When comparing Eclipse Che vs DrJava, the Slant community recommends Eclipse Che for most people. In the question“What are the best Java IDEs or editors?” Eclipse Che is ranked 4th while DrJava is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Eclipse Che is:
Built-in terminal with root access so you can make changes to your running machines. Being able to SSH into the workspace so you can use a desktop IDE is handy.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro SSH + terminal
Built-in terminal with root access so you can make changes to your running machines. Being able to SSH into the workspace so you can use a desktop IDE is handy.
Pro Custom commands
You can package up custom commands with your workspace and then use them (or share them) with everyone else.
Pro Docker runtimes
You can choose from pre-configured environments for Java, Javascript, C++, PHP, C#, etc., or you can define your own by dropping in a Dockerfile - makes it easy for simple and complex projects.
Pro GIT and SVN VCS support
Projects can be easily imported from any Git or Svn repository hosting service.
Pro Reproducible environment
Pro Portable workspaces
The workspace in Che includes project sources, IDE and the runtime. So if you hand your Che workspace definition to another user and they execute it they will get everything they need to build, run and debug the project.
Also the runtime is in a Docker container so it will work even if the second user is on a different OS than the original user who shared their workspace with them.
Pro Previews
Che does a nice job to automatically map the service:port running in the Docker container (e.g. tomcat on 8080) to the Docker port it actually uses (something in the ephemeral range). You never need to figure that out - it's just made available when you run your server.
Pro Merge tool for VCS
Pro Open-source
Pro No need to set up a project
Because DrJava is designed for beginners/students, it's set up so that users can run code without having to worry about set up.
Pro Lightweight
DrJava is a lightweight IDE, at only 13MB. It starts up quickly and doesn't lag.
Cons
Con Slow runtime
Online IDE is much slower than desktop one.
Con Light on features
DrJava is primarily for students, so is kept fairly basic. For example, auto-completion is limited to class names.