Can IntelliJ IDEA encapsulate all of the functionality of WebStorm and PHPStorm through plugins?

Question

I am in the market for a new IDE but am confused about the overlap between some of Jetbrains' offerings. It looks like IntelliJ IDEA has plugins that allow you to do Node.js and php development.

Can IntelliJ IDEA do everything that WebStorm and PHPStorm do through plugins or do they have special features not available in IDEA? I am hoping to have a single polyglot IDE for all development.

Solution 1

All of the functionality of our lightweight IDEs can be found within IntelliJ IDEA (you need to install the corresponding plug-ins from the repository).

It includes support for all technologies developed for our more specific products such as Web/PhpStorm, RubyMine and PyCharm.

The specific feature missing from IntelliJ IDEA is simplified project creation ("Open Directory") used in lighter products as it is not applicable to the IDE that support such a wide range of languages and technologies. It also means that you can't create projects directly from the remote hosts in IDEA.

If you are missing any other feature that is available in lighter products, but is not available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, you are welcome to report it and we'll consider adding it.

While PHP, Python and Ruby IDEA plug-ins are built from the same source code as used in PhpStorm, PyCharm and RubyMine, product release cycles are not synchronized. It means that some features may be already available in the lighter products, but not available in IDEA plug-ins at certain periods, they are added with the plug-in and IDEA updates later.

Solution 2

But here's the rub, sometimes you can't or don't want to wait. For example I want to use the new support for RubyMotion which includes RubyMotion project structure support, setup of rake files, setup of configurations that are hooked to iOS Simulator etc.

RubyMine has all of these now, IDEA does not. So I would have to generate a RubyMotion project outside of IDEA, then setup an IDEA project and hook up to that source folder etc and God knows what else.

What JetBrains should do is have a licensing model that would allow me, with the purchase of IDEA to use any of other IDEs, as opposed to just relying on IDEAs plugins.

I would be willing to pay more for that i.e. say 50 bucks more for said flexibility.

The funny thing is, I was originally a RubyMine customer that upgraded to IDEA, because I did want that polyglot setup. Now I'm contemplating paying for the upgrade of RubyMine, just because I need to do RubyMotion now. Also there are other potential areas where this out of sync issue might bite me again . For example torque box workflow / deployment support.

JetBrains has good IDEs but I guess I'm a bit annoyed.

Solution 3

I regularly use IntelliJ, PHPStorm and WebStorm. Would love to only use IntelliJ. As pointed out by the vendor the "Open Directory" functionality not being in IntelliJ is painful.

Now for the rub part; I have tried using IntelliJ as my single IDE and have found performance to be terrible compared to the lighter weight versions. Intellisense is almost useless in IntelliJ compared to WebStorm.

Solution 4

IntelliJ IDEA vs WebStorm features

IntelliJ IDEA remains JetBrains' flagship product and IntelliJ IDEA provides full JavaScript support along with all other features of WebStorm via bundled or downloadable plugins. The only thing missing is the simplified project setup.

Taken from : https://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/WI/WebStorm+FAQ#WebStormFAQ-IntelliJIDEAvsWebStormfeatures

Solution 5

Definitely a great question. I've noted this also as a sub question of the choice for versions within IDEa that this link may help to address...

http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/editions_comparison_matrix.html

it as well potentially possesses a ground work for looking at your other IDE choices and the options they provide.

I'm thinking WebStorm is best for JavaScript and Git repo management, meaning the HTML5 CSS Cordova kinds of stacks, which is really where (I believe along with others) the future lies and energies should be focused now... but ya it depends on your needs, etc.

Anyway this tells that story too... http://www.jetbrains.com/products.html

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