IntelliJ IDEA is an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools a ...

(IDE) written in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

for developing computer software written in Java, Kotlin,

Groovy ''Groovy'' (or, less commonly, ''groovie'' or ''groovey'') is a slang colloquialism popular during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. It is roughly synonymous with words such as "excellent", "fashionable", or "amazing", depending on context. History The ...

, and other

JVM A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...

-based languages. It is developed by

JetBrains JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. , the company has offices in Prague; Munich; Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts; Amsterdam ...

(formerly known as IntelliJ) and is available as an Apache 2 Licensed community edition, and in a proprietary commercial edition. Both can be used for commercial development.

History

The first version of IntelliJ IDEA was released in January 2001 and was one of the first available Java IDEs with advanced code navigation and

code refactoring In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structu ...

capabilities integrated. In 2009, JetBrains released the source code for IntelliJ IDEA under the

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

Apache License 2.0. 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 2010 ''

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its sister ...

'' report, IntelliJ received the highest test center score out of the four top Java programming tools:

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...

, IntelliJ IDEA,

NetBeans NetBeans is an integrated development environment (IDE) for Java. NetBeans allows applications to be developed from a set of modular software components called ''modules''. NetBeans runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Solaris. In addition to Java ...

and

JDeveloper JDeveloper is a freeware IDE supplied by Oracle Corporation. It offers features for development in Java, XML, SQL and PL/SQL, HTML, JavaScript, BPEL and PHP. JDeveloper covers the full development lifecycle from design through coding, debugging ...

. In December 2014, Google announced version 1.0 of

Android Studio Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Google's Android operating system, built on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA software and designed specifically for Android development. It is available for download on Windows ...

, an

IDE for Android apps, based on the open source community edition. Other development environments based on IntelliJ's framework include

AppCode JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. , the company has offices in Prague; Munich; Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts; Amsterdam ...

, CLion,

DataGrip JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. , the company has offices in Prague; Munich; Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts; Amsterdam; ...

, GoLand,

PhpStorm JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. , the company has offices in Prague; Munich; Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts; Amsterdam; ...

PyCharm PyCharm is an integrated development environment (IDE) used for programming in Python. It provides code analysis, a graphical debugger, an integrated unit tester, integration with version control systems, and supports web development with Dja ...

, Rider,

RubyMine JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. , the company has offices in Prague; Munich; Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts; Amsterdam; ...

WebStorm JetBrains s.r.o. (formerly IntelliJ Software s.r.o.) is a Czech software development company which makes tools for software developers and project managers. , the company has offices in Prague; Munich; Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts; Amsterdam; ...

, and

MPS MPS, M.P.S., MPs, or mps may refer to: Science and technology * Mucopolysaccharidosis, genetic lysosomal storage disorder * Mononuclear phagocyte system, cells in mammalian biology * Myofascial pain syndrome * Metallopanstimulin * Potassium perox ...

System requirements

Features

Coding assistance

The IDE provides certain features like

code completion Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the tab ...

by analyzing the context, code navigation which allows jumping to a class or declaration in the code directly,

, code debugging , linting and options to fix inconsistencies via suggestions.

Built in tools and integration

The IDE provides integration with build/packaging tools like Grunt, bower,

Gradle Gradle is a build automation tool for multi-language software development. It controls the development process in the tasks of compilation and packaging to testing, deployment, and publishing. Supported languages include Java (as well as Kotli ...

, and sbt. It supports

version control In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...

systems like

Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data integ ...

Mercurial Mercurial is a distributed revision control tool for software developers. It is supported on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems, such as FreeBSD, macOS, and Linux. Mercurial's major design goals include high performance and scalabilit ...

Perforce Perforce, legally Perforce Software, Inc., is an American developer of software used for developing and running applications, including version control software, web-based repository management, developer collaboration, application lifecycle mana ...

, and SVN. Databases like

Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

SQLite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the mo ...

, and

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

can be accessed directly from the IDE in the Ultimate edition, through an embedded version of

, another IDE developed by JetBrains.

Plugin ecosystem

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 3000 plugins each as of 2019.

Supported languages

The Community and Ultimate editions differ in their support for various programming languages as shown in the following table. Supported in both Community and Ultimate Edition: *

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone t ...

Sass Sass, Saß or SASS may refer to: SASS * M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System (or M110 SASS) * Safe Amplification Site Society, a non-profit organization that promotes music and the arts within Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada * Shanghai Academ ...

, SCSS,

Less Less or LESS may refer to: fewer than,: not as much. Computing * less (Unix), a Unix utility program * Less (stylesheet language), a dynamic stylesheet language * Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), a product development framework that extends Scrum Other ...

Stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision ...

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other s ...

YAML YAML ( and ) (''see '') is a human-readable data-serialization language. It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data is being stored or transmitted. YAML targets many of the same communications applications as Ext ...

* Kotlin *

Markdown Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown in 2004 as a markup language that is appealing to human readers in its source code form. Markdown i ...

XSL In computing, the term Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is used to refer to a family of languages used to transform and render XML documents. Historically, the W3C XSL Working Group produced a draft specification under the name "XSL," whi ...

XPATH XPath (XML Path Language) is an expression language designed to support the query or transformation of XML documents. It was defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and can be used to compute values (e.g., strings, numbers, or Boolean v ...

Supported in both Community and Ultimate Edition via plugins: *

Clojure Clojure (, like ''closure'') is a dynamic and functional dialect of the Lisp programming language on the Java platform. Like other Lisp dialects, Clojure treats code as data and has a Lisp macro system. The current development process is ...

* CloudSlang *

Dart Dart or DART may refer to: * Dart, the equipment in the game of darts Arts, entertainment and media * Dart (comics), an Image Comics superhero * Dart, a character from ''G.I. Joe'' * Dart, a ''Thomas & Friends'' railway engine character * D ...

Elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of Nor ...

* Erlang *

Gosu Gosu (고수) is a Korean term used to refer to a highly skilled person. In computer gaming the term is usually used to refer to a person who dominated games like ''StarCraft'', '' Counter-Strike'', Tekken, '' Warcraft III'', '' Diablo II'', ' ...

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically-typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research and industrial applications, Haskell has pioneered a number of programming lan ...

Haxe Haxe is an open source high-level cross-platform programming language and compiler that can produce applications and source code, for many different computing platforms from one code-base. It is free and open-source software, released under the ...

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e ...

Lua Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

Perl Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

* Python * R *

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH), ...

* Scala Supported only in Ultimate Edition: *

CoffeeScript CoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles to JavaScript. It adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby, Python, and Haskell in an effort to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability. Specific additional features include list comprehen ...

ActionScript ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meani ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

TypeScript TypeScript is a free and open source programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript and adds optional static typing to the language. It is designed for the development of large appl ...

* SQL Supported only in Ultimate Edition via plugins: *

Cython Cython () is a programming language that aims to be a superset of the Python programming language, designed to give C-like performance with code that is written mostly in Python with optional additional C-inspired syntax. Cython is a compil ...

* Go *

PHP PHP is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementati ...

Ruby A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum (aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapp ...

and

JRuby JRuby is an implementation of the Ruby programming language atop the Java Virtual Machine, written largely in Java. It is free software released under a three-way EPL/ GPL/ LGPL license. JRuby is tightly integrated with Java to allow the embeddi ...

Technologies and frameworks

Supported in both Community and Ultimate Edition: * Android (includes the

's functionality) *

Ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22,0 ...

* Test runners (

JUnit JUnit is a unit testing framework for the Java programming language. JUnit has been important in the development of test-driven development, and is one of a family of unit testing frameworks which is collectively known as xUnit that originated ...

TestNG TestNG is a testing framework for the Java programming language created by Cédric Beust and inspired by JUnit and NUnit. The design goal of TestNG is to cover a wider range of test categories: unit, functional, end-to-end, integration, etc., w ...

Spock Spock is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. He first appeared in the original ''Star Trek'' series serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as science officer and first officer (and Kirk's Second-in-command) and ...

Cucumber Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.JavaFX JavaFX is a software platform for creating and delivering desktop applications, as well as rich web applications that can run across a wide variety of devices. JavaFX has support for desktop computers and web browsers on Microsoft Windows, L ...

Maven MAVEN is an American spacecraft orbiting Mars to study the loss of its atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. The spacecraft name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolu ...

Supported only in Ultimate Edition: *

Django Django may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Django'' (1966 film), a 1966 Italian Western by Sergio Corbucci which had a particular influence on the Spaghetti Western genre and a number of unofficial prequels and sequels ** ''Django, Prep ...

Thymeleaf Thymeleaf is a Java XML/XHTML/HTML5 template engine that can work both in web (servlet-based) and non-web environments. It is better suited for serving XHTML/HTML5 at the view layer of MVC-based web applications, but it can process any XML file e ...

FreeMarker Apache FreeMarker is a free Java-based template engine, originally focusing on dynamic web page generation with MVC software architecture. However, it is a general purpose template engine, with no dependency on servlets or HTTP or HTML, and is ...

Velocity Velocity is the directional speed of an object in motion as an indication of its rate of change in position as observed from a particular frame of reference and as measured by a particular standard of time (e.g. northbound). Velocity i ...

* Grails *

Java EE Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web se ...

( JSF,

JAX-RS Jakarta RESTful Web Services, (JAX-RS; formerly Java API for RESTful Web Services) is a Jakarta EE application programming interface, API specification that provides support in creating web services according to the Representational State Transf ...

, CDI, JPA, etc) * Micronaut,

Quarkus Quarkus is a Java framework tailored for deployment on Kubernetes. Key technology components surrounding it are OpenJDK HotSpot and GraalVM. The goal of Quarkus is to make Java a leading platform in Kubernetes and serverless environments whil ...

, Helidon *

Node.js Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript code ou ...

React REACT or React may refer to: Science and technology * REACT (telescope), a telescope at Fenton Hill Observatory, New Mexico, US Computing * React (JavaScript library) , a JavaScript library for building user interfaces, from Facebook ** React Nat ...

Vue.js Vue.js (commonly referred to as Vue; pronounced "view") is an open-source model–view–viewmodel front end JavaScript framework for building user interfaces and single-page applications. It was created by Evan You, and is maintained by him a ...

Angular Angular may refer to: Anatomy * Angular artery, the terminal part of the facial artery * Angular bone, a large bone in the lower jaw of amphibians and reptiles * Angular incisure, a small anatomical notch on the stomach * Angular gyrus, a region o ...

AspectJ AspectJ is an aspect-oriented programming (AOP) extension created at PARC for the Java programming language. It is available in Eclipse Foundation open-source projects, both stand-alone and integrated into Eclipse. AspectJ has become a widely use ...

JBoss Seam WildFly, formerly known as JBoss AS, or simply JBoss, is an application server written by JBoss, now developed by Red Hat. WildFly is written in Java and implements the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) specification. It runs on mult ...

OSGi OSGi is an open specification and open source project under the Eclipse Foundation. It is a continuation of the work done by the OSGi Alliance (formerly known as the Open Services Gateway initiative), which was an open standards organization for ...

Play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (simplified as Rails) is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web ...

sbt sbt is an open-source build tool for Scala and Java projects, similar to Apache's Maven and Gradle. Its main features are: *Native support for compiling Scala code and integrating with many Scala test frameworks *Continuous compilation, te ...

Spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a h ...

There was a free plugin from

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australian software company that develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams. The company is domiciled in Delaware, with global headquarters in Sydney, Austr ...

for IntelliJ available to integrate with JIRA,

Bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

Crucible A crucible is a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. While crucibles were historically usually made from clay, they can be made from any material that withstands te ...

and FishEye. However, the software, called IDE-Connector, was discontinued on June 1, 2015.

Software versioning and revision control

The two editions also differ in their support for

software versioning Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique ''version names'' or unique ''version numbers'' to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category (e.g., major or minor), these numbers are generally assig ...

and

revision control In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...

systems. Supported in both Community and Ultimate Edition: *

Subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...

* Azure DevOps (formerly TFS/VSTS; via plug-in) Supported only in Ultimate Edition: *

Bibliography

* *

References

{{Integrated development environments Free integrated development environments Integrated development environments Java development tools Products introduced in 2001 Software using the Apache license