PMD
An extensible multilanguage static code analyzer. (by pmd)
Error Prone
Catch common Java mistakes as compile-time errors (by google)
| PMD | Error Prone | |
|---|---|---|
| 23 | 17 | |
| 5,033 | 6,954 | |
| 0.9% | 0.4% | |
| 9.9 | 9.7 | |
| 5 days ago | 1 day ago | |
| Java | Java | |
| GNU General Public License v3.0 or later | Apache License 2.0 |
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
PMD
Posts with mentions or reviews of PMD.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2025-02-27.
- Análise Comparativa: Aider vs. PMD vs. Semgrep
-
We Have Code Quality At Home: Open Source Java Code Quality Tools
PMD is a source code static analysis tool. It inspects your Java files for any issues, and has a configurable set of rules to look at.
- PMD 7 Is Here
-
Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer: already time for retirement?
While the security findings can be pretty elaborate and helpful, the code quality and performance focused findings are not that impressive and can often be detected by more basic or powerful tools like SonarQube (paying) or PMD (free). To see what I mean you can have a look at the list of Java code quality detectors, which is pretty short and contains a lot of simple findings like:
-
Code Review for Flows
Also saw this convo has a couple years worth of ideas going on … https://github.com/pmd/pmd/issues/3413
-
Custom Gradle Plugin for Unified Static Code Analysis
PMD and Checkstyle are static analysis tools that check your code on each project build. Gradle allows to apply them easily.
-
Spring Boot – Black Box Testing
The generated classes should be put into .gitignore. Otherwise, if you have Checkstyle, PMD, or SonarQube in your project, then generated classes can violate some rules. Besides, if you don't put them into .gitignore, then each pull request might become huge due to the fact that even a slightest fix can lead to lots of changes in the generated classes.
-
After Java tutorials, now what???
- PMD Static Code Analysis tool: https://pmd.github.io/
-
Ask HN: What is a modern Java environment?
PMD, Spotbugs, Nullaway: Java linting/static analysis (https://pmd.github.io, https://spotbugs.github.io, https://github.com/uber/NullAway)
-
Code smell plugin
PMD, and checkstyle as well.
Error Prone
Posts with mentions or reviews of Error Prone.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2025-04-01.
- JEP Draft: Prepare to Make Final Mean Final
-
Any library you would like to recommend to others as it helps you a lot? For me, mapstruct is one of them. Hopefully I would hear some other nice libraries I never try.
error-prone is good for some extra static analysis.
-
How to use Java Records
A special kind of validation is enforcing that record fields are not null. (Un)fortunately, records do not have any special behavior regarding nullability. You can use tools like NullAway or Error Prone to prevent null in your code in general, or you can add checks to your records:
- Prusti: Static Analyzer for Rust
-
Why is `suspend` a language keyword, but @Composable and @Serializable are annotations
I am all in favour to more third side libraries adding functionalities, like Lombok, Manifold and error prone. As well as smaller projects like this shameless plug and what appears in this list
-
Picnic loves Error Prone: producing high-quality and consistent Java code
If only Google didn't suck when it came to Java9+ support... https://github.com/google/error-prone/issues/2649
-
What does the future hold for Project Amber?
I haven't used it. I use Google's ErrorProne + Lombok to prevent NPEs in java.
-
Plans for Compile-time Null Pointer Safety?
Take a look at NullAway, a plugin for Error Prone.
-
What I miss in Java, the perspective of a Kotlin developer
For some of this stuff, there are compiler extensions that allow extra type checking to be added e.g. Google Error-Prone: https://github.com/google/error-prone with stuff like: https://errorprone.info/bugpattern/ReturnMissingNullable.
Doesn't help you with third party libraries, but across an org applying that rule (and others!) typically ensures some consistency.
-
A guide on how to improve your coding skills with static code analysis.
How to build a static analysis plugin. Google has a framework for Java with a good tutorial.
What are some alternatives?
When comparing PMD and Error Prone you can also consider the following projects:
Spotbugs - SpotBugs is FindBugs' successor. A tool for static analysis to look for bugs in Java code.
SonarQube - Continuous Inspection
Checkstyle - Checkstyle is a development tool to help programmers write Java code that adheres to a coding standard. By default it supports the Google Java Style Guide and Sun Code Conventions, but is highly configurable. It can be invoked with an ANT task and a command line program.
FindBugs - The new home of the FindBugs project