Eclipse vs NetBeans

Eclipse vs NetBeans …On which side are you on? Let us know which IDE you think is better and why.

Think of Java IDEs and two names that will come up are Eclipse and NetBeans. I have been using NetBeans for many years now and Eclipse has been a more recent addition to my Java armory. I have enjoyed working with both tools and as such don’t have a clear favorite. I prefer NetBeans a little more than Eclipse as I have been using it longer and am more comfortable with it.

The thing I am most surprised about is how rapidly Eclipse has grown and how it has well and truly eclipsed NetBeans over the past year or so.

In the article: Migrating to Eclipse: A developer’s guide to evaluating Eclipse vs. Netbeans, the author shows the differences between the two IDEs.

Just Eclipse or Eclipse in its WSAD avatar or MyEclipseIDE avatar is definitely good but hey..is it so good that nobody wants to be talk of NetBeans these days??? I haven’t as yet tried out the new NetBeans 4 Beta 2 but I do hope it is very good. So that the competition between Eclipse and NetBeans stays fierce and there is no clear winner.

The end user gets two very good IDEs.

* Apr08 Update – Do have a look at this new comparison of JDeveloper, Eclipse and NetBeans

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258 thoughts on “Eclipse vs NetBeans

  • April 26, 2005 at 4:04 am
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    I use maven to build all my projects, and I think it is the best way to organize/build your java projects.

    the mevenide plugin, read/writes directly the maven POM. So no need to regenerate/synchronize the project files …

    the editor lacks in features, but the maven integration is a big plus for me.

  • April 26, 2005 at 4:04 am
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    I use maven to build all my projects, and I think it is the best way to organize/build your java projects.

    the mevenide plugin, read/writes directly the maven POM. So no need to regenerate/synchronize the project files …

    the editor lacks in features, but the maven integration is a big plus for me.

  • April 21, 2005 at 3:36 pm
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    Eclipse it’s grate thankts to it’s refactoring cool feature, but new versions of NetBeans include also this feature.
    So now they are more similar than ever. ?Which is better? 😕

    I think that both are great IDEs so i’m going to decide the company that i like more. :grin

  • April 21, 2005 at 3:36 pm
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    Eclipse it’s grate thankts to it’s refactoring cool feature, but new versions of NetBeans include also this feature.
    So now they are more similar than ever. ?Which is better? 😕

    I think that both are great IDEs so i’m going to decide the company that i like more. :grin

  • April 20, 2005 at 2:34 pm
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    I’ve been using IntelliJ for a few years now and lite it very much. However the last days I’ve spent on comparing Netbeans with Eclipse and I must say I’m impressed. They booth have come a long way. The advantage IntelliJ had a few years ago is definently gone.
    If you spend some time to get over the small threshold that Eclipse provides with a quite ugly site (Eclipse SDK???), it is actually really good. I must say, even better than IntelliJ. !!! Not bad for an open source, free IDE!

  • April 20, 2005 at 2:34 pm
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    I’ve been using IntelliJ for a few years now and lite it very much. However the last days I’ve spent on comparing Netbeans with Eclipse and I must say I’m impressed. They booth have come a long way. The advantage IntelliJ had a few years ago is definently gone.
    If you spend some time to get over the small threshold that Eclipse provides with a quite ugly site (Eclipse SDK???), it is actually really good. I must say, even better than IntelliJ. !!! Not bad for an open source, free IDE!

  • April 5, 2005 at 11:56 am
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    As far as I’m concerned, Borland JBuilder X, is the Best and easier one, esp. very faster for any kind of J2EE Application. If have any doubt mail to Mr. Bruce, Sinagpore.

  • April 5, 2005 at 11:56 am
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    As far as I’m concerned, Borland JBuilder X, is the Best and easier one, esp. very faster for any kind of J2EE Application. If have any doubt mail to Mr. Bruce, Sinagpore.

  • April 2, 2005 at 10:58 am
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    well, Eclipse has lot of plugin, not even on eclipse website,but Also by other websites. I am using its plugins for EJB, GUI components,UML etc. It has a lot of flexibilty. Say, give a package name in a class, and it will ask you create a package , a very small example.

    Hey have anyone tried JDeveloper by Oracle. It also has good support-cum-wizards of J2EE development. It lack on some aspects like debugging, which is not much effective.
    What do you say?

  • April 2, 2005 at 10:58 am
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    well, Eclipse has lot of plugin, not even on eclipse website,but Also by other websites. I am using its plugins for EJB, GUI components,UML etc. It has a lot of flexibilty. Say, give a package name in a class, and it will ask you create a package , a very small example.

    Hey have anyone tried JDeveloper by Oracle. It also has good support-cum-wizards of J2EE development. It lack on some aspects like debugging, which is not much effective.
    What do you say?

  • March 19, 2005 at 12:59 pm
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    I’m a rather beginner, awaking from a several year sleep… but I used Java and some IDE for it once…
    Everybody scream – ECLIPSE!!!! – ok, open the page (http://www.eclipse.org/) and see – there is NOTHING to use there! Flood and shit, nothing worthful. Get me an idea HOW i dhoud understand what i need there to start? Eclipse SDK?
    They say on the homepage thay are NOT FOR JAVA!!! :upset :upset :upset
    Ehere this mad world is going? :eek

    NetBeans at least don’t fool a beginner. 🙁

  • March 19, 2005 at 12:59 pm
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    I’m a rather beginner, awaking from a several year sleep… but I used Java and some IDE for it once…
    Everybody scream – ECLIPSE!!!! – ok, open the page (http://www.eclipse.org/) and see – there is NOTHING to use there! Flood and shit, nothing worthful. Get me an idea HOW i dhoud understand what i need there to start? Eclipse SDK?
    They say on the homepage thay are NOT FOR JAVA!!! :upset :upset :upset
    Ehere this mad world is going? :eek

    NetBeans at least don’t fool a beginner. 🙁

  • March 19, 2005 at 2:34 am
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    I am surprised not everyone is complaining about the sheer sluggishness of Netbeans.

    Start up takes a minute or so on my (1.7 Gig Pentium) laptop. The autocompletion pop-up list is so slow its almost unuable.

    In my opinion, unless something is done about its speed, Netbeans cannot be taken seriously. Which is a pity considering all the great features it has.

  • March 19, 2005 at 2:34 am
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    I am surprised not everyone is complaining about the sheer sluggishness of Netbeans.

    Start up takes a minute or so on my (1.7 Gig Pentium) laptop. The autocompletion pop-up list is so slow its almost unuable.

    In my opinion, unless something is done about its speed, Netbeans cannot be taken seriously. Which is a pity considering all the great features it has.

  • January 15, 2005 at 1:51 pm
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    I almost test to use all the IDE’s. I used Eclipse because it is open source and there?s a lot of plug-in available for free. But if you want to increase your productivity with eclipse you need a good and documented plug-ins and that is expensive and it is not easy to trust. Unlike JBuilder 2005 almost all that you need is in the package and it is easy to use, it is good to use when you?re developing J2SE, J2EE and specially J2ME.

  • January 15, 2005 at 1:51 pm
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    I almost test to use all the IDE’s. I used Eclipse because it is open source and there?s a lot of plug-in available for free. But if you want to increase your productivity with eclipse you need a good and documented plug-ins and that is expensive and it is not easy to trust. Unlike JBuilder 2005 almost all that you need is in the package and it is easy to use, it is good to use when you?re developing J2SE, J2EE and specially J2ME.

  • January 13, 2005 at 7:42 pm
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    Eclipse Rocks… buttttttt why on earth are they sooo slow in giving us the damn J2EE support… the subprojects for j2ee are soooo slow in development. :sigh :zzz :upset

  • January 13, 2005 at 7:42 pm
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    Eclipse Rocks… buttttttt why on earth are they sooo slow in giving us the damn J2EE support… the subprojects for j2ee are soooo slow in development. :sigh :zzz :upset

  • December 16, 2004 at 10:32 am
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    I’ve used Pramati Studio 3.0 for most of the time and felt it was very cool, especially if you’re developing J2EE applications. It has some cool wizards to create EJBs. I then migrated to Intelli J which increased my productivity many fold, then used Eclipse but didn’t like it much. Currently playing around with NetBeans and i like the UI. Not sure if it has any J2EE support like Pramati Studio.

  • December 16, 2004 at 10:32 am
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    I’ve used Pramati Studio 3.0 for most of the time and felt it was very cool, especially if you’re developing J2EE applications. It has some cool wizards to create EJBs. I then migrated to Intelli J which increased my productivity many fold, then used Eclipse but didn’t like it much. Currently playing around with NetBeans and i like the UI. Not sure if it has any J2EE support like Pramati Studio.

  • December 2, 2004 at 6:44 pm
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    In Netbeans, I can create a highly functional web app (.war file) out of the box and with no fuss at all. I keep looking at new versions of Eclipse, but have never found anything to compare to Netbeans.

  • December 2, 2004 at 6:44 pm
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    In Netbeans, I can create a highly functional web app (.war file) out of the box and with no fuss at all. I keep looking at new versions of Eclipse, but have never found anything to compare to Netbeans.

  • November 19, 2004 at 3:14 am
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    I have migrated from Emacs to JBuilder to JDeveloper to Eclipse and now finally to IntelliJ and i have never felt more comfortable.

    Netbeans is looking good with 4b2

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