When comparing IntelliJ Rust vs Kate, the Slant community recommends IntelliJ Rust for most people. In the question“What are the best editors/IDEs for Rust?” IntelliJ Rust is ranked 1st while Kate is ranked 9th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro A fully featured IDE
Pro Constantly being updated
Pro Full power of IDEA engine
This plugin uses big part of Intellij IDEA features, including advanced code analysis and refactoring.
Pro Free/Libre (MIT)
Currently
Pro Many users
Has more users than the average plugin.
Pro The best VI shortcut plugin
For those that favor VI shortcuts, you can do nearly everything in IntelliJ that you would do in a VIM editor. Almost no conflicts out of the box, and those that are in conflict are easily resolved.
Pro Built-in user friendly terminal
Pro Has built-in Git support
Pro Nearly 100% of Rust code is interpretted by the IDE
The ability to trace variable definitions and references from within closures as well as understand smart pointers and macro code makes it the smoothest interface for writing Rust.
Pro Supports JS/TS frameworks
Pro Integrated terminal
Has a terminal that can sync to the location of your document, letting you compile or run your program quickly or run quick commands, all without leaving the editor.
Pro Project mode
Kate allows you to make projects to simplify the organisation of your code. This brings in additional organization of an IDE without the overhead.
Pro Fast and minimaistic
Kate is pretty fast and lightweight. This helps it with it's start up speed.
Pro Syntax highlighting
Kate supports syntax highlighting for over 180 languages, from Assembler to Zsh.
Pro Edit over FTP, SSH, or other protocols
Kate uses KDE's input and output libraries to read and write files, allowing seamless integration with FTP, SMB, SFTP, and many other protocols.
Pro Thriving plugin ecosystem
Lots of plugins allow Kate to expand or shrink based on your needs. It includes GDB integration, XML completion, and symbol viewing to speed up programming.
Pro By far one of the best and lightest text editors.
Notepads alternative (for the Windows users).
Pro Vi entry mode
Kate has a vi entry mode.
Cons
Con Debugger requires paid CLion / IDEA Ultimate
Debugger still won't work without IDE that includes native debugger support. The only known is proprietary and paid CLion or IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate with the native debugger plugin.
Con Intellij Rust being replaced by paid for IDE
Con Why would you pay for it if there is VSCode
Con Too many issues (currently, in May 2022)
The plugin mostly works but it has a staggering number of issues (1400+ reported as of today). Therefore it should not be used if tool stability is an issue.
Con From the website: "work-in-progress, expect bugs and missing features"
Con Slow compared to Rust analyzer
Con Difficult to work with substrate
Con Does not parse macros correctly
It seems that autocomplete does not work for macros at all.
Con Hard to install on Windows or OS X
Kate can be a little hard to install and configure, especially for beginners.
On Linux or BSD, it can be easily installed from your distribution's repositories.