You have been using the Salesforce GUI or Developer Console for writing custom codes and that is okay for lightweight development. But for heavy development work, you need a professional IDE that offers features like integration with source control, syntax highlighting, auto-completion, debugger, offline editing, etc. Here is a list of popular Salesforce IDEs to choose from.
(Tools, that I personally use or have used and recommended are marked with a heart)
1. Visual Studio Code with Salesforce Extension (♥)
- One of the most popular IDEs for Salesforce Development and my favorite
- Provides features for working with development orgs (scratch orgs, sandboxes, and DE orgs)
- Prerequisites include VS Code Version 1.26 or later, Salesforce CLI, Salesforce DX Project, Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit
- Free
- Blog Post: How To Get Started with Visual Studio Code for Salesforce
2. Developer Console
- Create, debug, and test applications in your Salesforce org
- Perform tasks such as Debugging and Troubleshooting, Editing and Navigating Source Code, Testing and Validating Performance, Executing SOQL and SOSL Queries
- Includes a command-line for various useful commands
- Free
3. Welkin Suite
- Provides powerful features for increased development productivity and comfort
- Offers Point-and-Click development possibilities
- Debugging Options, Development and Comfort, Lightning Component Support
- Paid plans start from US$ 12.50/month (Free 30 days trial)
4. Illuminated Cloud
- Brings the modern feature set of JetBrains’ powerful IDEs
- Intelligent auto-completion for all Salesforce programming languages and metadata types
- Recognizes issues in your code and offers suggestions for how to correct them
- With its refactoring capabilities, own and evolve your Salesforce code
- Paid plans start from US$ 90/year for Personal license
5. AWS Cloud 9
- Cloud IDE for writing, running and debugging code
- Includes a code editor, debugger, and terminal
- Automatic bidirectional sync of code from Salesforce to IDE, though no deployments to different orgs
- Requires AWS EC2 instance
- No separate charge except for the cost of running the AWS EC2 instance
- Video (3:36 mins) – Introduction to AWS Cloud9
Don’t see the tool of your choice listed here? Please feel free to mention it in the comments below for other readers’ benefit.
Want to see a list of more of such useful resources & tools under different categories? Please do take a look at the resources page.
