Eclipse is described as 'Extensible development platform with runtimes and application frameworks for building, deploying and managing software across the entire software lifecycle. Many people know Eclipse as a Java IDE, but it is much more than that- Eclipse actually consists of over 60' and is a leading IDE in the development category. There are more than 100 alternatives to Eclipse for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD and Web-based apps. The best Eclipse alternative is Visual Studio Code, which is free. Other great apps like Eclipse are IntelliJ IDEA, VSCodium, Apache NetBeans and Microsoft Visual Studio.