What's a good IDE for Erlang programming?

Question

As far as I know there's Erlang plugin for NetBeans and Eclipse. Which one has the upper hand at the moment?

Are there any other IDE for Erlang which I didnt mention, and how good are they when compare with NetBeans and Eclipse?

See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1109084/what-is-the-ide-of-choice-for-erlang-development — Alan Moore, Jul 17 '09 at 13:13

ignatov · Answer 1 · 2014-04-17T19:53:44.107

Erlang plugin for IntelliJ IDEA provides some features for Erlang code editing and navigation:

Syntax and errors highlighting
References resolving
Code completion for functions, records, variables, macroses and keywords
Rename refactoring for modules, functions, records, macroses and variables
Safe delete refactoring
Structure view and Find usages
Code formatter
Compilation and running
Eunit test runner
Dialyzer integration
Snippets (Live Templates)
Quick-fixes
Rebar integration
Emacs-based code formatting action
Erlang shell console
Debugger
Extract variable and function refactorings

The plugins is free and open sourced: http://ignatov.github.io/intellij-erlang.

Alexey Romanov · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-29T09:04:19.603

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The best IDE for Erlang is Emacs. However, the mode which ships with Erlang isn't the best. Erlware-mode extends it and Distel allows you to use Emacs itself as an Erlang node, enabling some very nice features. See this blog post.

Between plugins for NetBeans (ErlyBird) and Eclipse (ErlIDE), I prefer the Eclipse one. NetBeans at least used to require nightly versions of NetBeans and didn't work properly for me.

edited Sep 29 '10 at 09:04

answered Jul 16 '09 at 14:23

Alexey Romanov

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Beware that "the Erlware Emacs Mode is deprecated. All significant changes made to the Erlware version have been incorporated into the latest release of the official distribution." – Maxim Vladimirsky Dec 03 '11 at 19:54
Yes. And all the links to erlware related projects are dead. – C. Sederqvist Jan 22 '16 at 17:15

score 13 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 19 '13 at 10:31

13

I use Erlide on eclipse (http://erlide.org/).

Pros: Syntax highlight, autocompletion and suggestion all work well. During suggest it will display some documentationif available: very useful when exploring a module.

Error and warning annotiations are quick and helpful.

All things considered the user experience is good, especially if you are used to eclipse.

Cons: Erlide can also run your modules, but I find the shell is too clunky to be usable. I always keep a "real" erlang shell open and compile/test my code from there.

There is also a Textmate bundle (google), but I have not tried that yet.

edited Apr 19 '13 at 10:31

ignatov

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answered Jul 24 '09 at 19:13

Matteo Caprari

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Erlide 0.56.0 does not work with Erlang 25.0 as reported in the issue "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73920540/running-an-erlang-application-in-eclipse-is-throwing-an-exception" – Mohan Oct 04 '22 at 09:37

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 16 '09 at 13:50

Erlang mode in Emacs is the generally recommended IDE.

http://www.erlang.org/doc/apps/tools/erlang_mode_chapter.html

If you just want basic syntax highlighting in Windows I have written a syntax definition for NotePad++ that works well:

http://www.roberthorvick.com/2009/07/08/syntax-highlighing-for-erlang-in-notepad/

There is an Erlang definition for vim that I'm sure Google knows how to find.

I'm sure others have done the same for other editors.

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 14 '12 at 16:12

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If you use Vim I recommend you Vimerl (http://github.com/jimenezrick/vimerl):

Features

Syntax highlighting
Code indenting
Code folding
Code omni completion
Syntax checking with quickfix support
Code skeletons for the OTP behaviours
Uses configuration from Rebar
Pathogen compatible (http://github.com/tpope/vim-pathogen)

answered Jan 14 '12 at 16:12

Ricardo

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See this recent post on integrating vim & erlang: http://blog.erlware.org/2013/09/09/how-to-use-vim-for-erlang-development/ – Berzemus Sep 18 '13 at 11:04

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 20 '15 at 09:49

6

IntelliJ IDEA has a great Erlang plugin

http://ignatov.github.io/intellij-erlang/

answered Jul 20 '15 at 09:49

brucify

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score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 29 '10 at 05:35

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I use SciTE: http://www.scintilla.org/SciTEDownload.html as I cant be bothered to learn the emacs key combinations, and am to impatient to wait for eclipse to load.

SciTE comes with an Erlang configuration, but it needs to be uncommented in the configuration file.

answered Sep 29 '10 at 05:35

Roger

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Forgot to mention that it is cross platform (A must for me) – Roger Sep 29 '10 at 05:36
Scite supports Windows and Linux, though. – Kijewski Sep 13 '11 at 21:30

score 5 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 28 '11 at 09:23

5

I used Geany and Vim, they are good enough for developing. Geany can also compile and run the code.

edited Dec 28 '11 at 09:23

Jan Wikholm

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answered Dec 28 '11 at 08:19

HeyJoy

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score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 12 '16 at 12:14

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Another option is Visual Studio Code with the erlang extension.

answered Aug 12 '16 at 12:14

adrianmp

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Agree, 2020 now days， i recommand use vscode with erlang plugins to develop erlang. – jim ying Aug 12 '20 at 07:59

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 07 '10 at 08:18

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I use notpad++ for erlang

answered Dec 07 '10 at 08:18

lizhi

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score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 24 '12 at 06:04

if you are a new emacs user, i think emacs can really kill you :(

i try erlide(buggy for jump to defination, other is good) emacs-erlang mode(really hard for me), i finally choose sublime text2 for daily development. i suggest you can try it.

i install the following plugins: package control sublime-erlang sublimerl ctags

that's as good as i expected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0rD0CQM4Yg

you can watch this video to see how friendly sublime 2 is

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 19 '14 at 04:16

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I use Eclipse with Erlide plugin.

It has support for Project Management in addition to syntax highlight, autocompletion.

Integration with 3rd party tool such as Wrangler for code refactoring is also very useful.

Debugging is also supported.

answered Mar 19 '14 at 04:16

januarvs

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jan 13 '18 at 04:49

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I'm using sublime text on windows, mac and linux

answered Jan 13 '18 at 04:49

Roman Rabinovich

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score -1 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 18 '13 at 07:39

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Emacs or VIM is not a good choice, if you didn't have experience on them. There a too many bugs in Eclipse... And IntelliJ IDEA is the best IDE

answered Sep 18 '13 at 07:39

Caspar

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What's a good IDE for Erlang programming?

14 Answers14

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