[DEPRECATED] This plugin has been deprecated. No further development will be done on this plugin.

[mklueh]

Hi there,

just noticed the plugin has been deprecated but no further information was given.

Could someone please elaborate why this decision was made and if there will be an alternative provided?

Thanks

[nikpachoo]

Hi @mklueh,

After careful consideration, we decided to deprecate the Package Search plugin due to significant challenges in maintaining and evolving the project. Persistent reliability issues, low adoption rates, and misalignment with our broader strategic goals made it difficult to justify continued investment.

While we don’t have a direct alternative to the plugin at this time, improving dependency management in IntelliJ IDEA remains a priority, and we are actively exploring ways to enhance this experience.

We appreciate your interest in the plugin and your understanding regarding this decision.

If you have specific needs or feedback related to dependency management, we’d be happy to hear it as we work toward future improvements.

[maloewe-ona]

Is it recommended to manually uninstall Package Search now because it could lead to issues with future IntelliJ versions?
Or will this uninstallation even happen automatically at some point when updating to an IntelliJ version where it would break? Because if I recall correctly Package Search was apparently automatically installed by default in the first place (in some previous IntelliJ versions).

[GRyanParoz]

Feedback: I shouldn't have had to go all the way to this issue to determine whether it was deprecated in favour of something else, or just that it was unnecessary. A deprecation notice should always include a CTA or some instruction on what to do next.

(Not too bothered by the plugin being deprecated in and of itself)

[mklueh]

Hi @mklueh,

After careful consideration, we decided to deprecate the Package Search plugin due to significant challenges in maintaining and evolving the project. Persistent reliability issues, low adoption rates, and misalignment with our broader strategic goals made it difficult to justify continued investment.

While we don’t have a direct alternative to the plugin at this time, improving dependency management in IntelliJ IDEA remains a priority, and we are actively exploring ways to enhance this experience.

We appreciate your interest in the plugin and your understanding regarding this decision.

If you have specific needs or feedback related to dependency management, we’d be happy to hear it as we work toward future improvements.

Thanks for the clarification :)

It didn't really work out for my monorepo setup (while using gradle.properties for some versions, and BOMs in my root), but I was hoping things are getting better, especially now with Gradle version catalogues. I've migrated to it just recently, and weren't really able to use this plugin before, because of my setup.

Because of that, I was used to go to mvnrepository.com and lookup the dep versions all the time.

[NicoStrecker]

Hi @mklueh,

After careful consideration, we decided to deprecate the Package Search plugin due to significant challenges in maintaining and evolving the project. Persistent reliability issues, low adoption rates, and misalignment with our broader strategic goals made it difficult to justify continued investment.

While we don’t have a direct alternative to the plugin at this time, improving dependency management in IntelliJ IDEA remains a priority, and we are actively exploring ways to enhance this experience.

We appreciate your interest in the plugin and your understanding regarding this decision.

If you have specific needs or feedback related to dependency management, we’d be happy to hear it as we work toward future improvements.

I would love to have the ability to see what the newest Version of a dependency is.

[rijami00]

Persistent reliability issues, low adoption rates

I never had reliability issues and the low adoption rates is because nobody knows about it.
Every single person i showed this to, loved the plugin.

This plugin saves hours when we need to update deps of a project.

I suggest adding it by default and make it discoverable. Then you'll see the usage skyrocket.

[chpasha]

I also don't get it - at least the inspection showing available updates for dependencies inside maven/gradle editor tab was there for ages and is extremely useful. As far as I understand - it is the part of this plugin and will be gone with it, right? It is already kind of broken and unless it is extracted and bundled within IDE, it also won't work in Android Studio either