Jelastic has bolstered the breadth of its cloud hosting PaaS offering for Java and PHP applications by releasing a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, one of the most popular Java IDEs.

JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA features smart code completion, multi-language editing, and a flexible cross-platform UI. The developer proposition here is the option to manage environments and deploy apps from the IDE without having to switch to a browser.

"Jelastic is all about empowering developers and making hosting easy. With the Jelastic plugin, IDEA users can work with their development, test, and production deployments without leaving their favorite Java IDE," said Jelastic COO Dmitry Sotnikov.

Key features of the Jelastic plugin for IntelliJ IDEA include options to work with different hosting providers; the ability to deploy and redeploy applications; the ability to view and manage user environments; and the ability to view logs (full logs and tail logs).

"In IntelliJ IDEA 12 we have taken our first steps toward supporting deployment tools for clouds," said Andrey Chepstov, IntelliJ IDEA product marketing manager. "Of course, we welcome the authors of Jelastic, a Duke's Choice Award winning platform, to contribute to the IntelliJ IDEA plug-in ecosystem."

Jelastic's plugin can be installed automatically from IntelliJ IDEA plugin repositories.