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Best open source IDE for Java
June 28, 2022

Best open source IDE for Java

Sirish Vadala | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with NetBeans

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.
  • Ability to organize different projects by creating project groups
  • Ease of creating server instances and domains from within the workspace
  • Ability to import projects created using other IDEs
  • Being an open sourced product, NetBeans is one of the best tools available in the marketplace with the best value of return on investment.
  • NetBeans doesn't have some of the features that other paid competitors provide, but it is still good enough and completely cost effective.
  • Project configuration duration with NetBeans is much less compared to other Eclipse based workshops, saving hours for development teams.
IBM Rational Application Developer and IntelliJ IDEA are great with hell lot of features packed into the product and are subscription based. However, most of the features they were providing were moot from my organization's business perspective and the cost was expensive. Eclipse is an opensource product with great features, but is difficult to configure and use as compared to NetBeans. One of the frustrating issues we faced with Eclipse was its slowness while saving a file.

http://https//stackoverflow.com/questions/40166270/eclipse-neon-pathetically-slow

Do you think NetBeans delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with NetBeans's feature set?

Yes

Did NetBeans live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of NetBeans go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy NetBeans again?

Yes

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.