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I've been using STS (just started to use and learn it slowly) but some users here where I work use IntelliJ. I was wondering what exactly STS comes with that can make it better/easier to use vs. IntelliJ and vice versa. Also I was wondering if there are any plugins or ways to make IntelliJ feature equivalent to whatever could be possibly missing vs STS and vice versa so I can do an equal and fair comparison.

Thanks!

Edit,

I will say that STS takes AGES to load vs IntelliJ for some reason so if someone knows how to tweak STS to open faster I'd love to know. Even on this new MBP 15" with i7 and 4GB of ram it feels way too slow opening up and is excruciatingly frustrating when it hangs.

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    What's STS? I've never heard of it. I've used IntelliJ for > 6 years and loved it; it keeps getting better and better. – duffymo Sep 13 '11 at 01:26
  • Ah sorry, SpringSource Tool Suite, basically an Eclipse spin-off but with Spring integration? Not sure what it offers over Eclipse with the Spring IDE plugin I see in the marketplace but everyone tells me to use it and as a developer in training, I just accepted it over Eclipse since it came pre-installed with my machine that I recieved. –  Sep 13 '11 at 01:30
  • @duffymo Do you know of any sort of like, here's how to go from Eclipse to IntelliJ videos, guides, or tutorials by any chance? –  Sep 13 '11 at 16:43
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    I used STS for around 2 years, and recently tried Intelij for spring web development. I found IntelliJ much better in performance, usability, features, shortcuts, etc. – Amit Patil Nov 28 '19 at 10:35

4 Answers4

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It's 2016 and STS has come a long way. I favor it over IntelliJ for many reasons. Some are Eclipse specific and others are pre-packaged with STS (but can be installed into an Eclipse distro).

The most valuable is the Quick Text Search. STS will index all the text in all files in your project. Ctrl+Shift+L opens the dialog and you can type any text in the bar. All occurences of the string instantly appear across all files.

I like the ability to organize imports in over IntelliJ and greatly favor the look and feel of the IDE. I've used Eclipse/STS for much longer than I have IntelliJ so I am a bit biased here.

The ability to natively handle different file types and frameworks is IntelliJ's greatest strength. I work on Grails projects from time to time and support for the latest and greatest with Grails is non-existent anymore within the Eclipse/STS family, whereas IntelliJ provides good support.

BTW: STS is free(!) whereas you can't even buy IntelliJ anymore. You merely lease the software for a year under their new subscription model.

IcedDante
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  • You can still buy a perpetual license with IntelliJ, here -> https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What-is-perpetual-fallback-license- – Vishwas Shashidhar Jul 12 '17 at 08:21
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    You can quickly search for text in all files, search for files, search for classes and much more in IntelliJ. IntelliJ is free for students and if you buy a year license you keep that exact version even if your license expires. – Brian Aug 01 '18 at 02:01
  • I prefer IntelliJ, but I didn't know `Quick Text Search` feature in STS. Thanks for useful information. – wonsuc Oct 02 '18 at 00:29
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Go to Window->Preferences->Validation

Uncheck what you don't need. That will speed up the loading a bit.

Modify eclipse.ini to set the Xmn(new generation size), Xms and Xmx, enable parallel GC

-Xmn128m
-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m
-Xss2m
-XX:PermSize=128m
-XX:MaxPermSize=128m
-XX:+UseParallelGC
Basanth Roy
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  • Is there any easy way to tell what I need or don't need? Also, I will try the custom ini settings. I'm on OSX so I believe I have to actually edit the Application package contents but I'll give it a shot! –  Sep 13 '11 at 16:44
  • This is not an answer to the question. – Arne Evertsson Jan 30 '13 at 13:54
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    Yes it is. Read the section below the "Edit" in the question. Why the -1 – Basanth Roy Jan 30 '13 at 19:43
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I have used both STS and Intellij community edition.Here is my personal experience.

  1. Intellij has more handy shortcuts than STS
  2. Auto completion feature of intellij is awersome (not my priority)
  3. Itellij has caching issues.(Major and critical). You may need to restart the IDE by clearing the cache. I have never faced such issues in STS.
  4. Some provided plugins does not work at all (e.g Smart Tomcat).Where as STS never fails here.
  5. I felt intellij slower than STS.
  6. Every time I restart intellij it starts indexing which I really dont like.
  7. When I try to import multiple projects each opens in separate windows.When you try to import as module certain configuration does not work.

All the above listed points are from my personal experince. One may disagree with this. As of now I would choose STS over intellij.

rajeev pani..
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I used STS for around 2 years, and recently tried Intelij [Community] for spring web development. I found IntelliJ much better in

  1. performance
  2. usability
  3. features
  4. Keyboard shortcuts save a lot of time (No need to use a mouse at all)
  5. File formats supported
  6. Debugging window

But web development and spring development is not supported in community version of Intelij, so you need enterprise version, which costs a lot [At least for Indian customers]

So, for spring development I always prefer STS and for other development (I work on Vertx as well) I prefer Intelij

Amit Patil
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