STS slow - any tips on speeding it up?

For a time I thought I was due for a faster machine (currently using quad core), but I've read on Stackoverflow of others with similar complaints, on a i7 machine.
This is what I observe: STS is slow. Switching from java to debug perspective takes forever. Switching between files in the java perspective is also slow.
I've unchecked all validations, with little improvement.

Do you have recommendations on speeding up STS? Would deactivating lesser-used features speed it up? Granted the tool is feature-rich but that ought to come at a price. Maybe you've managed to configure a nimble STS-light? Any tip on speeding STS up is welcome.

Hey!

Which version of STS are you using? In case you are on the latest STS 3.0.0 or STS 3.1.0 versions, I would recommend to use the STS 3.1.0.RELEASE version for Eclipse 3.8 (and not the one for Eclipse 4.2). The 4.2-based version has some performance issues due to the changed underlying Eclipse UI implementation, which isn't the case for the 3.8-based version. You will not loose any features by switching to that 3.8-based version, but it should be a lot faster in many cases.

If you are experiencing slowdowns while STS is building a project or the workspace, you can try out to disable all or selected Spring validations that can take some time during a build.

In addition to that I would like to recommend you to try the upcoming STS 3.2.0.M2 build (scheduled for end of January/early February). We are working a lot on performance optimizations at the moment and STS 3.2.0.M2 will include the first results from this work. Otherwise, please try out the STS 3.1.0.RELEASE for Eclipse 3.8 version.

If all of this doesn't help, please take a few thread dumps (using jps and jstack) while STS is slow or not responding and create a ticket in our issue tracker: https://issuetracker.springsource.com/browse/STS

HTH,
Martin

The performance issue I mentioned was with STS 3.1.0/Eclipse 4.2. After switching to STS 3.1.0/Eclipse 3.8 the tool has become much more responsive. There is a night and day difference between the two.
Thanks Martin!

Hey!

Glad to hear it is working for you!!! :-)

The next version of STS (3.2.0) will be based on Eclipse Juno SR2, which has a lot of performance-related fixes in, so STS 3.2.0 on Eclipse 4.2 should be much better. But we will continue to provide an 3.8-based build with STS 3.2.0, just in case... ;-)

Cheers,
-Martin