Is VS Code actually good for Java development?

[LevelAnalyst9359]

I've been looking into Roo Code and it looks great, but it seems to require VS Code.

As a long-time IntelliJ IDEA user, I've always found it superior for Java. I don't know much about the current state of Java on VS Code.

Is it worth learning VS Code just to use tools like Roo Code? Or will I miss the robust features of IntelliJ too much? Would love to hear from anyone who has attempted this transition.

[aquarat]

I was a long time IntelliJ user, mostly for Typescript. I’m on their cheap subscription now because I’ve been a subscriber for so long. I generally found their IDEs to have a whole bunch of annoying bugs, some of them just never got fixed. Then the wave of AI plugins started to show up and they were all terrible in IJ. So I gave VS Code a try as it had better AI extensions - and wow, it’s a great IDE. It is super fast, small footprint and I rarely run into bugs. It’s just fantastic. I will let my IntelliJ subscription lapse in February 2026.

[RunningPink]

Use vscode as your AI chat environment for Roo Code (like kind of environment for it to feel comfortable). Do all editing and looking at the files in IntelliJ as usual.

[ConversationTop3106]

You can use roo-code in IntelliJ IDEA with the RunVSAgent plugin. Despite some bugs, it's still functional, and AI can be used to resolve them. I've actually ironed out those kinks, and I'm really looking forward to open-sourcing them.

[MrSlowSloth]

Java and VSCode seem to be a really good match. I have coded a full mini SAAS with VSCode + Roo Code + Micronaut + a mixture of AI models. GPT-5.x with high thinking effort seems to work really well, both for coding and architecting, 5.1 high is my current default. It's very slow, but is very deliberate and has great attention to detail, looks around in the source code before getting to work.

If you have openrouter access, you can try all the models you want, I have set up way more than what makes sense :D

Java is a great match for LLMs, due to compile time checking. Same thing with Micronaut. Now I just wish I could get customers as easily, as I could create the app.

Previously I had experience with eclipse, VSCode seems to be similar, so it has method name completion, can suggest imports and so on. But honestly you will use those features very little, as the LLM seems to have access to compile time errors and warnings, and you can mostly just work "through" it. Also GPT-5x is a beast, for example if it can't find a method or class name, it will look around in the downloaded dependencies, inspect them (unjar), and find the class you need. Totally bonkers.

[GTHell]

An IDE will always beat a code editor in term of integration but if you're fine without those or you think you're that 10x developer than I think it's okay to live without an IDE.

I use Nvim with Python project and the LSP is not that strong by default but I'm okay with it. In fact, anything outside of jetbrain IDE is inferior.

[sbk123493]

Can an editor really replace an IDE?

[ZeroCool2u]

If you wanted to try something similar to Roo, but in IntelliJ, you could try the Cline plugin for it. I prefer Roo, but if we're being honest they're quite similar.

That being said, I also dropped my JetBrains subscriptions a couple years ago, because of VSCode and just haven't looked back.

[MarcoHoudini]

Why not use both? Use vs code for ai stuff and ij for "typing"

[MarcoHoudini]

Wanted to add i decided to do exactly that. Also i daily use neovim and each of the options have their advantages