Alternatives to Eclipse IDE

Long-established open-source IDE with a very large plugin marketplace. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Eclipse IDE.

  • IntelliJ IDEA

    Java and Kotlin IDE with deep code analysis and refactoring.

    FreemiumOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    IntelliJ IDEA has project-wide refactorings and inspections, with a free open-source Community Edition, but framework support and database tools require the paid Ultimate edition.

  • Visual Studio Code

    Microsoft's code editor, free to use but shipped under a Microsoft licence rather than an open one.

    FreeProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinux

    Visual Studio Code is a lighter free editor with extensions for nearly every language, but it is not open source and collects telemetry by default.

  • VSCodium

    Visual Studio Code built from the same source without Microsoft’s branding, telemetry or licence.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    VSCodium offers the VS Code editor under the MIT license with telemetry disabled, drawing extensions from Open VSX instead of Eclipse's plugin marketplace.

  • Geany

    A small, fast IDE built on GTK that starts instantly and does not depend on a heavy desktop environment.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Geany is a small GTK IDE that starts instantly on modest hardware, but lacks language server support in its core and has almost no refactoring tools.

  • Zed

    A Rust editor from the people who built Atom, written for speed and for two people editing one file.

    FreemiumOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Zed is a fast Rust editor with language server support and collaborative editing, with a much smaller extension ecosystem than Eclipse's marketplace.

  • Neovim

    A modern rewrite of Vim with a built-in language server client, Lua configuration and an embeddable API.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    Neovim is a free terminal editor with a built-in LSP client and Lua plugins, which trades Eclipse's graphical IDE for modal editing and manual setup.

  • Apache NetBeans

    An open-source IDE for Java, PHP, JavaScript, HTML and other languages from Apache.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Apache NetBeans is a free Apache-2.0 IDE with strong Java support and project wizards for Java and PHP, with a smaller plugin catalogue than Eclipse.

  • Theia IDE

    An open-source IDE for desktop and browser from the Eclipse Foundation that runs VS Code extensions.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxWeb

    Theia IDE, also from the Eclipse Foundation, is an open-source desktop and browser IDE that runs VS Code extensions from Open VSX.

Also worth comparing

These listings name Eclipse IDE as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.

  • CLion

    C and C++ IDE with CMake integration and deep static analysis.

    FreemiumProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinux

    Eclipse IDE is free and open source under EPL-2.0 with a large plugin marketplace, but its workspace and perspective model feels dated and plugin quality varies.

  • Code::Blocks

    A free, plugin-based IDE for C, C++ and Fortran with a consistent interface across platforms.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsLinux

    Eclipse IDE is open source under EPL-2.0 with a huge plugin marketplace covering many languages, though its perspective model and uneven plugin quality can be confusing.

  • CodeLite

    A free, open-source cross-platform IDE for C, C++, Rust, Python, PHP and Node.js.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Eclipse IDE is an EPL-2.0 open-source IDE with a very large plugin marketplace covering many languages, though its workspace model feels dated and plugin conflicts are common.

  • GNOME Builder

    An IDE for building GNOME and other Linux applications, with debugging, profiling and Flatpak support.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    Eclipse IDE is an EPL-2.0 cross-platform IDE with a very large plugin marketplace, though its workspace model feels dated and it lacks built-in GNOME tooling.

  • GoLand

    Go IDE with completion, refactoring and an integrated debugger.

    PaidProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinux

    Eclipse IDE is free and open source with a large plugin marketplace, but its Go support depends on plugins whose quality varies.

  • PhpStorm

    A commercial JetBrains IDE for PHP, with built-in JavaScript, TypeScript and SQL support.

    PaidProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinux

    Eclipse IDE is free and open source for commercial use with a huge plugin marketplace, but plugin quality varies and its workspace model feels dated.

  • PyCharm

    Python IDE with debugging, testing, scientific tools and web framework support.

    FreemiumProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinux

    Eclipse IDE is fully open source and free for commercial use, with Python support available through its large plugin marketplace, though its workspace model feels dated.

  • Qt Creator

    A cross-platform IDE for building C++ and Qt applications, maintained by the Qt project.

    FreemiumOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Eclipse IDE is open source under EPL-2.0 with a large plugin marketplace, though its workspace model feels dated and plugin quality varies.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.