Eclipse Spring IDE 2.3.2 plug-in vs. SpringSource Tool Suite 2.3.2

Question

I'd like to play around with Spring for an upcoming Java EE project. Is there any difference between the Eclipse Spring IDE 2.3.2 plug-in (in the new Eclipse Marketplace) and the SpringSource Tool Suite (available at SpringSource).

More precisely: In my understanding, the Tool Suite is basically Eclipse 3.5 with a set of plug-ins. So the question is, are the plug-ins provided by the Eclipse Spring IDE 2.3.2 the same or is there any difference in functionality?

Thanks for your help, I hope you understand that the Eclipse platform can be overwhelming for beginners.

Answer 1

SpringSource ToolSuite is Eclipse + Spring IDE + others. The others are things like support for Roo, dmServer, tcServer, Grails, etc.

If all you need is the Spring IDE plugin (which gives support for Spring Framework development), then vanilla Eclipse + Spring IDE is going to be enough.

I quite like the pre-bundled STS versions, though, it's one less thing to worry about.

Answer 2

Feature Comparison: http://download.springsource.com/release/STS/doc/STS-feature_comparison.pdf

With the Eclipse Marketplace Client build in newer Eclipse versions (AFAIK starting with Helios) it is also possible to install Spring Tool Suite into an existing Eclipse. I have just done that.

Answer 3

Even though you can use just Eclipse + Spring IDE plugin, I would suggest going for SpringSource Tool Suite simply because it is stable set of very useful plugins. Since we switched to STS we never looked back :)

Answer 4

If you are already using Eclipse, you are likely using other plugins for your existing projects. Also you are like to use tool supports other than Spring for your future projects.

Spring IDE plugin with your existing Eclipse makes more sense if Spring is not your only requirement.