Gradle vs IntelliJ IDEA

Gradle Build Tool is a free, open-source system for automating software builds across projects of different types and sizes. Build logic can use either Kotlin DSL or Groovy DSL. Incremental builds, caching and parallel task execution support the build process, while Gradle downloads and manages transitive dependencies from Maven- and Ivy-compatible repositories. The Gradle Wrapper can provision a build environment and specify the Gradle version used by a project. Its ecosystem covers JVM, Android, C/C++, Swift, Objective-C and assembler projects, and it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. The Tooling API lets IDEs and other tools inspect projects, run builds, receive progress events and cancel operations. Listed support includes Android Studio and Ant, plus Checkstyle, CodeNarc, PMD and JaCoCo. Gradle includes dependency verification. The maker says open-source security fixes are limited by its end-of-life policy; its Security Subscription offers prioritized fixes under SLA and extended maintenance, but does not guarantee a clean scanner report when findings come from third-party libraries.

IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE for professional Java and Kotlin development, available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It offers context-aware completion, static analysis, and automated refactoring. The JVM debugger includes breakpoints, variable inspection, expression evaluation, and step-by-step execution. Gradle and Maven integrations cover building, packaging, testing, and deployment, while version-control support includes Git, Mercurial, Perforce, and Subversion. Users can process GitHub pull requests in the IDE, and plugins from JetBrains Marketplace add support for other languages, frameworks, and technologies. Core Java and Kotlin functionality remains free after the included 30-day Ultimate trial ends. The Ultimate subscription adds advanced tools and integrations and costs $100.00 for the first year, $199.00 for the second year, and $159.00 per year from the third year onward. Listed minimum hardware is a 4-core x86_64 or arm64 CPU, 8 GB total RAM, and 10 GB of disk space. Users can choose in IDE settings whether to share anonymous usage data.