Flutter by Google vs. IntelliJ IDEA vs. NetBeans

Flutter by Google is well suited where you have to make an app across multiple platforms like iOS, Android, Web, Desktop and you don't have the bandwidth to create multiple teams for the Native app. This makes sure you have a faster development and you don't have to worry about how your product will look across different platforms. It is also very smooth/fast in response, making it close to feel like a Native app, this makes it an easy pick for a Fintech product where speed matters. Flutter by Google also has a huge library of Components, which are well tested and developed by Google's Flutter by Google team itself, making the development even more fast since the majority of required components are already available.

Incentivized

This is a superb tool if your project involves a lot of backend development, especially in Java/Spring Boot and Kotlin. The support for the front end is great as well, but some developers may prefer to use the GitHub copilot add-on. I especially love using the GitHub copilot add-on. It may be less appropriate if your project requires heavy use of HotSwaps for backend debugging, as sometimes the support for that can be limited.

Incentivized

NetBeans is extremely user friendly and easy to start developing complex applications. Adding and configuring external libraries is much simpler than in Eclipse. It is highly cost effective and most of the latest framework based libraries required are automatically downloaded to the projects. The overall tool is also light weight and consumes less memory as compared to other competitor tools.

Incentivized

• User interface design works great across all platforms, including native styling for iOS/macOS.
• Native compilation for mobile platforms and a decent rendering engine results in slick apps that can make the most of your device.
• Dart is a well thought out language and easy to pick up.
• Makes cross-platform development of good looking GUI apps a doddle.

Incentivized

• Unit testing: Fully integrated into IntelliJ IDEA. Your unit tests will run smoothly and efficiently, with excellent debugging tools for when things get tricky.
• Spring integration: Our Spring project using Maven works flawlessly in IntelliJ IDEA. I know firsthand that Apache is also easily and readily supported too. The integration is seamless and very easy to set up using IntelliJ IDEA's set up wizard when importing new projects.
• Customization: IntelliJ IDEA comes out of the box with a bunch of handy shortcuts, as well as text prediction, syntax error detection, and other tools to help keep your code clean. But even better is that it allows for total customization of shortcuts you can easily create to suit your needs.

Incentivized

• Debugging - Save time hunting down errors by stepping through the code to find the root of a problem.
• Refactoring - Easily rename classes and variables or make other structural changes using built-in refactoring tools.
• Service management - NetBeans integrates seamlessly with web application servers like Tomcat and GlassFish.
• Source control - Works well with Git and other version control tools.

• Occasionally updates to the Flutter SDK result in wide-sweeping changes that seem to not be thoroughly tested and considered. Flutter sometimes evolves too fast for its own good.
• While the 3rd-party Flutter package ecosystem is vast and rich, 1st-party support for basic things (audio/video playback, battery information, Bluetooth services, etc.) are lacking. You are occasionally forced to rely on an open-source package for use-cases that other platforms have native support for.
• Documentation, particularly around testing, is lacking. While there are some great docs, like the Dart Style Guide, many Flutter-focused support documents are lacking in quality and real-world usability.
• Flutter allows you to architect an app however you want. While this is a great feature, it also adds complexity and leads to the current state of Flutter's state management, where there are 50+ options on how to organize your app, with very little official guidance or recommendations from the Flutter team. For a beginner, this can create decision paralysis.

Incentivized

• Finding if a feature exists or not in IntelliJ IDEA can be challenging.
• For example, if we know how to format a particular file, the command is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L, but if we don't, then finding it is difficult.
• Setting up a project interpreter and directory structure might not be intuitive at first.
• Git integration can be improved. For example, it isn't easy to rebase using UI in IntelliJ IDEA.

Incentivized

• NetBeans [should] work smoothly with systems having less RAM. Systems with less RAM face trouble with NetBeans.
• File open history also requires improvement. Once NetBeans is restarted, all files are closed automatically and there is no shortcut to open last opened files.

Incentivized

VS Code is maturing and has a Scala plugin now. The overall experience with VS Code - for web development at least - is very snappy/fast. IntelliJ feels a bit sluggish in comparison. If that Scala plugin for VS Code is deemed mature enough - we may not bother renewing and resort to the Community Edition if we need it.

Incentivized

Flutter by Google is very easy to start with. The initial setup they provide is very helpful and easy to understand. The default project setup is also good and can be deployed to production without changing much. Flutter by Google provides a huge library of components, which are created and tested by their own team, making the development of application much faster and robust. Flutter by Google also has a huge community support where we can find components built by the community and we can contribute our own components as well, which helps in faster dev time. Applications developed using Flutter by Google are very smooth, almost feels like native, which helps in creating good impression on customers/clients.

Incentivized

There is always room for improvement, but I haven't met any IDE that I liked more so far. Even if it did not fit a use case right out of the box, there is always a way to configure how it works to do just that.

Incentivized

Netbeans enhances my coding work, shows me where I have errors and helps find variable instances. I would be lost without find/replace in projects functionality as I use projects as templates for new projects. Occasionally the code hints aggravate me, but I understand that it is actually making me a better coder, working to get the 'green light' of a clean file with no errors or clumsy code.

Incentivized

Customer support is really good in the case of IntelliJ. If you are paying for this product then, the company makes sure that you will get all the services adequately. Regular update patches are provided to improve the IDE. An online bug report makes it easier for the developers to find the solution as fast as possible. The large online community also helps to find the various solutions to the issues.

Incentivized

NetBeans has a very strong user community. We can find solutions here for almost all the problems we face. In addition, we can forward NetBeans Support teams the problems we cannot solve. We can get quick feedback from the support teams, but I generally try to solve my problems by following the forums.

Incentivized

This installs just like any other application - its pretty straight forward. Perhaps licensing could be more challenging - but if you use the cloud licensing they offer its as simple as having engineers login to the application and it just works.

Incentivized

I have experience with react and React Native. I would say that the idea behind all those frameworks are quite similar. However, I found the javascript-based frameworks a bit more accessible as you could utilise your javascript knowledge. Here, Flutter works with its own language. This has advantages and disadvantages sometimes. I found the community around javascript frameworks bigger and therefore sometimes more helpful. However, Flutter does a good job here as well. I think the main argument for Flutter is its usability for less experienced developers. If you do not have knowledge in javascript or other programming languages then I think it is much easier to start with Flutter than with another framework like react. I think the package that you get form scratch is better than in the other frameworks were you have to set up and learn a lot more before you can start.

Incentivized

Eclipse is just so old, like a dinosaur, compared to IntelliJ. There are still formats that Eclipse supports better, especially old and/or propriety ones. Still, most of the modern software development needs can be done on IntelliJ, & in a much better way, some of them are not even supported on Eclipse.

Incentivized

It works very smoothly as compared to other tools . The problem of restarting and reimporting the projects is not in the netbeans IDE . The front end development features are good . Netbeans connector is one of the best thing which enables us to deeply integrate netbeans IDE with google chrome browser

Incentivized

• The rapid development capabilities of Flutter allow us to build apps we could not have previously considered commercially viable, opening new revenue streams.
• Free and open licensing made adoption very easy (ie. free/low cost!).
• In comparison to Qt, our time spent arguing with build tools and perfecting development environments has decreased substantially.

Incentivized

• Easier to find bugs and debugs, thus reducing man hours and generating immediate dollar impact.
• Coding time is lessened, which in turn again reduces man hours and generates immediate dollar impact.
• Refactoring code is more innovative and easy here, resulting in more maintainable code.

Incentivized

• By working on Netbeans I just learned one more tool and can teach others about it. One should learn every tool so that it might help someday if another editor is not available and you have to use different software for your work.
• Compiling code became easy as it is not a feature of normal text editors. Only IDE can do this.

Incentivized