Why IntelliJ is the Best

Just this morning I was reading the post on JetBrains' website where they announced the release of a Community Edition of IntelliJ in 2009. One of the comments asked what makes IntelliJ worth US$250 more than Eclipse. My Response was the following:

@Jeff,

I will try to answer that. US$250 is a lot of money yes, but... There's always a but.

If you bash off people as fanboys or "maybe even a Jetbrains employee" it simply means that you could be a different fanboy yourself or just too stingy to fork out that much for an excellent IDE. Excellent in the way that it helps you to excel. 

"To surpass someone or something; to be better or do better than someone or something; To be much better than others" - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/excel

I "grew up" using Eclipse, so I didn't really bother to try something else, although I explored Netbeans too. So when IntelliJ Community Edition was released I jumped at the opportunity and gave it a try.

To my amazement it was faster, less cluttered, streamlined, logically presented and just plainly put: the tool for the job. Over the time I've been using it, I also noticed that it encouraged me to better coding styles.

It's kind-of like the "organic"-hype people have about food. You get Eclipse like you get normal veggies/fruit, the fruit that everyone buys. But then you get organic veggies and fruit that people just think to be a money-making scam. But in the end, check the biological composition for yourself and see what is best. IntelliJ IDEA is that organic IDE.

If this isn't descriptive enough, try it out for 3 months and you'll understand.

I'm in the process of saving up for the Enterprise Edition, just because it's worth it.

Source: blogs.jetbrains.com