IDEs for Spring Boot Development

IntelliJ IDEA / Spring Tool Suite (STS) / Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) helps developers write, run, debug, and manage Spring Boot applications easily. A good IDE reduces errors, saves time, and improves productivity by providing features like code completion, debugging, and easy project setup.

Spring Boot works with many IDEs, but the most popular and widely used ones are:

• IntelliJ IDEA
• Spring Tool Suite (STS)
• Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

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1. IntelliJ IDEA (Most Popular Choice)

IntelliJ IDEA is the most widely used IDE for Java and Spring Boot development in the industry.

Why IntelliJ IDEA is Best for Spring Boot

• Excellent support for Spring Boot & Spring MVC
• Very smart code auto-completion
• Built-in Maven & Gradle support
• Easy Run / Debug Spring Boot applications
• Visual view of beans, endpoints, and configurations
• Strong refactoring and debugging tools

Editions

Edition	Use Case
Community (Free)	Beginners, basic Spring Boot projects
Ultimate (Paid)	Enterprise apps, databases, microservices

? Recommendation:

• Beginners → Community Edition
• Professionals → Ultimate Edition

Run Spring Boot in IntelliJ

• Right-click on main class → Run
• Or click the ▶ Run button

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2. Spring Tool Suite (STS) – Spring Official IDE

Spring Tool Suite (STS) is an Eclipse-based IDE maintained by the Spring team.

Why Use STS

• Built specifically for Spring & Spring Boot
• Built-in Spring Initializr
• Spring Boot Dashboard
• Visual support for:
  • Beans
  • Properties
  • Dependencies

Best For

• Beginners learning Spring
• Developers already familiar with Eclipse
• Projects fully based on Spring ecosystem

Limitations

• Slower compared to IntelliJ
• UI feels outdated for large projects

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3. Visual Studio Code (VS Code) – Lightweight & Fast

VS Code is a lightweight editor that becomes powerful for Spring Boot using extensions.

Required Extensions

• Extension Pack for Java
• Spring Boot Extension Pack
• Maven for Java
• Debugger for Java

Why Use VS Code

• Very fast and lightweight
• Excellent for microservices & cloud
• Works well with Docker, Kubernetes, Git
• Great for full-stack developers

Limitations

• Requires manual extension setup
• Less Spring-specific features compared to IntelliJ & STS

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IDE Comparison

Feature	IntelliJ IDEA	STS	VS Code
Spring Boot Support	Excellent, industry-leading	Very good, Spring-focused	Good with extensions
Performance	Fast and stable	Moderate	Very fast
Beginner Friendly	Very easy to start	Easy for Eclipse users	Slight learning curve
Free Version	Available	Available	Available
Spring Visualization	Best visual support	Good dashboard support	Limited
Professional Usage	Most preferred in companies	Less common	Common in cloud teams

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Which IDE Should You Choose?

Beginners (Learning Spring Boot)

? IntelliJ IDEA Community or STS

Professional / Enterprise Projects

? IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate

Cloud, Microservices, DevOps

? VS Code

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Basic Requirements (For All IDEs)

Make sure you have:

• JDK 17 or 21 installed
• JAVA_HOME configured
• Maven or Gradle (optional, but recommended)

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Conclusion

IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA, Spring Tool Suite (STS), and Visual Studio Code make Spring Boot development faster and easier. IntelliJ IDEA provides the best Spring integration, STS is Spring-official and beginner-friendly, while VS Code is lightweight and ideal for cloud-based development. Choosing the right IDE improves learning speed, code quality, and productivity.