Editor Support

Overview

When editing an Avro schema, everyone has a preferred editor. Some use an IDE, like IntelliJ, Pycharm, RustRover or Visual Studio, while others prefer a more humble text editor like Pulsar, Emacs or Vim.

Most provide help when working with Avro via JSON support (for JSON schemata) by offering syntax highlighting and formatting. Some provide more help, for example syntax highlighting for IDL schemata, code completion, error highlighting and more.

The IDEs and editors that we know to support Avro better than just editing schemata as JSON files are listed below in alphabetical order.

Eclipse

Eclipse is a free IDE that provides extensions via the Eclipse Marketplace.

Avroclipse

Extension (source)

Released in 2015, this plugin received its last update in December 2019.

Features for IDL files:

• Syntax Highlighting
• Code Completion
• Error Highlighting

Emacs

Sometimes ridiculed as an operating system, Emacs is a rich text editor. Many packages are available via one of the three main package archives: GNU ELPA, non-GNU ELPA or MELPA.

emacs-avro

Package source

Originally released elsewhere in 2013, the last update was in March 2021.

This package is not available via the main package archives.

Provides syntax highlighting for IDL schemata.

JetBrains IDE family

JetBrains features an entire line of IDEs. They include IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, PhpStorm, GoLand, Rider, CLion, RustRover, WebStorm, RubyMine, DataGrip, DataSpell, ReSharper, Fleet, and Aqua.

All of them use the Plugin Marketplace to load extensions from.

Apache Avro IDL Schema Support

Plugin (source)

Released in 2021, this plugin received its last update in April 2025.

Features for Avro schema & protocol definitions:

• Syntax Highlighting
• Code Completion
• Code Formatting
• Error Highlighting
• Inspections & quick fixes (IDL only)
• New file templates

The plugin supports all JetBrains products.

Avro and Parquet Viewer

Plugin (source)]

Released in 2021, this plugin received its last update in November 2022.

Allows previewing .avro files, and shows its schema in an editor tab.

Big Data File Viewer

Plugin ( part of the Big Data Tools)

Released in 2023, this plugin is actively developed by JetBrains.

Allows previewing .avro files, and shows its schema in the structure tool window.

Pulsar

A Chromium-based text editor, Pulsar touts itself as community-led and hyper-hackable. Extensions can be found in its Package Repository.

atom-language-avro

Package (source)

Released in 2015, this package provides syntax highlighting for IDL schemata.

Vim

vim-avro

Plugin source

Released in December 2016, this plugin has received no updates since.

Features syntax highlighting for IDL schemata,

avro-idl.vim

Plugin source

Featured in the Avro repository share/editors directory. Introduced in 2010, this plugin received its last update in June 2019.

Features syntax highlighting for IDL schemata,

Visual Studio Code:

Being a Microsoft product, Visual Studio Code provides extensions via a Plugin Marketplace.

avro-idl

Plugin (source)

Released in 2017, this plugin received its last update in June 2021,

It provides syntax highlighting for IDL and JSON schemata.

avro-tools

Plugin (source)

Released in 2020, this plugin has not received updates after its release day.

It does provide more features than most plugins:

• syntax highlighting for .avsc files
• formatting
• snippets for fields with types.

avro-viewer

Plugin (source)

Released in 2023, this plugin received its last update in June 2023.

It allows you to preview .avro files (uncompressed only), with its schema.