Installing Theia IDE locally is no more complex than any other desktop app, as the Eclipse Foundation delivers installers for all three major platforms (Windows, macOS, and Linux). The installer sets up the necessary bits automatically. Additionally, Docker users can try an experimental Docker image, whether for hosting online or running locally. Another option for Windows users is to obtain Theia IDE via the winget package manager, although it may lag a version or two behind the versions offered by Eclipse directly.

Theia IDE add-ons and extensions

VS Code has minimal add-ons by default. The philosophy is that the user will add what’s needed, either for their workload generally or for individual projects, but this means spending some time and effort fetching the components you need. By contrast, Theia IDE comes preloaded with 88 built-in extensions that cover many common toolsets, languages, use cases, and syntaxes. Most of the time, you will find the bits you need are already included, which makes it easy to jump right in and get started.

This convenience comes with two downsides: the size of the installation and the flexibility of the setup. On Windows, Visual Studio Code’s base install footprint is about 376 MB; for Theia IDE, it’s 658 MB.