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Comment by CraftThatBlock | Hacker News Reader

Why use 3 different ones when IntelliJ can do all of the features of the listed editors? PyCharm is IntelliJ locked with Python plugin, etc.

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Personally I like having separate installations for each language-specific IntelliJ flavor just to reduce confusion when toggling between different windows. The slight GUI differences also help to "code-switch" (in the linguistic and literal senses).

Actually there are some variations.

Example: Python plugin when installed in IntelliJ is missing venv integration in the terminal.

https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-22067

There are slight differences, I believe. IntelliJ is also a little more cumbersome, since you have to map the modules to specific languages. I do mostly just use IntelliJ with plugins these days though.

I always feel a bit silly, because I pay for their "all products" pack, but only really use IntelliJ, because I bought it before realizing the plugins really were 99% the same as the specialized IDEs in most cases (CLion isn't, I think). At this point it's cheaper to just pay the ongoing renewal fee, I think.

The only reason I keep paying for the “All Products” pack is because I like to use CLion for Rust and come light C and C++ work. Goland is also different enough to justify paying for at least CLion and Goland, but at that point, the “All Products” pack still makes sense.

Yeah, I use CLion as well for C work. Good to know it's useful for Rust as well, I hope to take that dive at some point. I feel slightly better about my purchase now, thanks!

Rust support is the same in intellij and clion, except clion has the debugger which intellij does not have

I've heard that before but I'm skeptic about if it's exactly the same.

It's the same thing if you pay for IntelliJ Pro, then the IDE supports every language and every plugin.

Otherwise the free edition has a number of missing things and it's blocking the installation of plugins that could somewhat compensate.

Does it support .NET? I thought I needed Rider for that.

The only one that is different is Rider, since it has much deeper C# integration (might be others such as DataGrip, but never used it). PyCharm and GoLand are just plugins (same as WebStorm, PhpStorm, etc)

GoLand seems to be lighter than IntelliJ though. I'll try using the plugins to see if the experience is different. Maybe I'm paying too much for the whole suite.

I believe CLion is also different than just IntelliJ + Plugin. At least I've not been able to find a C plugin that mimics it.

technically resharper is way diferent as well but whether you'd call it a ide is "questionable"

Rider runs ReSharper underneath

datagrip is very different from the integrated database/SQL editor included with most jetbrains IDEs. it has more features and is a real pleasure to use. using datagrip is like using a dedicated mp3 player to play your mp3 collection while using pycharm, webstorm, etc., is like using your phone to play your mp3 music collection.

so happy to see jetbrains receive some love here.

My understanding is that intellij is the main IDE and other ones are “crippled” versions of a Intellij. In other words, jetbrains really only builds one IDE, but disabled parts of it to create the “sub” IDEs.

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