IntelliJ IDEA vs Nova
IntelliJ IDEA
jetbrains.com
Nova
nova.appSide by side
| Figure | IntelliJ IDEA | Nova |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $8.33/mo | $4.08/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 5 | 4 |
| Spec score · PHP IDEs | 9.3 (#1) | 8.2 (#8) |
| Spec score · Web Development IDEs | 9.2 (#3) | 8.1 (#19) |
| Product | IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE for professional development in Java and Kotlin. | Nova is a full-featured, Mac-native code editor and IDE. |
| Trial | Installing IntelliJ IDEA includes a free 30-day trial of the Ultimate subscription. | Nova offers a free, full-featured trial for up to 30 days from launch. |
Plans
IntelliJ IDEA
- Free feature setFree
- IntelliJ IDEA coreFree
- IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate individual$19.90 a month
- IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate subscription$100 a year
- IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate annual$199 a year
Nova
- Nova license$99 a month
- License renewal$49 a year
- Nova license renewal$49 a year
- Nova$99, paid once
In their own words
IntelliJ IDEA
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.