| During these nearly 6 years, OpenXava Studio has helped many of you get started with OpenXava quickly and easily, frictionless as they say. So we can thank it for that. But now it’s 2026, and we want OpenXava (the framework) to be a tool that allows Java developers to build incredible things. For that reason, OpenXava Studio must step aside and make way for much better things. IntelliJ We have two main reasons for discontinuing OpenXava Studio. The first is that we’ve noticed that Java developers using OpenXava do not use OpenXava Studio—they use IntelliJ. We want OpenXava to be attractive and natural for Java developers who come to us for the first time, and presenting it by default as an Eclipse-based IDE does not give a good first impression. Moreover, we want to optimize the framework and the documentation so that IntelliJ works as smoothly as possible with OpenXava. It’s true that this makes OpenXava more complex for those who do not come from Java, but our getting started guide (including video) for OpenXava using IntelliJ is designed to be followed by a complete beginner. Installing IntelliJ and following the guide is not much more complicated than installing OpenXava Studio and following its guide. AI The other reason is AI code assistants. Nowadays, writing code by hand as was done in the old days (and by “old days” I mean 2025) is a path that inevitably leads to failure. Like it or not, we have to use AI to generate our code. Creating an OpenXava Studio with support for code assistants would be a monumental task, even using existing Eclipse plugins. In addition, there is fierce competition in this field. Tools like Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, or Claude Code are excellent, and it makes no sense to compete with them. Our business is not IDEs—it is our framework. There is no problem at all in using any of these IDEs with OpenXava. What are we going to do? We have already disabled the download of OpenXava Studio from openxava.org and replaced it with instructions to create an OpenXava project using Maven. We have also updated the getting started guide so that it uses IntelliJ, including a video. What do you need to do? Migrate to IntelliJ. Starting in March, creating new projects with OpenXava Studio may cause issues, and starting in September, creating new projects will most likely no longer work. Can you use an IDE other than IntelliJ? Of course. OpenXava works well with Eclipse (you can use a recent version), Visual Studio (including Cursor and Windsurf), and in general any Java IDE with Maven support. Can I continue using OpenXava Studio with my current project? Yes, working with existing projects will continue to work for some time. To enjoy the new features, you will need to configure Java 17 in OpenXava Studio, and it should work fine with OpenXava 7.7 and even 8. However, we will not be testing it, and if you encounter any issues, we will not fix them. Nevertheless, you have plenty of time to migrate calmly to your new IDE. The OpenXava Studio download will remain available on SourceForge indefinitely, in case you need to download it again. OpenXava Framework What we are discontinuing is the IDE (OpenXava Studio), not the framework (OpenXava). OpenXava moves forward with important new features for 2026, such as version 7.7 (March), which will include an AI Chat for the end user, and version 8 (September) with Jakarta EE support. |
