The Future of the Eclipse Platform and Eclipse RCP

Over almost two decades, the Eclipse Platform and Rich Client Platform (RCP) have been foundational technologies for building extensible desktop applications, tools, and custom IDEs. From engineering environments to modeling tools, from custom IDEs to control centers for space missions, the Eclipse platform has enabled the creation of rich, domain-specific applications with features such as modularity, a plugin-based architecture, powerful language tooling (e.g., JDT, CDT), and a mature ecosystem of UI components.

Note: This article is not about the Eclipse IDE and its users, but is intended for stakeholders building applications, tools, or IDEs based on the Eclipse Platform and Eclipse RCP. It reflects EclipseSource’s perspective as a long-standing contributor and service provider within the Eclipse ecosystem.

The software industry continuously evolves. Since the early 2010s, there has been a broad shift toward web applications. As browsers became more capable, frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js matured, and cloud infrastructure proliferated, web technologies have become the default choice for many types of applications.

Today, a vast majority of new applications are built using web technologies.

This is not simply a passing trend but an ongoing industry-wide evolution. The domain of tools and IDEs, long characterized by their complexity and longevity, is now experiencing this shift as well.

Why are applications migrating to the web? Because expectations from users, teams, and businesses and even developers and engineers have fundamentally shifted:

• Modern UX expectations – clean, responsive UIs, dark/light mode, smooth animations, and cross-device support.
• Friction-free onboarding – a URL is all users need; no local toolchains or dependencies.
• Business-friendly delivery models – SaaS subscriptions, cloud workspaces, and easy updates match today’s distributed, remote-first work realities.
• Large, readily available talent pool – most developers today are fluent in web technologies, easing hiring, scaling, and long-term maintenance.
• Vast ecosystem of frameworks and components – reducing “reinvent-the-wheel” work, while Eclipse RCP occupies a more specialized niche.

Search interest over time: package.json (red) vs MANIFEST.MF (blue) highlights this gradual but significant industry shift.

The Eclipse Platform and RCP stack are rooted in a desktop paradigm. SWT and JFace, while innovative and robust in their time, increasingly show limitations compared to modern UI frameworks, and the architecture was conceived long before cloud-native deployment, AI-powered features, real-time collaboration, and ubiquitous browser delivery became mainstream. Meanwhile, the web ecosystem is evolving rapidly to meet more and more emerging needs, driven by a large and active adopter community. In contrast, Eclipse RCP, supported by a small but dedicated community, faces challenges in keeping pace with today’s demands.

While Eclipse RCP remains viable for legacy scenarios, we have to be prepared for its long-term sunset becoming more a question of “when” than “if.”

Why Eclipse RCP Isn’t Going Away Overnight

Despite the strong momentum toward web-based platforms, Eclipse RCP continues to power highly customized applications that rely on its robust offline capabilities, system integration, and mature plugin architecture. These tools were often built over many years and serve business critical domains such as engineering, simulation, and industrial control.

It’s important to recognize just how successful and long-lived Eclipse RCP has been, far exceeding the lifecycle of most software platforms in this fast-moving industry. The openness of the Eclipse ecosystem and the unwavering commitment of its contributors have played a vital role in this longevity. Vendor-neutral initiatives like the IDE Working Group and countless individual and corporate contributors continue to sustain the platform. Their efforts deserve real recognition and gratitude. Without their collaboration, many critical systems would have faced significant challenges already today.

However, contributor energy is finite, the pool of developers experienced and willing to work with SWT, OSGi, and Eclipse RCP is declining, the technology is aging, and the assumptions baked into Eclipse RCP’s architecture – desktop-first, non-distributed, and oriented toward single-machine execution – are becoming progressively harder to align with modern development needs. This leads to a decreasing number of adopters and more and more stakeholders migrate. Every adopter that migrates away from the Eclipse Platform weakens the incentive for others to stay. The ecosystem relies on shared investment, shared maintenance, shared innovation, shared expertise; and as that pool shrinks, the cost and risk for those who remain increases.

Because things have “just worked” for so long, it’s easy to assume they always will. However, future shifts in operating systems, security requirements, or infrastructure compatibility could suddenly require significant effort in the Eclipse platform. With fewer contributors maintaining the platform and a shrinking expert base, the ability to respond quickly and effectively to such disruptions is diminishing. The risk isn’t immediate collapse, but a gradual erosion of maintainability that can accelerate suddenly and unpredictably.

Thanks to the unwavering commitment of the community, we still have the opportunity to take advantage of this moment and start planning a well-designed, gradual migration now, with parallel deployment of the legacy and the modernized solution, and careful transition, before these risks escalate. We should use this opportunity now at this moment, to evolve by choice, not by crisis.

Why Now is a Good Time to Start Planning Migration

Even though we face a shrinking talent pool, there are still skilled SWT, OSGi, and Eclipse RCP experts available, and their expertise will be critically important not only for maintenance during the transition phase but also for a successful migration. While the long-term risks are accumulating gradually, the commitment of the community provides us with valuable time to prepare carefully. This is an ideal opportunity to plan a well-designed, gradual migration that leverages existing strengths and ensures continuity.

Many of these tools have been developed over years – often decades – and serve mission-critical domains such as engineering, simulation, or industrial control. Naturally, they can’t be rewritten overnight. Modernizing complex Eclipse-based tools is rarely a short-term project. It involves reassessing architecture and requirements, redesigning UI, updating deployment pipelines, and transitioning users. All of this can take months or even years.

Planning a migration does not mean abandoning your current solution, it means preparing carefully:

• Understanding what can be reused (e.g., business logic, DSLs, model infrastructure).
• Assessing what must be rethought (e.g., UI, deployment, AI integration, collaboration features).
• Defining a target architecture.
• Building a proof of concept with the new technology stack.
• Creating a phased roadmap for a smooth transition.

We will soon publish additional insights and best practices for modernizing Eclipse applications.

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The Ecosystem of Web-based Tools Has Matured

The web-based technology stack has evolved to address many of the concerns that previously justified staying on legacy stacks. In business applications, web technologies have become stable and well-supported. Frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.js, combined with server-side platforms such as Node.js and Spring Boot, offer enterprise-grade development environments.

In the domain of tools and IDEs, technologies such as Eclipse Theia (the next generation Eclipse Platform), Visual Studio Code, GLSP, LSP, Theia Cloud, EMF Cloud, CDT Cloud, and Theia AI now provide the rich capabilities necessary for engineering tools, modeling environments, and AI-powered IDEs - all within a web-first architecture.

And for teams requiring a modernized desktop application, Electron bridges the gap, enabling use of web technologies while still delivering a full-featured, cross-platform desktop app.

Today, building tools with modern web technologies is mainstream - not early adopter territory anymore.

Two major historical arguments against migration - the volatility of web technologies and lack of support for complex tools - are largely irrelevant today. The web stack has matured and stabilized and is now capable of meeting even demanding legacy tools, IDEs and RCP applications.

EclipseSource’s Unique Role

At EclipseSource, we have been proud to contribute to the Eclipse Platform and RCP community from the very beginning. We deeply appreciate the incredible commitment, collaboration, and technical excellence of this community that has kept Eclipse RCP vibrant for so long - a longevity rare in this industry.

For more than a decade, we’ve also embraced modern web technologies and the majority of our client projects involves either migrating Eclipse RCP applications or building new tools directly on modern platforms.

This exceptional collaboration with our clients has allowed us to design and establish stable platforms and foundational frameworks for developing modern, web-based specialized IDEs, domain-specific tools, and modeling environments. Following the spirit of Eclipse RCP, all these modern platforms and frameworks are also open source and many of them available within the umbrella of the Eclipse Foundation.

These projects also enabled us to gather the expertise required to guide, design and implement migrations carefully and responsibly. Whether you are maintaining a mission-critical Eclipse RCP application, planning a migration, or starting a new tool from scratch, we’re looking forward to working with you - as a partner who respects both your legacy and your future needs.

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