NetBeans vs. Notepad++

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
NetBeans
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
NetBeans is a free and open source platform and integrated development environment (IDE).N/A
Notepad++
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Notepad++ is a popular free and open source text editor available under the GPL license, featuring syntax highlighting and folding, auto-complete, multi-document management, and ac customizable GUI.N/A
Pricing
NetBeansNotepad++
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
NetBeansNotepad++
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
NetBeansNotepad++
Considered Both Products
NetBeans
Chose NetBeans
All above mentioned is good for web development and Netbeans is an IDE which can do a lot more than normal text editors. File navigation is also easy in Netbeans.
Notepad++
Chose Notepad++
Notepad++ stands tall against NetBeans because of the ease of setup and use. NetBeans is extremely developer-centric and does not allow every other day users to dive right in as easily as Notepad++.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
NetBeansNotepad++
Small Businesses
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
BBEdit
BBEdit
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
Vim
Vim
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
NetBeansNotepad++
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(22 ratings)
8.9
(60 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(4 ratings)
8.1
(16 ratings)
User Testimonials
NetBeansNotepad++
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
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.
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Open Source
well suited for 1) Coding and Development - Writing and editing code, Quick prototyping and testing of code snippets, Debugging and inspecting code using syntax highlighting and line numbering, 2) web development - Creating and editing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other web-related files .Managing and organizing web projects with multiple files and directories. Not suited for - 1) processing huge files 2) graphic designing 3) complex gui designs 3) Data Analysis and Manipulation - Editing and cleaning up text-based data files before importing them into analytical tools. Applying regular expressions to extract, transform, and manipulate data. 4) System Administration and IT - change system configuration file
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Pros
Open Source
  • 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.
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Open Source
  • Notepad++ allows us to keep open files in tabs. Like in a web browser, these tabs let us access these files quickly and easily. Furthermore, even if we forget to save the files when closing the program or shutting down the PC, Notepad++ retains them in the open tabs when we reopen it.
  • Notepad++ supports many different file types. We usually save our files created in Notepad as normal text files, but sometimes as JSON, PHP, and HTML files.
  • Notepad++ is lightweight and requires little resources. Using it is snappy and responsive.
  • The developer of Notepad++ frequently updates the software with bug fixes, performance improvements and new features.
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Cons
Open Source
  • 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.
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Open Source
  • UI looks a bit dated.
  • Sometimes the number of options are overwhelming and require a quick search to figure out where to locate a particular function.
  • Some way to do a diff between files would be great. Still need to resort to another paid app for that - unless it is a buried function I don't know about or there's a plugin for it.
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Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
I use it every day for 13 years already and it never disappointed me
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Usability
Open Source
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.
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Open Source
Many of the features are not out of the box. We have install them separately
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Support Rating
Open Source
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.
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Open Source
I haven't needed to utilize any support related to Notepad++. I guess this is a good thing because I found it to be quite intuitive. There are almost infinite features you can tweak and plugins you can download but I haven't had to do that because Notepad++ is really good right out of the box.
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
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
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Open Source
Notepad for Windows, Microsoft Word...LibreOffice Writer....I have used all of these for code writing and editing. Once again I like the universal feel of Notepad++. Basic Notepad, is just that, basic...and kind of clunky for what it is. This is a cool that I have installed on all my computers and also keep it on a thumb drive if I need it elsewhere.
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • 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.
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Open Source
  • Productivity has increased for developers.
  • It's free so instead of buying a piece of software, you can use this to replace many of them that may only specialize in one thing.
  • It gives our developers confidence knowing they have such a reliable, free tool at their disposal.
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ScreenShots