Five IntelliJ Idea Plugins That Will Change the Way You Code

AI is going to eat all your jobs!!! Haha. No, just kidding. It will have only the non-productive ones. It’s time to work smarter, not harder.

This blog article will introduce you to five Intellij plugins that are driven by AI and can significantly simplify your work. These plugins have my personal endorsement after using them.

Let’s get started!

1. Github Copilot

Unless you are living under a rock, you might have come across this name. Believe me; this lives up to its hype. I use it daily, and it really makes me sweat when it just suggests what I was thinking to do after 10 years of exhaustive experience. But to consider it a friend and get benefits from it is better than to consider it an enemy and get ruled by it. Consider it as Aladdin's lamp. If you have it, you have it all.

GitHub Copilot provides autocomplete-style suggestions from an AI-paired programmer as you code. You can receive suggestions from GitHub Copilot either by starting to write the code you want to use or by writing a natural language comment describing what you want the code to do.

Powered by OpenAI

It is powered by OpenAI Codex to work in real-time, right from your editor. GitHub Copilot improves developer productivity and happiness, reducing disruptions, improving flow, and increasing the amount of time a developer spends doing satisfying work.

Unlike other code assistants, GitHub Copilot offers suggestions from a model that OpenAI built from billions of lines of open-source code.

2. SonarLint

SonarLint is an AI-powered code quality plugin that helps you detect and fix issues in your code before they become bugs or vulnerabilities. It analyzes your code on the fly and provides quick fixes for common problems such as bugs, code smells, security hotspots, duplications, and more. It also provides explanations and examples for each issue to help you understand why it matters and how to avoid it in the future.

SonarLint is free to use. No matter how much code you generate with your co-pilot (yes, it's on the list as well; keep reading), it’s not worth it if it’s not good code.

3. Tabnine AI Code Completion

Tabnine is an artificial intelligence coding assistant that helps you become a better coder.

With real-time code completions in all of the most popular coding languages and IDEs, Tabnine will boost your development pace.

Whether you refer to it as IntelliSense, intelliCode, autocomplete, AI-assisted code completion, AI-powered code completion, AI copilot, AI code snippets, code suggestion, code prediction, code hinting, or content assist, using Tabnine can have a significant impact on your coding velocity, significantly reducing your coding time.

It comes with a 14-day free trial. Try it once before moving on with the list.

4. Code With Me

Code With Me is a new solution for collaborative development and pair programming. It enables developers to share the project they have open in their IDEs with their remote colleagues and work on them together in real-time.

Key Features:

• Simultaneous editing lets you investigate issues, review code, and work on your code together in real-time.
• The following mode lets team members summon others from wherever they are, track the whereabouts of other participants in the code, and follow their activities with one click.
• Full sync mode helps you synchronize with your session participants and start navigating between files and actions simultaneously.
• Audio and video calls are available out of the box, meaning you don’t need any additional apps to communicate with others. Talk to your teammates right in your IDE!
• Smart code insights include code autocompletion, navigation, and other code insight features when working in a shared session.
• Permissions management settings define what others can edit and run in your project, what is available as read-only, and what is completely invisible to your guests.
• Diff previews allow you to track the changes made by other session participants in your project, review them, roll them back, and commit them safely.
• Code With Me On-premises enables you to set up and run Code With Me on your own private network, for example, to ensure extra security or for compliance reasons.

I know it's not AI-powered, but there's no other way to replace your real-world copilots (colleagues and mentors). Code with them to grow together.

5. AI Coding Assistant

AI Coding Assistant is a revolutionary plugin that uses the power of OpenAI to make coding swifter and simpler. It is compatible with popular autocomplete-based AI plugins such as GitHub Copilot and AWS CodeWhisperer and is explicitly invoked through the context menu. To use AI Coding Assistant, you need an OpenAI access token. With this token, you can access a variety of features, including:

• Text: You can append, insert, replace, edit, or dictate text using natural language or ad-hoc directives.
• Code: You can generate, refactor, optimize, explain, or document code using natural language or ad-hoc directives.
• Markdown: You can create or edit markdown files using natural language or ad-hoc directives.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and learned something new about the 10 AI-powered plugins for IntelliJ IDEA that you should try. These plugins can help you code faster, smarter, and easier by providing smart and relevant suggestions, transformations, and insights for your code. They can also improve your code quality, readability, and performance.

If you want to try any of these plugins, you can find them on the Marketplace or on their respective websites. You can also sign up for free trials or compare plans to see which one suits your needs best. And if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below or contact us directly.

Happy coding! \m/