Eclipse vs Theia

Overview

Eclipse

Stacks2.7K

Followers2.3K

Votes392

Theia

Stacks67

Followers87

Votes6

Eclipse vs Theia: What are the differences?

Introduction

Eclipse and Theia are both integrated development environments (IDEs) that are widely used in the software development community. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences that set them apart from each other.

Architecture: One of the major differences between Eclipse and Theia lies in their architecture. Eclipse is built on a plug-in architecture, where functionalities are added through plug-ins. On the other hand, Theia is built on a modular architecture, where functionalities are provided through separate modules that can be easily combined and extended. This architectural difference allows Theia to be more flexible and modular than Eclipse.
Technology Stack: Eclipse primarily uses Java as its programming language, while Theia is built on modern web technologies such as TypeScript, HTML, and CSS. This difference in technology stack makes Theia more accessible to web developers and provides better support for web-based applications compared to Eclipse.
Customization and Extensibility: When it comes to customization and extensibility, Theia offers more flexibility than Eclipse. Theia allows developers to easily customize the IDE by adding or removing functionalities through its modular architecture. Eclipse, on the other hand, has a steeper learning curve for customization as it relies on the Eclipse plug-in development model.
User Interface (UI): The user interface of Eclipse and Theia is another area where they differ. Eclipse has a more traditional UI with a desktop-like appearance, while Theia provides a more modern and browser-based UI. Theia's UI is designed to resemble popular code editors like Visual Studio Code, making it more intuitive and familiar for developers.
Remote Development: Theia has built-in support for remote development, allowing developers to work with code and projects that are hosted on remote servers. Eclipse, on the other hand, requires additional plug-ins or configurations to enable remote development. This built-in support for remote development in Theia makes it more convenient for developers working in distributed or cloud-based environments.
Community and Ecosystem: Eclipse has a long-established community and a vast ecosystem of plug-ins and extensions. Theia, being a relatively newer IDE, has a smaller but growing community and a more limited ecosystem compared to Eclipse. However, Theia benefits from its compatibility with the Visual Studio Code extension ecosystem, which provides a rich set of extensions for developers.

In summary, Eclipse and Theia differ in their architecture, technology stack, customization and extensibility options, user interface, remote development support, and community/ecosystem.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Eclipse, Theia

christy

Program Manager

Jul 1, 2020

Needs adviceon

Python

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

UPDATE: Thanks for the great response. I am going to start with VSCode based on the open source and free version that will allow me to grow into other languages, but not cost me a license ..yet.

I have been working with software development for 12 years, but I am just beginning my journey to learn to code. I am starting with Python following the suggestion of some of my coworkers. They are split between Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA for IDEs that they use and PyCharm is new to me. Which IDE would you suggest for a beginner that will allow expansion to Java, JavaScript, and eventually AngularJS and possibly mobile applications?

2.03M views2.03M

Comments

Manabu

CEO, Co-Founder at WinguMD

Jun 13, 2020

Decided

I originally chose IntelliJ over Eclipse, as it was close enough to the look and feel of Visual Studio and we do go back and forth between the two. We really begin to love IntelliJ and their suite of IDEs so we are now using AppCode for the IOS development because the workflow is identical with the IntelliJ. IntelliJ is super complex and intimidating at first but it does afford a lot of nice utilities to get us produce clean code.

551k views551k

Comments

Simon

Software Engineer at Picnic Technologies

Aug 21, 2020

Review

Notepad++ is insanely simplistic. It doesn't help much with the coding, as it doesn't have stuff like auto-completion. Atom is a great editor for pretty much any language. It has a plugin ide-java to support Java programming. When starting with Java, I would recommend it. But, when becoming even a bit better in the language, I would suggest a more mature IDE like IntelliJ or Eclipse. The refactoring and code manipulation tools make it a lot quicker to program. Only when getting started it might be a bit too much to both learn a language AND learn an IDE. So Atom might be better to get started.

342 views342

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Eclipse	Theia
Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.	Theia provides the end-user with a full-fledged multi-language IDE (not just a smart editor) and supports equally the paradigm of Cloud IDE and Desktop IDE.
-	Cloud and desktop; Vendor neutral; Extensible; Integrated Terminal; Flexible Layout
Statistics
Stacks 2.7K	Stacks 67
Followers 2.3K	Followers 87
Votes 392	Votes 6
Pros & Cons
Pros 131 Does it all 76 Integrates with most of tools 64 Easy to use 63 Java IDE 32 Best Java IDE Cons 14 2000 Design 9 Bad performance 4 Hard to use	Pros 1 Familiar UI for VSCode users 1 Online 1 Easy to use 1 Anywhere coding 1 Docker Cons 2 Can be hard to setup
Integrations
Java	JavaScript Python Java

What are some alternatives to Eclipse, Theia?

PhpStorm

PhpStorm is a PHP IDE which keeps up with latest PHP & web languages trends, integrates a variety of modern tools, and brings even more extensibility with support for major PHP frameworks.

IntelliJ IDEA

Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.

WebStorm

WebStorm is a lightweight and intelligent IDE for front-end development and server-side JavaScript.

Red Hat Codeready Workspaces

Built on the open Eclipse Che project, Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces provides developer workspaces, which include all the tools and the dependencies that are needed to code, build, test, run, and debug applications.

AWS Cloud9

Cloud9 provides a development environment in the cloud. Cloud9 enables developers to get started with coding immediately with pre-setup environments called workspaces, collaborate with their peers with collaborative coding features, and build web apps with features like live preview and browser compatibility testing. It supports more than 40 languages, with class A support for PHP, Ruby, Python, JavaScript/Node.js, and Go.

NetBeans IDE

NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.

PyCharm

PyCharm’s smart code editor provides first-class support for Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, CSS, popular template languages and more. Take advantage of language-aware code completion, error detection, and on-the-fly code fixes!

Android Studio

Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides new features and improvements over Eclipse ADT and will be the official Android IDE once it's ready.

RubyMine

JetBrains RubyMine IDE provides a comprehensive Ruby code editor aware of dynamic language specifics and delivers smart coding assistance, intelligent code refactoring and code analysis capabilities.

Related Comparisons

Eclipse vs Theia: What are the differences?

Introduction

Architecture: One of the major differences between Eclipse and Theia lies in their architecture. Eclipse is built on a plug-in architecture, where functionalities are added through plug-ins. On the other hand, Theia is built on a modular architecture, where functionalities are provided through separate modules that can be easily combined and extended. This architectural difference allows Theia to be more flexible and modular than Eclipse.
Technology Stack: Eclipse primarily uses Java as its programming language, while Theia is built on modern web technologies such as TypeScript, HTML, and CSS. This difference in technology stack makes Theia more accessible to web developers and provides better support for web-based applications compared to Eclipse.
Customization and Extensibility: When it comes to customization and extensibility, Theia offers more flexibility than Eclipse. Theia allows developers to easily customize the IDE by adding or removing functionalities through its modular architecture. Eclipse, on the other hand, has a steeper learning curve for customization as it relies on the Eclipse plug-in development model.
User Interface (UI): The user interface of Eclipse and Theia is another area where they differ. Eclipse has a more traditional UI with a desktop-like appearance, while Theia provides a more modern and browser-based UI. Theia's UI is designed to resemble popular code editors like Visual Studio Code, making it more intuitive and familiar for developers.
Remote Development: Theia has built-in support for remote development, allowing developers to work with code and projects that are hosted on remote servers. Eclipse, on the other hand, requires additional plug-ins or configurations to enable remote development. This built-in support for remote development in Theia makes it more convenient for developers working in distributed or cloud-based environments.
Community and Ecosystem: Eclipse has a long-established community and a vast ecosystem of plug-ins and extensions. Theia, being a relatively newer IDE, has a smaller but growing community and a more limited ecosystem compared to Eclipse. However, Theia benefits from its compatibility with the Visual Studio Code extension ecosystem, which provides a rich set of extensions for developers.

In summary, Eclipse and Theia differ in their architecture, technology stack, customization and extensibility options, user interface, remote development support, and community/ecosystem.

Eclipse vs Theia

Overview

Eclipse vs Theia: What are the differences?