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NetBeans

NetBeans

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What is NetBeans?

NetBeans is a free and open source platform and integrated development environment (IDE).

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NetBeans has become a widely-used and valued tool for developers across various domains. From PHP MySQL code for scheduling and data entry …
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Netbeans for java code

8 out of 10
June 29, 2022
Incentivized
It's used to write Java code for our company and to maintain our Java-based source code apps. Mostly mobile apps for an android operating …
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What is NetBeans?

NetBeans is a free and open source platform and integrated development environment (IDE).

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Product Demos

NetBeans Demo : Show Popup for 5 seconds then disappear automatically

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NetBeans Demo : How to install SwingX and How to use JXTable (Display data from database)

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[DEMO] Aplikasi Parkir Kendaraan dengan Java Netbeans dan Mysql

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Swing CRUD Application with Hibernate and SQL Server on NetBeans

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NetBeans Demo : Display image from database (BLOB) in JTable

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JRadioButton Example in JAVA Swing Netbeans IDE Demo.

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Product Details

NetBeans Technical Details

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Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

NetBeans is a free and open source platform and integrated development environment (IDE).

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.5.

The most common users of NetBeans are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings

(101)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

NetBeans has become a widely-used and valued tool for developers across various domains. From PHP MySQL code for scheduling and data entry systems to Java projects, NetBeans has seamlessly integrated with different technologies. It has been particularly instrumental in web application development using JSP, JEE, and Spring Struts, offering essential deployment tools that enhance the speed of application production. Users appreciate its cost-effectiveness and simplicity as a free and open-source IDE, making it a popular choice for management service projects like record management. Organizations have adopted NetBeans as their go-to software development platform, replacing other IDEs like Sublime Editor and Eclipse due to its speed and feature-rich nature.

NetBeans' lightweight and user-friendly interface have made it the top pick for smaller Java projects. Its convenient features come in handy for coding in PHP, making it an ideal choice for e-commerce site creation. Programmers in organizations rely on NetBeans for its useful tools such as graphical interface building and unit testing with JUnit. The versatility of NetBeans further shines through its compatibility with multiple programming languages including Java, PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – ensuring a comprehensive set of tools for a streamlined workflow.

Education institutions have embraced NetBeans for teaching Java, proving helpful support to students entering the development field. In software consultancy organizations, it aids in quick software development by providing valuable features like unit testing, version control, syntax checking, and integration with additional add-ins. The collaboration capabilities of NetBeans are highly praised by users who appreciate its intellisense feature and user-friendly interface.

NetBeans has also found a use case within software development teams where it serves as the primary IDE for coding, indentation, Git commits debugging, and minifying code. Its compatibility with various operating systems ensures that all users can develop projects efficiently. For mobile and web application development, NetBeans proves to be a versatile IDE supporting multiple languages while providing robust code analyzers and converters. Its ability to serve as an integrated development environment for managing code projects and remote repositories has made it a reliable choice for developers.

Clients of software development organizations have also benefited from the use of NetBeans, with developers relying on it to program applications tailored to meet client needs. The rich user interface applications developed using NetBeans benefit from extensive language support and server-side programming capabilities. NetBeans has been particularly instrumental in enabling the development of applications that involve tasks such as rest service integration, data storage, and communication with third-party interfaces. Overall, users have found NetBeans to be

Effective Code Completion: Many users have found the code completion feature in NetBeans highly effective, saving them time and effort by automatically filling in the rest of the code. This feature has significantly improved their coding experience and made coding tasks more efficient.

Convenient Find Replace: Several reviewers appreciate the convenience of the Find Replace feature in NetBeans, which allows them to make changes in multiple files simultaneously across whole projects. This feature streamlines the process of updating and modifying code, making it easier to manage and maintain large projects.

Helpful Side-by-Side Code Comparison: Users have found the side-by-side code comparison feature in NetBeans helpful for updating similar pages and making necessary changes. This feature simplifies the task of maintaining consistency across multiple code files, improving their code management and making it easier to spot differences and make updates.

Slow response time: Some users have experienced slow response times when using NetBeans, causing frustration and delays in their work.

Lack of documentation: Several reviewers have mentioned that the software lacks comprehensive documentation, making it difficult for new users to learn and troubleshoot issues effectively.

Buggy behavior: Users have reported encountering various bugs and glitches while using NetBeans. These issues can disrupt their workflow and require extra effort to resolve.

The user recommendations for NetBeans are as follows:

  • Use the free version of NetBeans for programming and collaborative software development projects. This recommendation is given by multiple users.
  • Improve the GUI to make it more attractive and address issues with slow opening and updating. This suggestion is mentioned by several users.
  • Utilize NetBeans for Java programming, as it provides good control over real-time errors and code implementation. It is recommended for beginners in Java programming. Additionally, it can be considered for development in other languages such as JavaScript, PHP, and C/C++. This suggestion is made by multiple users.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-22 of 22)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I generally use netbeans to develop software and web applications . It is a best IDE for development work . For user interface development it also support drag and drop feature for user interface components . It helps in locally start a server and deploy our app on it and test the application.
  • Development features
  • Server creation and deployment
  • UI development tools
  • Unit testing features
  • Sometime reference resolution don't happen automatically
  • It does not take too much load...sometimes crashed when importing projects having too much dependencies and references
  • Face difficulties in installing extensions
It is good for frontend development projects but it is less suited for java development related projects . Because it does not support various extensions which are very helpful during development process . Other than that it is good to use , server integration is also easy in netbeans and user experience is also good .
Tharsanan Kurukulasingam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am using NetBeans since my university. I use this IDE for java related project development for smaller pet projects. For smaller projects using NetBeans is really easy so whenever I need to create some pet projects I use NetBeans. Unlike Eclipse and Intellij NetBeans is lightweight so spinning up the application and starting the development is really easy.
  • Wide range of plugins.
  • Easy to install and lightweight runtime.
  • Works well for smaller projects.
  • Can improve the UI.
  • I feel like netbeans is not up to the level for legacy application development.
  • Customization of the IDE can be improved.
NetBeans is well-sited for smaller application development. When I tried to use NetBeans for larger projects I felt like Eclipse was better than it and switched back to Eclipse, it could be a personal view though. In my view, NetBeans can definitely improve the UI can have custom themes and views.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's used to write Java code for our company and to maintain our Java-based source code apps. Mostly mobile apps for an android operating system, it makes it easy for us when integrating it with GitHub whenever we make software changes and commit our code for our CI/CD pipelines.
  • Source highlight
  • Git integration
  • Ease of installation
  • UI
  • Easy accessibility to add and compile two projects in same solution.
  • Resource management
It's best suited to maintain your Java applications, it's excellent to integrate with Android SDK, and makes it easy to collaborate and contribute code to your repos when you add git hub. It's easy to clone, commit push and see what others have contributed to the repo so you can pull and merge code.
Sirish Vadala | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NetBeans as the primary development tool for most of the Java projects. Being open source, it is highly cost effective and extremely simple to configure on a new workspace. It has got multiple plugins to integrate various tools and software into the development environment. All the Java based technologies are seamlessly integrated into the workshop making it simpler to develop and deploy.
  • Ability to maintain Project Groups to differentiate applications
  • Ease of adding and configuring external libraries
  • Ability to switch seamlessly between run, debug and profile mode
  • Inbuilt integration with Git, Mercurial and Subversion
  • Inability to add WebLogic server due to Licensing issues after Apache takeover. WebLogic plugin was available up until version 8.2. However, the plugin has been removed from version 9 due to a conflicting licensing issue.
  • Limited support for JavaScript projects, there is a huge scope for improvement in this area.
  • Packaging as .exe and .msi for desktop based applications (Swing and JavaFX) needs improvement.
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.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Most of the coding is done through Netbeans. Netbeans provides you with the set of tools which makes it easier to code. The intellisense feature of it allows coders to type in code and netbeans automatically shows you a list of functions from which you can select. Netbeans is a free and an open source software, which helps in collaborating with others.
  • Good for Collaboration
  • Open Source
  • Good for Debugging and Testing Code
  • Should have more add-ons on the latest technologies like Angular and ReactJS
  • The software occupies lots of space and works very slow on computers having i3 processor
  • Netbeans provide only one view unlike Eclipse
It's best suited for collaboration. It is suitable for developing and testing enterprise Java applications. It has good debugging and testing strategies. The only drawback is debugging is very slow in Netbeans in comparison to Eclipse. It doesn't contain only Java as the coding language. It contains support for various others but is limited to the latest web development technologies.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NetBeans is being used in our department to build Web applications based on JSP, JEE and Spring/Struts. It provides all the essential deployment tools to work with and produce applications very fast on the tomcat server. We have been working on various minor projects related to management services such as record management. Besides that, we are also trying maven projects to be deployed on online servers such as heliohost servers. NetBeans is being used by our department because it is free to use and is a very productive IDE.
  • Auto-completion of the code makes it easier to code well.
  • Running server based applications on NetBeans is very easy.
  • It takes a lot of time to start, maybe it is not that memory efficient.
NetBeans is a very good Integrated Development Environment, not only for Java based applications, but you can also develop C/C++ based applications in NetBeans. It is very easy to use and can be used by both expert professional programmers as well as someone who is a novice in the programming world. It is free to use and is openly available over the Internet.
zahit bogus | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use the NetBeans tool to make coding in PHP programming language. NetBeans makes it very easy for us to create an e-commerce site. The wide library and simple user interface are the reason why we prefer NetBeans. Also, since we are working on Business Analytics, I plan to do the coding process with Python via NetBeans.
  • Working synchronously with Github ensures that all team employees can access the project.
  • It can work on many platforms such as Windows and Linux. We can also run all libraries for the Linux environment
  • The strongest part of NetBeans is that it has Visual Web Pack feature. Adding drag and drop technology to its content, NetBeans Java is the ideal tool for compiling.
  • NetBeans creates the configuration file itself and it is difficult for us to be unable to change the configuration file on different operating systems.
  • When compiling code, compilation and execution performance is slower than competing IDEs.
In particular, you can manage project files with a useful directory and file window. It also allows your projects to access existing FTP servers and sub-version repositories. Thanks to these tools, it makes our life easier to carry out all your transactions from a single point. It is also possible to copy and paste your projects on another computer. You can synchronize with Eclipse projects and buy Eclipse projects with NetBeans.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetBeans is used by a portion of our IT application development and support staff. This open source IDE is a great option, especially for Java developers. Because it is a widely used solution, there are plugins available for most major frameworks. Because NetBeans is open source, we don't have to worry about licensing requirements or increased costs. This is especially helpful in the realm of higher education where budgets are often limited.
  • 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.
  • Instability - NetBeans will sometimes crash when used for long periods of time. While this is rare, it can be frustrating.
  • Memory usage - Large projects can consume a lot of memory when opened in the IDE.
  • Limited support - By default, NetBeans doesn't come with any professional support. Users should be comfortable reading documentation or consulting online communities for help.
If your organization works with developing or supporting Java applications and is focused on running efficiently with a lean budget, NetBeans would be a good choice to consider.

If your development staff uses other languages, or prefers a high level of available professional IDE support, it may be better to consider a paid option if your budget allows.
Jatin Gupta | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have been using NetBeans for around 5 years in our organization. The major purpose of its use is for students, as we make students learn Java using NetBeans. It is used by the computer science and engineering department of the university. It is very helpful in the development field and makes programming easy and user-friendly. It can be integrated with multiple tools like IoT selenium for testing and development. NetBeans addresses the major problem of coding in Java with test cases design.
  • NetBeans is very efficient in code development and Java web development.
  • NetBeans is a great tool to install as it is quite easy to use. Its integration is great with other tools.
  • NetBeans is very good for the creation of testing scripts for automation testing.
  • Options for code conversion in other source languages.
  • There are problems in code execution time and start time if they are high complexity and too heavy.
  • Import code option is very limited and debugger is less efficient.
It is very well suited for big databases and with algorithms the complexity involved is low. It is also very suitable for working with IoT devices and to control code and automation testing.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Net beans is an open source IDE that provides comprehensive facilities for programmers for software development. It consists of a source code editor, built-in automation tools. It allows developers to create multiple projects for mobile, web applications with support of multiple languages support like JAVA, PHP, HTML, CSS etc. It offers us a smart and fast way to develop a project and code. It provides robust code analyzers, converter, and editor. It is compatible with every operating system and can be installed very easily. It stores the history of codes so that you can check the last piece of code what you’ve written. Formatting and defining rules for each language. The best part is it is free of cost. The software is compatible with all operating platforms.
  • Supports multiple languages which help in coding for developers.
  • Support cross-platform like Mac, Ubuntu, Windows etc.
  • Rich set of community provided plugins.
  • Easy & efficient project management.
  • Bug free formatted code and much more.
  • Heavy software needs more RAM. It does tend to use a lot of your computer's resources if you're loading up a huge project and slow things down.
  • Problems with configuring plugins.
  • With every release of a new version, there are some bugs which create problems while coding.
NetBeans is well suited for developers as it consists of features which are used a lot of time while coding. Best features where it is suited are:
  • 1. Cross-platform support.
  • 2. Multiple Language support.
  • 3, Debugger.
  • 4. Product management.
  • 5. Code editor.
  • 6. Free of cost - open source IDE These features may or may not be found in any other software. NetBeans offers assistance to optimize memory usage and application speed.
January 23, 2019

NetBeans Review

Piyush Jain | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NetBeans is used for development purposes in our organization by the IT department. At first, we used a different IDE for software development like Sublime Editor and Eclipse but I made a decision to use Netbeans as it is fast and has many features which a developer needs no matter which technology he/she is working on.
  • Formatting and defining rules for each language is a very useful feature in this IDE.
  • The code can be deployed very easy from Netbeans itself.
  • It should provide more themes and background colors for the code window. Some dark themes are good but they slow down the system.
  • There have been a few bugs in the latest version of NetBeans. NetBean's developer should resolve those bugs.
NetBeans are well suited if it is used by the same type of developers like Java developers or the same language developers. If a team has an IOS developer or Android developer they have to use Xcode or Android Studio Editor.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I and my colleagues, as software developers, use NetBeans IDE for our development purposes. It is only used by our technical department as it's an IDE and used for small development to major projects. Our team relies on NetBeans for coding, indentation of code, Git commits, debugging issues, minifying code and everything.
  • We can indent code very easily, we can define rules for the indentation of code in every computer language and it will follow accordingly.
  • The checkpoints in the code really work well in case if we want to debug issues in our code.
  • History of our saved code is really one of the best feature of NetBeans. Sometimes due to power failure or any other glitches we have lost our saved code but history of code really helped our team.
  • Comparison of code across different files is also a good feature to know the exact difference between code of different developers.
  • 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.
It is best suited for if we are working with Git. We can push code to Git services directly from IDE. It can indent code differently based on language whether its Java, PHP, HTML, CSS or any other. It is less appropriate for front-end web developers as they just want normal text editors and all features of NetBeans are of no use to web developers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use NetBeans to write small Java applications that help me to fill in gaps in our CaaS vendor's reporting tools. What business problem does it address? It's an integrated development environment that I use to write code, manage code projects and remote repositories.
  • Integrating with GitHub is easy and painless
  • Code completion
  • Error detection and debugging
  • NetBeans for Java 9+ does not have an installer currently
  • I've only managed to automate half my job
It's great for anyone who coding in Java or other JVM languages. Visual Studio is better for .net languages and cpp.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used by my department involving a group of skilled programmers. This programming environment has several tools that help my organisation to develop software quickly, especially if we need to build a graphical interface quickly and without major complications. I basically work on NetBeans to develop enterprise web applications using Java Server Pages, Java Server Faces and Hibernate. NetBeans makes the work [become] handy and the code is easily understandable and readable.
  • NetBeans supports a large number of Java applications such as J2SE and EJB.
  • Easy to install
  • Free and open source
  • When you are developing your applications, you can detect errors very quickly.
  • Indicating edited code and files based on GIT commits
  • Outdated framework support.
  • Violating PSR-2 coding standards.
  • The issue with NetBeans is that it takes a lot of time to load and consumes a lot of memory.
  • Consumes more memory space as compared to other IDEs.
If you are a beginner, then NetBeans IDE is the best choice for you for development in Java, Javascript, PHP etc. It is a software that allows quick adaptation for new projects or people who do not know much about development. I fully recommend NetBeans IDE; with additional plugins installed it can be used for development with other programming languages.
September 01, 2018

Best open source IDE

Miguel Useche | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's being used as the main IDE for any Java, PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript development. We love their licensing and also many developers have a lot of experience with this application, so they don't need to learn new tools and start using their knowledge.

NetBeans lets developers code applications faster and it reduces errors by alerting them to any possible issue. This IDE includes a lot of tools that help developers to stay in a single app for their work instead of switching between apps during their workflow.
  • It supports multiple programming languages, so you can code frontend code and backend code in the same app. There's no need to switch to other apps or go to the console to execute things.
  • If you need to guarantee that your PHP application is OK and without any errors, NetBeans includes tools and support for external tools to do code quality reviews, interpreter errors, version compatibility, etc.
  • If you are doing multi-platform development, NetBeans can share its config between OSs so you can switch to another OS and do your job with the same configuration.
  • Main problem is its performance, JAVA IDEs are great but heavy and slow on older machines, and sometimes you'll feel like editing files is slow.
  • Netbean can include tools or develop plugins to add compatibility with multiple PHP frameworks and WordPress installation so you can develop better apps.
  • It should add better support for custom formatting so you can format your code with custom rules.
NetBeans is a great developer if you work with multiple parts of a web application, like if you need to create a view, then business logic code, connect to the database, check any API calls, etc. You can do all of these things in NetBeans, there's no need to install additional tools.

Also, I think it offers the best debugger tool. It supports PHP out of the box and you can find problems faster and simpler with these tools.

Their UI is simpler, easy to customize and intuitive.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use NetBeans for developing the majority of Java and J2EE applications for our organizations, and also to assist in programming different applications for organizations/clients we work for.

It mostly addresses rich User Interface applications that have abundant/involves language support and server side programming, like rest service, data storage, communicating with third party interfaces, and more..
  • Very good IDE for programming Java and J2EE applications
  • Good IDE for Java debugging and run test cases.
  • Good IDE for Hibernate, iBATIS framework, and web services.
  • I would say Netbeans needs to be improved in providing plugins for developing Android and iOS mobile applications
  • It would be better if Netbeans could be built in a lighter version.
As said earlier, NetBeans is very well suited for all kind of Java and J2EE application programming. Also this product has good integration and built-in plugins that support various framework like Spring, Hibernate, Struts, and more.

Less appropriate to be used for developing mobile applications that do not support plugins for both Android and iOS.
Carla Borges | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
NetBeans is being used by the entire organization that works in a software consultancy and we are all software developers. It helps us programmers since it is a very useful IDE and its compilation is in real time. Allows us to do many activities in a single application, such as unit tests with JUnit version control with CVS and integration with Ant, which is very useful and decreases the delivery time of the work. You can also add the add-in to provide more features. It is a lightweight platform for software components.
  • Excellent tool for programming and very useful to use has helped me reduce the delivery times of small projects.
  • It is a good IDE to program in Java and shows compilation errors during the programs.
  • Has utility for many add-ons to generate web services.
  • Its biggest con is the consumption of system resources because it does not work for old computers.
  • It is developed for people who are already professionals and not beginners because the learning curve is wide.
  • It lacks support for webapps.
  • But actually, I have nothing bad to say about NetBeans.
It runs smoothly. Those of us who work with the development of programs should have it on the PC. Excellent tool for programming and very useful to use has helped me reduce the delivery times of small projects. It is a good IDE to program in Java and shows compilation errors during the programs. In terms of what is not so appropriate is that as it progresses, new versions need more computer requirements - this makes the application fly slow when compiling large codes.
November 20, 2017

Why Use NetBeans for PHP?

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It saves a lot of time in development. First thing I like syntax checking which saves a lot of time of code inspection for finding errors. Also, it provides a lot of shortcuts to jump which we usually do while coding and most interesting thing is its auto detection of references in the code, it makes our understanding to code very fast and efficient. Few more things, you cannot ignore are Difference checker - very very accurate. It address our problems of code merging very efficiently Sub version support - it changes color of files in files menu or tab, that is useful in getting information of updated files visually. Plugins support for various frameworks. Searching in folders etc
  • Provide a way to go to definition of object or methods called in derived class or anywhere. It makes our understanding of code very easy.
  • Difference checker - extremely well and better than meld.
  • Auto Syntax checking
  • Searching should be fast.
  • Launch (boot) time of netbeans is slow.
  • Should inherit some features of sublime, like auto code completion and selection of text in column style.
  • It is larger in size with respect to other editors.
For Java, NetBeans best provides syntax checking, execution and difference checking, complete list of methods or functions etc. But it lacks in quick access to documentation to explore its features. Also, for HTML it is not well suited as doesn't provide preview. Also, you cannot use it for any language like we see in notepad plus plus. So, for python i will need to use different editor even I just want to see python code in proper coloring.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Each developer in our organization runs a local instance of Netbeans. We use it for the primary IDE for our PHP applications. It has many tools that help improve the ability of our developers to write good code and to access resources related to the projects they are working on. Each developer can customize many aspects of the software to suit their unique styles and likes.
  • PHP code suggestions
  • Maintain references between projects, classes, and functions
  • Many customizable key board shortcuts
  • Integrations with third party applications
We use it primary for development in half a dozen separate PHP applications. We have common projects that span all of the applications. Netbeans does a good job helping to keep track of all of the relationships and dependencies.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Netbeans as our primary IDE for developing our cloud-based software suite.
  • Great java IDE.
  • Supports many other languages and technologies through plugin framework.
  • Integration with SVN and GIT.
  • Integration with JEE servers.
  • Sometimes the IDE gets frozen after the monitor is turned off from being idle.
  • Doesn't handle different monitor resolutions well.
Great as a java IDE. Great development integration capabilities. Good as long as everyone on the team is using it. If you have a mix of IDE's that developers are using, it can create challenges.
March 07, 2017

Simple but effective

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's used for Java programming primarily by members of software development department. It's also used by some consultants for small tasks. It helps with the development of software and completing of tasks that require Java language to be used.
  • Maven integration, easy to create and open projects without external plugins.
  • Available plugins, they are easy to install and there are lot of plugins that improve usage.
  • Good UI, clean but has lot of information. Easy to get started with.
  • Gradle integration requires third party plugin.
  • Speed. Code completion could be faster. You often have to wait until the IDE comes up with suggestions.
  • Sometimes IDE has to be restarted until it removes "red underlines" from UI. It doesn't seem to always refresh properly after code has been corrected.
NetBeans is suited perfectly for all kinds of Java development. It comes integrated with lots of features that are required in professional software development so you can spend more time getting things done and less time configuring your IDE. It's also good for new developers due to a clean UI and ability to get started with new or existing projects quickly. Perhaps for other languages, other IDEs may suit better, but for Java development, NetBeans is always a reliable choice.
Andy Erickson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Netbeans as an individual for PHP MySQL code development to maintain scheduling and data entry systems. I have the program installed on my work laptop as well as my personal computers for private projects.
  • Great code completion, just start typing some code and the program will fill in the code.
  • Find/Replace is a key feature and works through whole projects as opposed to just a single file.
  • Side by side code comparison right in the interface allows me to update similar pages.
  • I appreciate the ease of using variable highlighting, with a wave of the mouse you can see visually where a given variable exists in your code.
  • Sometimes the code hints are a little intrusive and need to be 'turned off', I like my code to pass inspection but situations like 'too many nested blocks' prevent previously functioning code to pass new versions of the program hints.
  • If you have too many projects open, Netbeans takes quite a while to load. I need to go grab a cup of tea and come back. As a result, I jealously guard how many projects are open at a time.
  • Code completion and PHP platform function helps can occasionally be more of a curse than a blessing. Constant 'pop ups' of hints, suggestions make coding a bit aggravating, I do not actually turn it off, but am tempted.

I use Netbeans for full projects setting up a complete project by clicking 'add new project' and following the wizards. If I am just coding up a test page, it is less involved to use Notepad++. Netbeans has full database connectivity and I rarely use it, but it seems to work well when I do, I prefer a dedicated database program for that aspect of my work.

Running find and replace on an existing project is great, the interface allows you to include or exclude files and lines with checkboxes. I have tried other solutions and always come back to Netbeans for this feature.

I like the side by side file comparison and use it regularly, the only downside is that it is a one way transfer, left to right. Other programs like Winmerge allow updating either way.

I have previously used the in program browser, but find it to be a bit buggy after program updates, so I quit trying to use the browser and keep an instance of FireFox running to test the code. The same goes for the debugger, I use it occasionally and probably could try to use it more, mostly I use something like FireBug to debug the final code problems.

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