TrustRadius Insights for Eclipse are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Recommendations
Users commonly recommend using Eclipse for Java programming and Android development. They believe it is a versatile and powerful IDE that is user-friendly and helpful for any developer. Users also suggest trying out Eclipse to see if it works for you. They recommend becoming familiar with plugins in Eclipse and using it as a de-facto IDE for software development in Java and other top technologies. Additionally, they recommend considering other IDEs for languages other than Java. Users think Eclipse is simple and easy to use, but suggest trying other solutions that may be lighter. They mention that giving Eclipse more memory space can improve its loading time and highlight that it has more plugins than other IDEs. Comparison-wise, users think Eclipse is better than Netbeans and mention that it is slowly improving. Overall, users highly recommend Eclipse for developers and believe you will love it.
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Eclipse Reviews
27 Reviews
Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees)
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We use Eclipse for developing the software. The software is developed in JAVA with a usage of Spring, Hibernate and some other frameworks. As we can choose from 2 IDE products within our IT department, it can be used by whoever decides to use it. It addresses business problems connected with our software.
Pros
Free of charge
Customizable
Plugin integration
Easy to use
Cons
Sometimes freezes
It would be great to have some built-in code replacement feature
Likelihood to Recommend
As Eclipse is free of charge, my organization saves the money for license purchases. Even though the product is free, it does not mean it lacks features as code completion, plugin integration, all of these work well. I like the fact I can open multiple projects in project explorer, and I have them accessible all in one place without the need to open a new window.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
We currently use Eclipse IDE for some departments that like to use this IDE for software development. Our developers use it to quickly write code and deploy as it is easy to use and onboard new devs on it. It is also written to write unit testing for some of our applications. We also use Eclipse to deploy and test the applications using third-party tools which can be directly integrated into eclipse like TestNG.
Pros
Free of cost
Easy to use and onboard with simple UI
Ton of Debugging options/features
Code completion is really solid
Cons
Sometimes it feels Eclipse is clunky and it takes a lot of processing power
It is great for some languages, but not all. It was hard to code in Java for example
Not too many integrations with other testing apps/3rd party apps
Likelihood to Recommend
Eclipse is great for small teams/apps with a tight budget. It does not make sense for larger organizations with heavy integrations with other apps. In that case, a Visual Studio solution would make sense. Also, Eclipse doesn't tie you down to a certain OS environment so you can work in Linux or windows. Also, this is a great application just to learn programming quickly and easily for new devs or even writing small programs to automate tasks.
We use Eclipse for writing java code and we have created an Eclipse plugin for our development as well. My day to day work is involved with Eclipse as I am a java developer. Developing code, starting servers and version controlling are very straightforward. Eclipse provides a lot of plugins to use. For example, we can use various plugins to detect code smells.
Pros
Simple UI for development.
A lot of plugins to use. (Unit testing plugins, code formatter plugins, etc)
Eclipse is free.
Very suited for managing large projects.
Cons
Even though the UI is simple, Eclipse can work on its UI especially since beginners find it hard to find options and features.
I feel like eclipse can optimize its performance.
In my personal usage I am facing a lot of crashes when using multiple work spaces. I think eclipse can improve its memory management.
Likelihood to Recommend
For Large project, Eclipse is well suited to its competitors. If you are looking to start with development (java), then Eclipse is a nice place to get started. Eclipse is free so for individual programmers, it's well suited. If you need cool UI with good IntelliSense then maybe eclipse is not for you.
Currently, Eclipse is being used by the technical team (developers) and the business intelligence team, for both software development and big data report generation. Because it's an SAP consultancy firm, sometimes it needs to be used alongside with SAP Netweaver (SAP GUI) for additional features.
Pros
ABAP development.
Java development.
Cons
It's a heavy tool and usually crashes.
The UI could be more modern.
Likelihood to Recommend
Eclipse is a great tool to use alongside with SAP GUI. It makes the ABAP and CDS development faster.
Eclipse is being used across the organization on various platforms. Multiple projects built on Java are implemented on Eclipse.
Pros
Integration with database drivers.
Availability of plugins for pretty much any implementation that can be seamlessly integrated.
Ability to profile the code to identify memory and data leaks causing the application to slow down.
Cons
On some configurations, Eclipse can get extremely slow in responding, and its a known issue with many users facing similar problems. This is very inconsistent.
Some versions of Eclipse does not support the automatic code completion for JavaServer Faces and JavaFX tags.
Likelihood to Recommend
I prefer to use Eclipse ONLY if my projects are configured using a build tool like Maven or Gradle. It is incredibly tedious to configure projects otherwise due to the classpath issues.
NetBeans is much more straight forward and more straightforward to configure the libraries and dependencies when a project is built with no build tools.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
Eclipse is used by various people but is not generally used by the organization. I was a user before I started at SurveyMonkey and continued to use it up until early in 2019. The company has generally not encouraged any particular IDE until this year. Most folks tended to use SublimeText, with a fair number using PyCharm, and only a few of us on Eclipse. Those of us using Eclipse like it's fully integrated debugging environment for Python (which also attracted users to PyCharm, which is essentially Eclipse with paid-for enhancements). I particularly liked being able to use it to access SQL Server in the same environment as Python and Javascript.
Pros
It is very good at managing many files under edit. I like the ability to manage multiple projects and multiple files. It supports a wide variety of file formats with type-specific syntax formatting.
I like the integrated debugging facility. In particular, we used a remote file system debugger with Python in external VMs to great effect.
I like the ability to access multiple types of databases in the integrated development environment. It provides connectors for a wide variety of databases and supports most basic DB access methods.
GIT integration is very effective. You can easily manage repositories and connect them to projects, and the project integration into GIT is virtually seamless.
Cons
While the DB integration is broad (many connectors) it isn't particularly deep. So if you need to do serious DB work on (for example) SQL Server, it is sometimes necessary to go directly to the SQL Server Studio. But for general access and manipulation, it is ok.
The syntax formatting is sometimes painful to set up and doesn't always support things well. For example, it doesn't effectively support SCSS.
Using it for remote debugging in a VM works pretty well, but it is difficult to set up and there is no documentation I could find to really explain how to do it. When remote debugging, the editor does not necessarily integrate the remote context. So, for example, things like Pylint don't always find the libraries in the VM and display spurious errors.
The debugging console is not the default, and my choice is never remembered, so every time I restart my program, it's a dialog and several clicks to get it back. The debugging console has the same contextual problems with remote debugging that the editor does.
Likelihood to Recommend
For immediate local development, it's great. You can run tests and do debugging directly. For remote environments (typical if you develop in a VM or container environment) the setup is painful and pretty much undocumented.
I've used Eclipse since my student days as it is a very versatile development environment. Currently, we use Eclipse as the preferred way to write ABAP code for the SAP environment, and to manage our HANA landscape. Eclipse is mainly used by our developers and IT staff, and we have used it with our clients as well.
Pros
Eclipse, through its library of tools, is exceptionally broad and can be customized to suit just about any situation.
Eclipse SAP HANA tools are the best way to manage a HANA database.
Eclipse SAP ABAP tools are the preferred way to develop CDS views and modern ABAP programs.
Cons
The biggest issue I have with Eclipse is probably its biggest selling point: it's so big that it can be quite cumbersome to get the appropriate tools and configuration set up for your use case.
I'd like to see (maybe) a lightweight distribution of Eclipse that comes with specific tools for specific purposes (SAP specifically).
Likelihood to Recommend
Eclipse has a better ABAP editor than the built-in editor with SAP. Code completion, error checking, syntax checking, its all handled better in Eclipse. It is also one of the only ways to develop CDS views which drive an awful lot of SAP HANA functionality such as machine learning, and some of their newest programming models.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (51-200 employees)
Eclipse is a program that is not used by many people at our school. Our 6th, 7th, and 8th graders use it in a programming class that we offer at our school. It allows our students to develop programs with the Java programming language. We had used other programs before but found that this was the easiest for our students to use.
Pros
It is a really good program for developing with Java.
The user interface allows for even the most beginner of students to be able to learn.
Cons
There are times where it can be glitchy, so that could be improved upon.
The online support could be a little better.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well suited for classroom settings where Java will be taught. We have been using it in our classroom at our school for a few years now and have loved it. It is good for small programs. I think in situations where there are larger programs being built with Java, there are better programs out there.
The Eclipse project that is being used at our organization is the Integrated Development Environment. It is used exclusively within the Development Teams as the primary code editing tool. It was, for an extended period of time, the only code development tool that was used in our department (approximately 100 team members). However, we now have a more heterogeneous code development tooling environment. The Eclipse IDE is really an integrated code development environment, that allows for code editing, building/compiling, version control, code quality checking, web development, and more.
Pros
Eclipse uses the concept of plug-ins to extend it's core capabilities. This is a highly efficient concept, as you'll be able to add only what you want to. Don't need maven build integration? No need to add the M2E plugin. Need to hook up to an SVN repo? Feel free to add in the Subversive plug-in. This goes for every aspect of the features that are made available.
It is actively maintained. There are scheduled releases every year. at least 2 if not more. They come packed with all sorts of enhancements and feature upgrades.
It's open-source. Now, this is a more philosophical point. If you believe in Free Software, and the Open Source paradigm, then this will ensure that your organization continues to align with those principles. It is community-driven, and even the plugins that it supports are themselves open-source. So you'll continue to have a thriving ecosystem.
Cons
It is very strange that the Eclipse IDE has such a long startup time. And feels very bloated. The core product doesn't come with any additional features or capabilities, and yet, with every release, it seems to get slower and feels bulkier. It behooves me to understand how this is possible.
Despite their regular releases, it almost seems as if the Eclipse team is focusing on the wrong things. Their updates and enhancements are certainly very welcome, and it's clear they are actively working on fixing defects. But they are continually behind the 8-ball on supporting new industry standards and anticipating where the field is going.
It's wonderful to have choices, and that is a testament to the Open Source ecosystem. However, compatibility issues continue to plague the eclipse project. Plugins often are incompatible with different versions, or are unusable and just crash upon installation, yet continue to be offered as compatible plugins. This causes a mess.
Setting up and configuring Eclipse can range anywhere from a tedious, but necessary task, to an absolute nightmare. Although the core product is highly portable, the customizations, the plugins, the configurations that make it works exactly the way you want, or more importantly, the specific setup that you want your entire team to use to ensure consistency, can be hellish to port over if and when you switch to a new laptop.
Likelihood to Recommend
I would strongly recommend Eclipse to any developer working on almost any programming language. But more importantly, if you are working in an environment that requires integration with various tools and platforms across your enterprise, then Eclipse is an especially powerful application. However, one size does not fit all, and sometimes you don't need a swiss-army knife. But rather a precise surgical tool. In those cases, Eclipse's more general functions won't hold up, compared to say, Microsoft's Visual Studio Code. In fact, one could even say that if you are a modern web-app developer, then there are a couple of development environments that are probably better than Eclipse.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
At our organization, the selection of the IDE to use is made by individual engineers or on a project-specific basis, depending on the needs of the project. We use it for software engineering, mostly of Java code. We also have developed a plug-in for the artificial intelligence language we use.
Pros
It (mostly) smoothly integrates development with version control.
Incremental, continuous compilation and instant error checking are huge wins.
Built in unit testing.
Support for a variety of different languages and file types, with the ability to develop plug-ins for new types.
Cons
The version control integration is sometimes sketchy, especially for GIT.
Integration with Maven and Gradle are not complete and do not always exploit Eclipse's continuous compilation strengths.
Likelihood to Recommend
For Java development, in particular, Eclipse speeds up development by an order of magnitude over other choices of language/IDE.
