'public' constructor can be replaced with factory method

Reports public constructors.

Some coding standards discourage the use of public constructors and recommend static factory methods instead. This way the implementation can be swapped out without affecting the call sites.

Example:

  class Test {
    private String name;

    public Test(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public void test() {
        System.out.println(name);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Test("str").test();
    }
  }

After quick-fix is applied:

  class Test {
    private String name;

    private Test(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public static Test getInstance(String name) {
        return new Test(name);
    }

    public void test() {
        System.out.println(name);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        getInstance("str").test();
    }
  }

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

PublicConstructor

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Class structure

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection PublicConstructor

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025