open-source version of IntelliJ. It is meant for hobbyists, amateur developers, and students. Being open-source means that its source code can be tweaked as per the requirements.

IntelliJ Ultimate is the commercial, production-ready avatar of IntelliJ IDEA. It has all the features available in the Community Edition plus an extensive set of advanced features &#; like profiling tools and support for SQL and database tools &#; and immediate customer support. It is meant to be used in production and professional environments.

To help educators and learners, JetBrains offers a special fine-tuned variant of the Java IDE dubbed IntelliJ IDEA Edu. Like the Community Edition, it is free and open-source. Expedia, Netflix, Samsung, Twitter, and Volkswagen are some of the high-profile clients of IntelliJ IDEA.

Features of IntelliJ

Eclipse is a popular Java development IDE originally authored by IBM but now developed by Eclipse Foundation. It is written in C and Java. In addition to Linux, Windows, and macOS, Eclipse also comes in the form of a web-based IDE &#; via Dirigible, Eclipse Che, Orion, and Theia &#; that frees developers to work from anywhere.

It is an extensive project that features a wide range of IDEs designed for specific purposes. For example, Eclipse Dirigible is a low-code platform for the development of business applications. Another example is Eclipse Orion that lets developers perform web development right from their web browsers.

Eclipse is better suited for experienced developers thanks to its exhaustive set of plugins. Moreover, it requires low system resources and delivers a great performance. However, adding more and more plugins will make it bulkier.

Eclipse has a huge clientele that includes big names to the likes of Arduino, Ericsson, Google, IBM, and Red Hat. Interestingly, some of its clientele are also its contributors.

What is Eclipse?

IntelliJ IDEA comes with all the benchmark features that are expected from a top IDE. This includes code completion, multi-language support, inbuilt debugger, syntax highlighting, support for frontend and backend frameworks, and VCS integration.

Support for markup languages &#; like HTML and XML -, Android, JavaFX, and Swing frameworks, build automation tools like Ant and Maven, built-in bytecode viewer, and Docker is also available in IntelliJ IDEA.

Additionally, the Ultimate version of the IDE features advanced abilities like support for web scripting and style sheet languages, Spring frameworks, Selenium, npm, profiling tools, Tomcat, and Kubernetes, and the ability to detect redundant code blocks.

Features of Eclipse

The leading IDE offers a galore of industry-standard features that includes IntelliSense (autocomplete/content assist), extensive plugin support, support for a wide range of programming languages, keyboard shortcuts, and a built-in debugger.

Eclipse offers ready-to-use tools for Java development. For providing support for other programming languages, it comes with an extensive plugin system. Moreover, the IDE is backed by a giant active community that offers support for development issues via thousands of forums.

An outstanding feature that makes Eclipse stand out among the competition is the inclusion of a JRE in the Eclipse () version.

Key Differences

The main difference between Eclipse and IntelliJ lies in their intended use. While IntelliJ is a Java IDE for professionals and students, Eclipse focuses on open-source development with its wide range of optimized IDEs. Compared to IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse comes in 40+ languages. Also, it is a bigger project than IntelliJ IDEA. While IntelliJ focuses primarily on Java and JVM languages (like Kotlin and Scala) Eclipse offers support for non-JVM languages too, such as C, C++, Julia, and Perl. IntelliJ IDEA offers the Community Edition as the production-ready variant of its IDE while no commercial IDE is offered by Eclipse. Unlike IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse is also available as a cloud-based IDE.

IntelliJ vs Eclipse

Here, we present a simple Eclipse vs IntelliJ comparison table to help you better digest the differences between the two top Java IDEs:

IntelliJ or Eclipse: Which IDE is Right for You?

Making a pick between Eclipse and IntelliJ is determined by a number of factors that include the case of implementation, technologies that one needs to work with, level of expertise, and personal preferences.

As both IDEs are fine-tuned for Java development, choosing either of them will fulfill the purpose. Hence, the decision of choosing one of them is usually influenced by other factors. For example, if you want to save money as much as possible then Eclipse is the best option.

That’s because it is completely free-to-use and thus, you can add required functionality to it by designing plugins. Also, as it has an exhaustive set of plugins, most of the functionality that you require might be already available as plugins.

Although IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition is free, the advanced functionality that you might be looking for is available only in the Ultimate edition that comes with a price tag.

If you want an IDE that is capable of delivering superior performance for complex projects while going soft on resources then Eclipse is the perfect fit. IntelliJ IDEA is the ideal option for beginners and projects that are not too complex. Also, the IDE is preferred, if, in addition to Java, you need to work with JVM-based languages like Groovy and Kotlin.

Depending on your requirements, you need to make a pick among the two. To decide, underline all your requirements and then choose the one that you find the most suitable.

Conclusion

IntelliJ and Eclipse are two of the leaders in the integrated development environment market. While making lives easier for developers, they have revolutionized the way modern IDEs work simultaneously by constantly pushing the boundaries of what conventional IDEs are supposed to do. In the end, if you are still not sure about which one to choose, we would suggest getting your hands dirty with both the popular Java IDEs to know which one works best for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Should I switch from Eclipse to IntelliJ?

A: Yes, you can switch from Eclipse to IntelliJ and vice-versa. However, before making the switch ensure that doing so has some benefit otherwise, it will only consume time and effort, optimizing which is the aim of both the IDEs.

Q: Which Java IDE is best for beginners?

A: For absolute beginners, IntelliJ IDEA is the ideal fit. This is because it is less extensive than Eclipse, which is more suitable for experienced developers.

Q: Can IntelliJ run Eclipse project?

A: Yes, IntelliJ IDEA is capable of running Eclipse projects. In fact, IntelliJ automatically finds the ones available on your system and puts them under the Eclipse Projects tab in the welcome screen. In case IntelliJ is not able to automatically detect the Eclipse projects you have, you can import the same from the File->Open option in the main menu.

Q: Is Eclipse more powerful than IntelliJ?

A: Eclipse is better than IntelliJ for large and complex projects. This is because it indexes the entire project during startup. IntelliJ IDEA, however, outshines Eclipse when it comes to dealing with existing projects. In this case, IntelliJ IDEA delivers better performance than Eclipse.

Q: Is Eclipse free to use?

A: Eclipse IDE is open-source and free-to-use. Also, it comes in many variants. You can download the popular IDE and then tweak it to match your requirements or start using it right away.

Q: How much does IntelliJ cost?

A: IntelliJ IDEA Edu and IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition are free to use and thus, cost nothing. However, IntelliJ offers a premium variant in the form of IDEA Ultimate. Pricing for the same starts at $ per month and $ per year.