Hey everyone! I'm a junior Java developer working with Jakarta EE Web Profile on WildFly using Maven at my job. While I'm comfortable using IntelliJ Ultimate Edition at work, I want to focus on personal projects at home without the cost of the Ultimate version. I'd like to keep working with the same tech stack to improve my Jakarta EE skills, but I'd rather not switch to something entirely different like Eclipse or NetBeans, since I'm already familiar with VS Code for frontend work. Has anyone had experience setting up Jakarta EE with WildFly and Maven in VS Code? Is it a hassle, or do you have any other free options to recommend? Thanks a lot!
7 Answers
Honestly, many are satisfied with IntelliJ Community Edition. My workplace covers Ultimate, but I've found the Community Edition good enough for most tasks, especially since logging into the VPN just to access Ultimate is a pain.
If you're set on using free tools, Eclipse for Enterprise Developers and NetBeans have built-in support for Jakarta EE. They could be good alternatives if you're worried about setting up everything in VS Code.
You might want to stick with IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition for your needs. It's perfectly capable. Plus, you can run Maven commands directly from the terminal if necessary, so that could work out well!
You can definitely use VS Code for Java development. I've been using it for Spring projects without any major issues. But honestly, if you can, getting IntelliJ would be a game changer since it’s much more powerful and user-friendly. The only downside is it tends to crash on my Mac every couple of hours, which can be frustrating!
Using Maven with VS Code works just fine! Just make sure you have the right plugins set up. But honestly, some plugins are just repurposed ones from Eclipse or NetBeans running in the background. If you're already comfortable with those, it might be better to stick with them if you run into any issues.
What specific features of IntelliJ Ultimate do you find essential that the Community edition doesn't offer? It could help figure out if you really need to switch!
If you're a student, check if you can get IntelliJ Ultimate for free for a year. That could make things easier for you since Ultimate has all the features you’ll need!
Thanks for the tip! I’ll give the Community Edition a shot.