When comparing Nightcode vs Cursive IDE, the Slant community recommends Nightcode for most people. In the question“What is the best IDE for Clojure?” Nightcode is ranked 8th while Cursive IDE is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Nightcode is:
As a complete newcomer to Clojure development, you might want to try out the Clojure IDE because of the simplicity of its setup. The 2.7.0 version, is available as a JAR file.
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Pros
Pro Easy to set up and use.
As a complete newcomer to Clojure development, you might want to try out the Clojure IDE because of the simplicity of its setup. The 2.7.0 version, is available as a JAR file.
Pro Built on IntelliJ
Includes automated code inspections and seamless Java integration.
Pro Paredit-style structural editing
Just like emacs.
Pro Written in Clojure (mostly)
They eat their own dog food, so to speak. And it integrates properly with the Clojure ecosystem tools, like Leiningen and nREPL.
Pro clojure.test support
Cons
Con Lacking many options
The user interface is quite simple. Experience users may want options and features
Con Expensive (but only for commercial development work)
Why pay $99/year when Clojure-Kit is free?
Con It's based on IntelliJ
IntelliJ is a text editor. A code oriented text editor, but just that. It has the feel of something that was gee-wiz in the '80s. The worst of emacs without the functionality.
Con The "free" version is non-free.
The "free" license is only for non-commercial use. Cursive does have a "free"-as-in-beer license, but it's not free as in speech. There are open-source alternative without this restriction.