# IntelliJ IDEA Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is IntelliJ IDEA the right Application Development solution for you? Explore 1258 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/136010/IntelliJ-IDEA/reviews --- IntelliJ IDEA 4.7 (1258) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/136010/IntelliJ-IDEA/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of IntelliJ IDEA Ease of use 4.5 Customer Service 4.3 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Efficient and guided code creation 96% positive reviews out of 331 Most reviewers indicate code writing is streamlined by smart suggestions, error detection, and customizable formatting options. NOMPILO M Software Developer Intern, 10,001+ employees. "The IDE offers advanced code completion, smart suggestions, and context-aware coding assistance, significantly speeding up coding and reducing errors." Sluggish performance on modest hardware 72% negative reviews out of 228 Most reviewers report performance and speed issues, especially on older computers or with large projects. Martin B Software Developer, 51 - 200 employees. "I don't like it because sometimes it's heavy; I want to open two windows, and its UI makes everything slow." Intelligent and fast code suggestions 98% positive reviews out of 116 Most reviewers describe autocomplete as highly accurate, supporting many languages and boosting coding efficiency. Abhishek P Developer, 10,001+ employees. "Strong autocompleting features , highlighting codes boost the performance and team productivity." Expensive licensing for individuals 61% negative reviews out of 161 Some reviewers say pricing is high, making it difficult for freelancers, students, and small teams to afford. Comprehensive and safe code restructuring 99% positive reviews out of 71 Most reviewers find code refactoring tools reliable, enabling easy, consistent, and maintainable code improvements. Ajay G Full Stack Developer, 2 - 10 employees. "However, it is more adept at refactoring, supports a wider range of languages, handles Git better, and is easier to understand. " High memory and CPU requirements 77% negative reviews out of 65 Most reviewers describe resource consumption as significant, causing slowdowns and heavy usage on many systems. ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 1258 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Enguerran M. Fullstack Web Developer Sporting Goods Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The ultimate IDE for professional software development" May 13, 2026 5.0 My main integrated development environment for professional work is IntelliJ IDEA. The software helps me work more efficiently through its various keyboard shortcuts and extensive built-in functionality. The software provides high-quality value because its features become essential after users learn them. Pros The smart code completion and refactoring tools are light years ahead of the competition. The system explains everything according to my project needs because it performs complete project understanding. The system includes both integrated debugger tools and Git handling capabilities which function at a high level of excellence. Cons The process demands significant resources with particular focus on consuming RAM. The system experiences performance issues during handling of extremely large microservices architectures. The initial indexing process needs time to complete during the first time application launch. Review Source Ozzie B. Senior Systems Administrator Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "The Rolls-Royce of IDE's" December 11, 2025 5.0 My experience is much like others have said, JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA is the best IDE period. JetBrains knows their customer base and their suite of IDE's and developer tools proves this. Pros The versatility and speed are my favorite features of IDEA. Hands down one of the best, most feature rich IDE's I have ever had the pleasure of using. JetBrains really knows their customer and it shows. Cons There's no complaints other than I wish it were free, but if it were I doubt the product would be the same. Switched from [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) IntelliJ is a more feature rich IDE without having to use 3rd party plugins. Their ecosystem is also vast and offers utility to every development team at my company. Review Source Shad M. Private Online Media Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Explicitly dissatisfied with the product and dev-maintained approaches-" October 8, 2025 1.0 Lack of control for a developer from my personal take, every script automated, the 'dev-support-team' finds a way to mitigate your ability to use it- Prefer a more ethical-value practise approach- Imagine life in corporate then you trip on a stone and die, was life worth it using this product for that many years at that rate? Just a personal consideration - don't take it personally or do- Pros step into step out: cmd+\[ && cmd+\] Great intro to programming until you hit a bottleneck then its also your day job life thereafter. Cons hand-chain-like approach to UI programming and integration - at least from my experience with it. Continuous hastle, not even client urgencies give me this much grief. Alternatives considered [Microsoft Visual Studio](https://www.capterra.com/p/80230/microsoft-visual-studio/) Reason for choosing IntelliJ IDEA Because of the hand-chain value approach till regret factor realised? Though if it was a decent product I may have still used it going forward. Review Source Abdelrahman A. Associate software developer Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The Ultimate IDE for Java & Spring Boot Backend Development" March 2, 2026 4.0 Transitioning into a professional company environment over the past few months, IntelliJ IDEA has been my primary and most reliable tool. It significantly boosted my productivity in writing clean Java code and managing complex backend architectures. The out-of-the-box features save me hours of configuration time every week. Pros The intelligent code completion and refactoring tools are lifesavers, especially when ensuring the code adheres to OOP and SOLID principles. The built-in integration for Spring Boot makes running, testing, and debugging REST APIs incredibly smooth. It also has seamless Docker integration, which streamlines my daily backend tasks and deployment preparations, the best plugin market and the compatibility with many services . Cons It is quite resource-heavy. Indexing large projects upon startup can take some time, and it consumes a significant amount of RAM so my device cry. You definitely need a machine with strong specifications (at least 16GB RAM) to run it smoothly alongside other tools without experiencing any lag, sometimes i should restart my device when i run many plugins to make it build the maven project smother Switched from [Apache NetBeans](https://www.capterra.com/p/178681/Apache-NetBeans/) While Apache NetBeans was a great learning tool during my university studies, I needed a more robust, industry-standard IDE for my professional backend work. IntelliJ IDEA offers far superior performance, advanced refactoring tools, and seamless, out-of-the-box support for enterprise frameworks and modern containerization tools, which are essential for handling complex logic in a company environment. Review Source Keshav C. Student E-Learning Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "Great IDE for Java, but a bit heavy on resources" March 23, 2026 5.0 I've been using IntelliJ IDEA mainly for Java development during my coursework and small projects. The biggest advantage is how smart the IDE is ,code completion, debugging tools, and refactoring features save a lot of time compared to basic editors. It also integrates really well with tools like Maven and Git, which makes project management easier. Pros Very smart code completion and suggestions Excellent debugging and refactoring tools Great integration with Maven, Gradle, and Git Clean and organized interface Lots of built-in development tools Cons Uses a lot of RAM and CPU sometimes Initial indexing can be slow Too many features can feel overwhelming for beginners Switched from [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) I initially used Visual Studio Code for Java, but managing larger Java projects started getting a bit messy with extensions. I switched to IntelliJ IDEA because it has better built-in support for Java development. Features like smarter code suggestions, easier debugging, and built-in tools for Maven and Gradle made development smoother without needing too many plugins. Review Source AU Ali U. Technical Executive Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Stability and usability all in one!" December 3, 2024 4.0 I develop Spring Boot powered Java backend Services and use the IDE to debug and develop the new services and methods, the inbuilt decompiler is also very useful in the case documentation is not available for an obsecure dependency Pros Autofill and code Recommendations as well as the stable enviroment Cons Too many services are paid, Maybe provide the AI code completion on a trial without adding in card details Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) I switched from Eclipse IDE to IntelliJ IDEA because of its superior performance, more intuitive user interface, and advanced features like intelligent code completion, seamless integration with build tools, and better support for modern frameworks and technologies. The enhanced debugging tools and robust version control capabilities in IntelliJ IDEA also provide a smoother development experience compared to Eclipse. Review Source JB Jeremy B. Offensive Security Consultant Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 2+ years ### "IDE is almost perfect" May 8, 2025 5.0 This IDE is pretty amazing, especially for web development where you may have HTML and CSS and PHP or JSP etc in a single file, integrated web server that can leverage php and tomcat binaries is really slick Pros Multi language support within a single product, project, even a single file Cons Setting up and managing projects can be a real pain, not very intuitive. the AI assistant is nice when it works, but it often doesnt, and your code snippets/project files are aggressively truncated behind the scenes making the tool much less useful for anything other than very narrow prompts lacking context Switched from [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) plugin management, single-vendor authorship, UI, etc Review Source SP Srinivasa P. Quality Assurance Lead Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "What more can you ask? :)" December 11, 2024 5.0 Amazing!!!! I was an "Eclipse lover" before using Intellij... Cannot go back to any other tool now. You won me Intellij. :) Pros Intellisense and the wide range of language support Cons Lack of suggestions to do a specific thing effectively. May be utilize the AI to analyze what a user is doing and suggest better ways to acheive the same with in the tool. Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) Intellij is a feature rich product that is consistent in performance and never crashed on me abruptly. Had a very bad experience with Eclipse crashing on me in a demo. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Research Associate Higher Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "My Java IDE of choice for many years" January 22, 2025 5.0 Easy to use and powerful IDE. Has everything needed for Java programming and beyond. Pros \- Powerful code completion. Ultimate even offers full line completion, which is a real game changer when writing standard stuff. - Everywhere search lets you search everything from everywhere. - Code analysis has become extremely good. - Free plan for universities and students, which lets me introduce ItelliJ IDEA in my classes Cons I am really happy with ItelliJ IDEA, thus I have no real cons to mention. Alternatives considered [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) Reason for choosing IntelliJ IDEA IntelliJ Idea was a modern and streamlined approach back then which offered a lot more features than Eclipse IDE did. Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) IntelliJ Idea was a modern and streamlined approach back then which offered a lot more features than Eclipse IDE did. Review Source DC Daniel C. Enigneering Manager Program Development Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best Platform to code Java Apps " December 30, 2024 5.0 My overall experience with IntelliJ IDEA has been very positive. It’s a powerful IDE with great features like smart code completion, powerful debugging tools, and seamless integration with version control systems Pros The auto-completion features and its integration with spring boot Cons Pricing is a little bit high when you want to start a project by yourself Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) Eclipse does not provide a lot of features and plugins as IntelliJ Review Source RL Richard L. Senior Software developer Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Very well rounded IDE tool for a multitude of languages" September 30, 2024 5.0 Very pleasant experience using IntelliJ IDEA on a daily basis Pros Very powerful and light software for development Cons A bit expensive I believe. Might not have all the bells and whistles installed out of the box Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) Eclipse was starting to become too resource hungry and had too many crashes Review Source NP Nuno P. Principal Developer Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The IDE for any level of developers" April 24, 2026 5.0 IntelliJ is my daily IDE, be it for professional or personal projects, and sometimes even for small things like reading a simple text file. All due to its complete ease of use and integrations. Pros It is a flexible IDE, I can write code for any language and IntelliJ IDEA is able to support it. It's plugin marketplace is huge, with plugins to connect to Docker images, AWS environment, database, and even several AI assistants that can help out with your code. Cons Being such a complete IDE, IntelliJ IDEA can sometimes be a burden on the machine's resources. Although nothing that a quick restart does not fix. Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) Initially it was due to company policy, but after a few days of usage, it also became the IDE used for my personal projects. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer software developer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best IDE which keeps getting better." September 8, 2024 5.0 IDE to use by default if a professional software developer. Pros Best IDE for professionals like me who work in Java and Typescript. Cons Sometimes stability with centrain plugins like AWS toolkit is pretty annoying. Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) To increase productivity and work with Frontend code is same IDE Review Source AH Andrew H. Software Developer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best IDE for Multilingual Development" March 8, 2025 4.0 It is the best IDE for me. It’s user-friendly with an intuitive design Pros We can be built directly within this plateform Cons The indexing process can be slow for large projects Review Source EC Eric C. Software Developer Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best IDE for Java/Spring Boot development" February 8, 2025 5.0 Pros Still the best Java/Spring Boot IDE available. Mature with a vast ecosystem of plugins available. Cons Can be a bit more resource hungry and slower than other IDEs eg. VS code. Review Source GG Guntas G. Software Developer Program Development Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Reliable IDEA" May 12, 2025 5.0 Pros Fast setup and good integration with GitLab pipelines. This IDE allows simple or complexity development Cons UI feels a bit outdated sometimes, overwhelming whit plugin and navigation could be smoother Review Source MS Michaël S. Network and security engineer Retail Used the software for: 2+ years ### "IntelliJ review" September 29, 2024 4.0 Pros Really good IDE with innovative function the IDE suite supports a lot of languages Cons Can be overwhelming at the beginning with the numerous version of IntelliJ Review Source Vaja H. Frontend Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "My experience using Intellij IDEA" July 22, 2024 5.0 Pros Mostly i have used intellij IDEA for my android application development. it gives really good code complication and provides some of the best debugging feature One more i thing i liked most is its zen feature which gives me less distraction is best when you want to focus on work. Cons I got it from my student developer pack otherwise its quite expensive for common user to use. In begging you may need time to get used to all the capabilities of it Review Source Noureddine B. Write a Review for IntelliJ IDEA Program Development Used the software for: 2+ years ### "IntelliJ IDEA Review" March 4, 2023 5.0 Pros IntelliJ IDEA provides a range of code analysis tools that help me identify potential bugs, errors, and other issues in my code. This includes code inspections, highlighting of syntax errors, and warnings, and makes it easy to navigate through my codebase with features like Go to Definition, Find Usages, and the ability to search for specific classes or methods.IntelliJ IDEA provides a suite of tools that help me refactor my code safely and quickly. This includes tools to rename variables and methods, extract code into methods or classes, and more, and offers advanced code completion and code generation features that can save me a lot of time while coding. It also provides context-sensitive suggestions and predictions and integrates with a variety of other tools and frameworks, including version control systems, builds tools, and testing frameworks. It also supports a wide range of programming languages, including Java, Kotlin, Python, and more. Cons of my experience, IntelliJ IDEA can be resource-intensive, which means that it can slow down your system, especially if you're working with large codebases or complex projects, and IntelliJ IDEA can have a steep learning curve, especially for developers who are new to the IDE. This can make it challenging to get up and running quickly. While IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition is free and open-source, the Ultimate Edition comes with a price tag that can be expensive for individual developers or small teams.I have reported occasional performance issues, including lag or freezing, which can be frustrating when working on time-sensitive projects. Review Source Joseph M. Developer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Agrxis Review on IntelliJ IDEA" May 17, 2023 5.0 My overall impressions of the potent integrated development environment (IDE) IntelliJ IDEA have been continuously wowed by its broad range of features and capabilities. IntelliJ IDEA has significantly increased my productivity and efficiency as a developer when creating code. The IDE's intelligent code completion and suggestions have helped me write cleaner, more precise code while saving me time and effort. My code management process has been made simpler by the seamless connection with version control programs like Git. In order to ensure a smooth development process, the debugging tools have proven to be useful in finding and fixing problems in my code. Additionally, the extensive selection of plugins and extensions that are available has enabled me to modify IntelliJ IDEA to meet my unique requirements. Overall, IntelliJ IDEA has been an excellent experience for me, and I now just use it for software development tasks. To other developers looking for a robust and dependable programming environment, I heartily suggest it. Pros I adore IntelliJ IDEA and all the wonderful things it has to offer. It has significantly improved my coding experience and increased my productivity as a developer. The robust code analysis and insightful suggestions of IntelliJ IDEA are the features I like most. The IDE continuously reviews my code in real-time, looking for any issues, making suggestions for enhancements, and providing guidance as it goes. This feature has significantly increased the quality of my code and saved me numerous hours of debugging. My development approach has become tremendously effective because to the easy management of several projects in the same workspace and the smooth connection with version control systems. My productivity is further increased by the user-friendly and adaptable interface, which frees me up to concentrate on writing code rather than getting lost in complicated settings. The capability of IntelliJ IDEA is further expanded by the availability of a wide variety of plugins and extensions, which meets my unique needs as a developer. Overall, IntelliJ IDEA has grown to be a crucial part of my development toolkit, assisting me in writing cleaner code, identifying potential problems, and streamlining my work process. To any developer looking for a feature-rich and highly effective integrated development environment, I wholeheartedly recommend IntelliJ IDEA. Cons There were a few parts of IntelliJ IDEA, a potent and feature-rich integrated development environment (IDE) for software development, that I didn't particularly like. The learning curve associated with the IDE's vast capability and multiple features was one component that occasionally presented a hardship. In the beginning, my productivity was hampered because it took me some time to really examine and comprehend all the available tools and shortcuts as a developer. Review Source RN Ramesh N. Software Developer Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "IntelliJ increased my productivity" April 20, 2024 5.0 Overall IntelliJ is worth the investment for anyone or anyone company big and small. It drastically improves developer productivity. With keyboard shortcuts and an easy-to-use IDE, it is my favorite IDE of all. Pros With all the plugins and features, IntelliJ is certainly easy to use and improves developer productivity. Cons Often I suspect it uses a lot of memory. This IDE can be made a little more lightweight and use less memory. Also, it takes up a lot of space for cache for dependencies. IntelliJ should clean up older gradle version caches, and older project dependency caches. This will save many GBs of hard disk space and improve the overall speed of the IDE and the computer itself. Review Source Asher H. Full Stack Developer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The Best IDE for Any Developer" June 26, 2021 5.0 IntelliJ IDEA and its sibling programs have been my go to for development for years. I use them every day and don't plan on changing that. They are a bit heavier for just checking out a JSON file or something similar but other than that there is no complaints from me. Pros IntelliJ Idea can be used with anything and there are a whole bunch of children IDE based off it for every language. I have used many and there are all super helpful for their specified language. Here are some of the best features: - Ease of reverting a file based off local or GIT history. - Ease of searching the entire project for specific words or phrases in seconds. - Can handle just about anything. - Comes with just about everything you need out of the box and if it is missing something there is a plugin for it and it will even tell you there is a plugin for it and just let you install it from a little pop-up. Cons \- Takes a while to load if you don't have the newest computer. - Not everyone uses the various siblings to IntelliJ so support is hit and miss with some of the other languages. Review Source GS Gaurav S. Sr. DevOps Engineer Automotive Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Efficient and Developer friendly IDE" April 26, 2022 4.0 I have been using intellij idea for terraform, cloudformation , python for automation from last two years and its been a great choice. It is really developer friendly tool and supports variety of languages, plugins and out of the box integrations with other devops tools. Pros Variety of languages support. Integration with multiple SCM and other plugin support. Intelligent autocomplete and an option to create own short cut key combinations makes daily development job easy. Commenting "to do" reminds you for the work before commiting the change. Fast searching and indexing. Cons Pricing is very very high. It is heavy tool and consumes lot of memory. Frequent updates. Debugging takes a lot of time as first of all the execution has to be done in debugging mode Review Source AK Atul K. Senior Member of Technical Staff Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Intelligent Java Ide for All." September 24, 2022 5.0 I use this to work on and manage the huge codebase of Salesforce which is well over 50 GB in size. I'm not saying there is no other tool out there which can't do all the things that IntelliJ idea does but what I'm saying is that there is no other two tool out there which does all the things that IntelliJ idea and be so good at it. Pros 1\. Great intuitive and fluid GUI. 2. Debugging features. 3. Powerful code navigation and shortcuts. 4. Superb SCM integration Cons This is expensive if you're paying for it out of your own pocket. Especially if you're getting the bundle which includes PyCharm and CLion. Nonetheless, if you're a student, or an open source contributor, JetBrains allows you to use all their software for free. Great initiative to push Open Source Software. Switched from [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) Superior features Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Consultant Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best IDE for Developer" December 28, 2022 5.0 Best IDE in software industry Pros Best IDE for developer for code development, build and deploy. It provides all library to check code. Easy to debug and easy to manage the file source control using git. By integrating with maven we can easily build java project. Cons Doesn't have back button to go to last edit location . Review Source Similar Products Featured