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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.

Pat Myron
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mr.freeze
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    Why don't you contact JetBrains directly? -- official answer should always be more complete/precise as they know their products much better than ordinary users... – LazyOne Dec 11 '12 at 19:48
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    I trust the stackoverflow community more. I want to hear from people who use them in real-world scenarios instead of their sales department. – mr.freeze Dec 11 '12 at 19:55
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    Note that the *community edition* does not support the PHP plugin, since it requires the JavaScript plugin that only works with the paid version. – sventechie Jul 15 '14 at 18:52
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    This [IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate vs Community Ed. matrix](https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/editions_comparison_matrix.html) says that IDEA Ultimate includes **al**l the functionality of **WebStorm** and **DataGrip**, plus all of **PyCharm pro.**, **RubyMine**, **PhpStorm** and **GoLand** via plugins. – Ricardo Jul 03 '21 at 21:08
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    See also [#language-plugin-vs-separate-IDE](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/discover-intellij-idea.html#language-plugin-vs-separate-IDE) – Ricardo Jul 05 '21 at 00:40
  • IntelliJ IDEA supports almost all languages while WebStorm only supports web-related languages, this is the function comparison link. https://www.jetbrains.com/products/compare/?product=idea&product=webstorm official reply, https://twitter.com/webstormide/status/971740318784729089 – weiya ou Apr 19 '22 at 16:47

5 Answers5

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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.

Pang
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CrazyCoder
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    is my understanding correct that if I buy PyCharm and after 1 year I don't update subscription I dont have any updates, but if I pay for IntellijIdea I can just update PyCharm plugin even if I don't update my license and have all new features from PyCharm (of course, without new features of IntellijIdea). – dbf Dec 25 '12 at 19:31
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    @dbf, at some point Python plug-in for IDEA moves to the next IntelliJ IDEA platform version and becomes incompatible with older IDEA versions, in other words you will have to upgrade to the new IDEA version in order to use new Python plug-in versions with the new features, without upgrading IDEA you will be able to use the latest compatible plug-in version, but it will not have the features of the next plug-in version. – CrazyCoder Dec 25 '12 at 19:37
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    This is not true. I'm a hard TypeScript user and can say pretty sure, Idea TS support is always near 3-6 month of bugfixes back from WebStorm one. So if you want TS in any usable and actual way - get WebStorm (actualy get VS if possible, but webstorm is a cross platform solution). – garkin Jan 07 '14 at 09:56
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    I've been trying out WebStorm, and it's *great* for JS, but it sucks when I have to edit a Python file without IDE support. I assumed that (just like Eclipse) there'd be some way to add a Python plug-in, or failing that to switch to IntelliJ and get support for both languages. My company would pay, so $500 (for IntelliJ) vs. $100 ( for Webstorm) doesn't matter at all ... but now I'm not sure I'm going to buy anything from them, and if I do it will only be the $100 Webstorm. It's always sad when a company loses money ($400-$500 in my case) because they don't listen to their customers :-( – machineghost May 23 '14 at 21:33
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    @machineghost Please try PyCharm, it includes WebStorm features. – CrazyCoder May 24 '14 at 00:15
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    They should have a wordpress version (html + css + js and php + mysql). It find it really weird that they would keep php seperate from the WebStorm bundle. There's no point in using two different editors. –  Aug 26 '14 at 22:09
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    @gdaniel: PHPStorm supports all the features of Webstorm + PHP/WP/Drupal – trve.fahad Mar 22 '15 at 18:07
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    Apparently the answer is not true, at least not anymore as of present (2016-03). There are are a number of core plugins such as Node.js not available in IntelliJ. I found this by trying to launch a project created in WS in IntelliJ community edition and failed. – abbr Mar 27 '16 at 21:19
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    @abbr these plug-ins are free for Ultimate and should be installed manually. – CrazyCoder Mar 28 '16 at 11:54
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    The "Open Directory" feature now seems to be available in the latest version of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate (possibly in the community version too). I was also able to just drag and drop random folders onto the app icon and open them immediately, just like with WebStorm. – thenickdude Oct 20 '16 at 02:53
  • Is the "product release cycles are not synchronized" still true after Jetbrains migrated to the new release schedule (e.g. 2020.1)? – Josh Hibschman Apr 08 '20 at 18:51
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    @y3sh actually it's no longer a major concern now, the time between the product releases is usually less than a week at the moment. – CrazyCoder Apr 08 '20 at 18:53
  • @CrazyCoder Tried going Intellij all-in-one for React Typescript, Go, Python for the past week. Too many issues remain. Conflicting color scheme settings (pycharm local variables, webstorm jsx string interpolation), eslint/tslint conflicts, shared pycharm venv's not recognized properly. I'm ok with separate products for now. Takes too much time to open issues on youtrack.. Glad there's an all products pack! – Josh Hibschman Apr 16 '20 at 19:11
  • so if we need php environment we need phpstorm and python ide pycharm? we need to install one-of-one ide or just install Intelijidea? which one the best scneario? – Yohanim Aug 15 '20 at 07:06
  • So what you are telling me is that I actually didn't have to pay for the all software solution. I could have been using intellij for basically everything? Does it also support C# or I still need Rider for that? – Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin Dec 01 '21 at 12:02
  • This appears to not be true for tools like DataSpell. E.g. I Jupyter Console is available as a tool there, but not in IDEA. – David Gilbertson Aug 16 '22 at 06:56
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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.

Srini
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user2220384
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    "purchase of IDEA to use any of other IDEs as opposed to just relying on IDEAs plugins" is a great suggestion. I'd pay for this too. – Ayush Gupta Mar 27 '14 at 10:54
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    I too would pay for a "master license" that would give me access to IntelliJ Idea and the lighter PyCharm, PhpStorm, etc. Great suggestion. – ryentzer Jun 04 '14 at 16:35
  • @AyushGupta so hows the master license treating you so far? did you hop on day 1? – RedactedProfile Jul 31 '17 at 16:38
  • @ryentzer same question as to Aysuh above – RedactedProfile Jul 31 '17 at 16:38
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    @RedactedProfile I no longer use JetBrains products. I now use VS Code. At the time I was moving between languages and found the JetBrains licensing restricting. – ryentzer Aug 24 '17 at 11:54
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    It should also be said that there is now a "All Products" license for $24/mo – RedactedProfile Sep 13 '17 at 18:49
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    I actually am using the 'All Products' license now, and find it extremely useful. I use a lot of different languages ( PHP, Node, Java). It is working well for me, though a bit expensive. It depends on how much you use each language. – Russell Santos Jan 27 '18 at 23:54
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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.

code
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    hi @ccit-spence. I'm deliberating between buying PHPStorm + PyCharm, OR IntelliJ IDEA. What other perform issues have you found with IntelliJ? I've been using it on 30 day trial. Other than awkward / more complex options and loads of java related things I don't use, it seems quite similar to the stand alone products? Load time seem to be 30% ~ 50%. Running it on a Macbook Pro with i7 and SSD, it's only 2 or 3 seconds longer tho. – snowbound Jan 05 '15 at 06:03
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    @snowbound With IntelliJ 14, I am finding performance has improved to the point it is the only thing I am using right now. I am not a Python dev. No experience with PyCarm. Java, NodeJS, PHP are the main languages I work with at this time. – code Jan 05 '15 at 23:39
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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

seanf
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Sebastien Dionne
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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

MistereeDevlord
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