Top 10 Plugins for IntelliJ-Based IDEs
JetBrains IntelliJ-based IDEs are powerful, feature-rich developer tools with countless extensibility options. Any user can add features to the IDEs by installing plugins from JetBrains Marketplace, where you can find extensions that cover most aspects of your work. The range of available plugins includes integrations with code review services, CI/CD, static analysis, productivity tools, various frameworks and languages, as well as UI themes, custom progress bars, and language packs.
According to The State of Developer Ecosystem 2022, tool integrations are among the most popular types of plugins. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the previous year’s most downloaded and highest-rated plugins on JetBrains Marketplace.
Chinese (Simplified) Language Pack
This JetBrains plugin localizes the UI of JetBrains IDEs, such as IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm, PyCharm, and others, including their bundled plugins. In 2022, it got more than 3 million downloads, while other language packs on JetBrains Marketplace, such as those for Japanese and Korean, appeared less popular.
Rainbow Brackets
This is a plugin that has been on JetBrains Marketplace since 2017 and has proved to be a great productivity tool. It colors the matching brackets in your code, making it easier to understand nested parentheses.
Since the IntelliJ Platform version 2022.3, it has become freemium, having introduced some paid features. All the features of previous versions are still free.
One Dark Theme
According to The State of Developer Ecosystem 2022, 55% of users install themes and different user interface add-ons to their IDEs. This theme may be worth your attention, as it has been downloaded more than 4.7 million times and boasts an average rating of 4.8 out of 5. You can install it or other themes from JetBrains Marketplace here.
JPA Buddy
This plugin helps you work with JPA and related technologies inside IntelliJ IDEA. While it has a freemium model, the free version includes most of the features. A rating of 4.9 implies that JPA Buddy really simplifies the lives of Java and Kotlin developers.
.env files support
With a rating of 4.7, this plugin helps not only set environment variables to run/debug configurations from .env files, but also adds syntax highlighting.
Translation
Integrating many translation engines, such as Google Translate and Microsoft Translate, this plugin allows you to translate any text in code, such as code comments and code documents. The UI of the plugin is available in English, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.
Atom Material Icons
This plugin helps make your favorite JetBrains IDE toolbars more colorful and visible by replacing the default icons with the Atom file icons.
IdeaVim
This JetBrains plugin brings Vim editor features right into your JetBrains IDE. According to a StackOverflow survey, Vim is still one of the most loved editors. So it’s no surprise that this plugin has almost 12 million downloads since its creation. Check out this blog post for a detailed instruction on how to use IdeaVim.
Scala
Did you know that 82% of Scala developers use IntelliJ IDEA? It’s therefore unsurprising that the Scala plugin is on the list of top-downloaded plugins. Moreover, you can use your Scala IDE for free with IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition. Note that Play Framework and Scala.js are only available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. Check out this plugin blog for updates.
GitToolBox
A great productivity and collaboration tool that expands built-in Git integration, GitToolBox has recently become freemium. An example of a paid feature is the ability to add inline blame annotations directly to IntelliJ-based IDEs. It shows the author, date and time, and the commit subject for the current line, as well as clickable issue links.
We are interested to know what plugins you love. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
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