IntelliJ IDEA

What is IntelliJ IDEA?

IntelliJ IDEA is a desktop IDE for developers who work mainly in Java and Kotlin, with built-in support for Groovy and plugins for Scala and other languages that run on the Java virtual machine. When a project opens, the IDE indexes its source files and libraries into a model of classes, methods and references. That model drives context-aware completion, inspections that flag likely bugs as code is written, quick fixes, and refactorings such as renaming a method or extracting a class that update every affected file in one step.

Around the editor sit the tools a JVM developer uses daily: Maven and Gradle integration, a debugger, test runners for frameworks such as JUnit, Git support and a terminal. Thousands of plugins on the JetBrains Marketplace extend it further. The IntelliJ Platform that the IDE is built on also underlies JetBrains’ other IDEs, including PyCharm, as well as Google’s Android Studio, and it hosts JetBrains’ AI features, from AI Assistant chat to the Junie coding agent.

Since version 2025.3, released in December 2025, IntelliJ IDEA has shipped as one product instead of separate Community and Ultimate editions. Everything in the former open-source Community Edition remains free for commercial and non-commercial work, and some previously paid features, such as basic highlighting for Spring and Jakarta EE code, a Spring Boot project wizard and database connection tools, moved into the free tier. An Ultimate subscription unlocks the rest, including full Spring support, wider JVM framework coverage and advanced productivity tools, while JetBrains continues to publish the open-source code on GitHub.

Key features of IntelliJ IDEA

1. 01

   Inspections and quick fixes

   Inspections run continuously in the editor, highlighting probable bugs, unreachable code, unused declarations and style problems, and many warnings come with one-click fixes that rewrite the affected code.

2. 02

   Automated refactoring

   Refactorings such as rename, extract method, change signature, inline and move class update every usage across a project, so large structural changes can be made without breaking the build.

3. 03

   Context-aware code completion

   Completion ranks suggestions by expected type and surrounding code. Ultimate subscribers also get full-line completion from a language model that runs entirely on the local machine without sending code over the internet.

4. 04

   Build tools and frameworks

   Maven and Gradle projects import automatically with their dependencies and run configurations, and the Ultimate tier adds in-depth support for Spring, Jakarta EE and other enterprise and microservice frameworks.

5. 05

   Debugger and test runner

   The debugger offers conditional breakpoints, expression evaluation and a dedicated view for Kotlin coroutines, while built-in runners execute JUnit and TestNG tests and report code coverage.

6. 06

   Version control

   Git integration covers branching, staging, interactive rebase and a three-way merge tool, and built-in GitHub and GitLab support lets developers review pull and merge requests inside the IDE.

7. 07

   Plugin ecosystem

   The JetBrains Marketplace offers thousands of plugins that add languages, frameworks, themes and integrations, and the IntelliJ Platform SDK lets companies build extensions for their own tools.

8. 08

   AI Assistant and Junie

   JetBrains AI adds chat about the open project, generated tests and commit messages, and Junie, an agent that plans and carries out multi-step coding tasks, with a small free quota and paid plans for heavier use.

Who uses IntelliJ IDEA?

• Enterprise development teams build and maintain large Java back-end systems, often based on Spring Boot, relying on the IDE’s refactoring tools to change shared code safely.
• Kotlin developers write server applications and multiplatform libraries in the IDE made by the company that designs the language.
• Students and hobbyists learn Java and Kotlin on the free tier, while schools and universities can obtain free educational licenses for the paid features.
• Platform teams and tool vendors build plugins on the IntelliJ Platform to support internal frameworks, domain-specific languages or company-specific workflows.

History of IntelliJ IDEA

JetBrains released IntelliJ IDEA 1.0 in January 2001, a year after its founders started the company in Prague with a Java refactoring utility called IntelliJ Renamer. The IDE’s code analysis and automated refactoring won it a following among professional Java developers, and its architecture became the IntelliJ Platform on which JetBrains later built IDEs for Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Go and other languages.

In October 2009 JetBrains released a free Community Edition under the Apache 2.0 license alongside the commercial Ultimate Edition. That open-source base allowed Google to build Android Studio on IntelliJ IDEA, reaching version 1.0 in December 2014. After 16 years of two editions, JetBrains announced in July 2025 that it would merge them, and IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3 arrived in December 2025 as a single download with a free tier and an optional Ultimate subscription.

1. 2001

   JetBrains releases IntelliJ IDEA 1.0, its first IDE, for Java development.

2. 2009

   The free IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition is released as open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

3. 2014

   Google releases Android Studio 1.0, built on the IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition.

4. 2023

   JetBrains AI Assistant becomes generally available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate and other paid IDEs.

5. 2025

   IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3 merges the Community and Ultimate editions into one product with a free tier.

IntelliJ IDEA pricing

IntelliJ IDEA alternatives

Well-known alternativesEclipse IDE, Apache NetBeans, Visual Studio Code and Cursor

IntelliJ IDEA: frequently asked questions

Sources

1. IntelliJ IDEA, JetBrains jetbrains.com
2. The Unified IntelliJ IDEA, The JetBrains Blog blog.jetbrains.com
3. Introducing the Unified IntelliJ IDEA: FAQ lp.jetbrains.com
4. IntelliJ IDEA, Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

Last reviewed September 17, 2026. Spotted an error? Send a correction.