IntelliJ IDEA
JetBrains' integrated development environment for Java, Kotlin and other JVM and web languages.
HN commenters like IntelliJ IDEA for its git, diff and code review tools,123 accurate code navigation and refactoring,45 and its JVM debugger.67 The most common complaint is heavy memory use and slowness,891011 with one user reporting frequent cache and indexing problems on a big Java codebase.12
Why people recommend it
Git and code review · 3
Commenters rate its in-editor PR review, diff view and merge tool highly.
“IntelliJ is excellent for doing the code review. The git and diff is top notch.”
“IntelliJ supports pretty decent GitHub code review in the editor.”
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“I would pay for a fast, standalone git UI that is as good as the IntelliJ one.”
Rich feature set · 3
Users praise its broad, well-integrated features and long-running commitment to quality.
“I have been using JetBrains products since 2003, and it's rare to encounter such a long-term commitment to quality and users”
“I've wasted insane amounts of time on bugs and on filing detailed bug reports that are never looked at.”
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“IntelliJ is excellent for doing the code review. The git and diff is top notch.”
Improved performance · 3
Some daily users say recent versions are faster, with indexing now in the background.
“I use IntelliJIDEA everyday (on mac) with multiple projects open and tbh they have optimized the IDE a lot to make it faster.”
“I haven't found another IDE which is as powerful as IDEA when it comes to debugging a JVM language project.”
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AI integration · 3
Users note built-in AI tooling with agents, model switching and bring-your-own-key support.
“I use IntelliJ at my current gig”
“in IntelliJ I can switch between maybe a dozen models with a drop-down”
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Navigation and refactoring · 2
Code navigation and large refactors are described as more reliable than in other editors.
“IntelliJ always got it right, whereas with the other editors it was hit-or-miss.”
“Intellij when I used to use it had a lot great features like refactoring, extracting part of code as a function”
JVM debugging · 2
One user calls its debugger the most powerful for JVM projects, and another finds it sufficient.
“I haven't found another IDE which is as powerful as IDEA when it comes to debugging a JVM language project.”
“nowadays the IntelliJ debugger with the OpenJDK is enough for me”
Caveats and dissent
Resource hog · 3
Many commenters say it starts slowly and uses gigabytes of memory.
“it takes forever to start using gigs of memory”
“in the last few years performance and memory usage has gotten pretty bad.”
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“But the resource hog and I guess focus on writing a mediocre AI side panel really killed it for me.”
Cache and indexing · 1
One user had to clear broken caches every few days and saw slow indexing on a big codebase.
“every two days I had to wrangle with intellij cache, clearing it or what not”
Weak AI features · 2
Some find its AI side panel mediocre and its inline suggestions useless.
“But the resource hog and I guess focus on writing a mediocre AI side panel really killed it for me.”
“Intellijs inline code suggestions (also based on a local LLMs) are usually useless to me.”
Unaddressed bugs · 1
One long-time user says detailed bug reports were never looked at.
“I've wasted insane amounts of time on bugs and on filing detailed bug reports that are never looked at.”
Git terminology · 1
One commenter dislikes that its git client uses its own terminology and lifecycle.
“And I hate it with a passion. The fact they they introduced their own terminology, their own lifecycle”
Often compared with
2 moved from IntelliJ IDEA to Visual Studio Code
2 moved from IntelliJ IDEA to Zed
3 moved from Eclipse to IntelliJ IDEA
2 moved from IntelliJ IDEA to Emacs
1 moved from IntelliJ IDEA to Antigravity
1 moved from IntelliJ IDEA to Evil-mode
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot 9 mentions
- ThinkRail from JetBrains 4 mentions
- JetBrains reports revenue growth, net financial loss for 2025 3 mentions
- JetBrains Thinkrail 2 mentions
- A History of IDEs at Google 2 mentions
- Lombok Is Still Relevant in the Age of Java Records 1 mention
Also written as IntelliJ. Data: intellij-idea.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 41
“I use IntelliJ for work every day”
“IntelliJ supports pretty decent GitHub code review in the editor.”
“it's been really robust”
“IntelliJ is excellent for doing the code review. The git and diff is top notch.”
“IntelliJ IDEA is just great”
“since I have used Intellij and android studio a lot maybe I'll give it a try”
“I use Idea with eclipse shortcuts. I have lombok plugin.”
“it takes forever to start using gigs of memory”
“every two days I had to wrangle with intellij cache, clearing it or what not”
“It was about 4 months into using it that I figured out that the IDE was really doing nothing.”
“Intellij when I used to use it had a lot great features like refactoring, extracting part of code as a function”
“dev work (InteliJ)”
“in IntelliJ I can switch between maybe a dozen models with a drop-down”
“For most programming I prefer full IDEs. (intellij for the last few years).”
“I use IntelliJ at my current gig”
“I haven't found another IDE which is as powerful as IDEA when it comes to debugging a JVM language project.”
“And I hate it with a passion. The fact they they introduced their own terminology, their own lifecycle”
“Heck, I bought IntelliJ when the world was ending in the Mayan calendar”
“But the resource hog and I guess focus on writing a mediocre AI side panel really killed it for me.”
“I pay for plenty of SAAS stuff when I need to or when it adds value. Just not for Intellij.”
“in the last few years performance and memory usage has gotten pretty bad.”
“IntelliJ always got it right, whereas with the other editors it was hit-or-miss.”
“I use IntelliJIDEA everyday (on mac) with multiple projects open and tbh they have optimized the IDE a lot to make it faster.”
“https://github.com/jetbrains/intellij-community ?”
“IntelliJ was my daily driver for Java dev for a while”
“I use intellij with two two stroke keybinds”
“I have a private IntelliJ plugin that feeds markdown documents through an LLM”
“I use IntelliJ.”
“I use intelliJ for much of my development”
“a bloated, sluggish text editor like VSCode and IntelliJ”
“IntelliJ which has a great built-in "Darcula" theme”
“I'm not altogether unhappy with IntelliJ or VSCode”
“we used the Eclipse, then we started switching the IntelliJ.”
“This made it possible, even preferred, to use IntelliJ, which is what I did.”
“in a good IDE (IntelliJ has good support)”
“nowadays the IntelliJ debugger with the OpenJDK is enough for me”
“I've wasted insane amounts of time on bugs and on filing detailed bug reports that are never looked at.”
“I use IntelliJ at work on a daily basis”
“IntelliJ IDEA (10% - for Java)”
Did you know that VS Code added support for the same four-pane view as p4merge years ago? I used p4merge as my merge tool for a long time, but I switched to VS Code when I discovered that, as VS Code’s syntax highlighting and text editing features are much better than p4merge’s. I also use the merge tool of JetBrains IDEs such as IntelliJ IDEA (https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/resolve-conflicts.html#resolve-confli
“I would pay for a fast, standalone git UI that is as good as the IntelliJ one.”