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

  • July 30, 2011 at 3:02 pm
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    Hi i am new to java programming these days……..
    I have to use IDE for java programming
    But what to prefer
    Eclipse OR NetBeans

    with regards,
    sanket sarode
    email: [email protected]

  • May 11, 2011 at 11:51 pm
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    I’m a big NetBeans geek, and ever since 6.* it’s easily been my IDE of choice. I prefer programming in Java when I have my druthers, and the GUI builder makes it a breeze to make graphical Java applications (I can’t stress how useful the GUI builder is). NetBeans is easier to learn and very simple to create a new project in, either from existing sources or from scratch. On other IDE’s I might need an hour to figure out how to get “Hello World” to compile if I haven’t run it in a while. NetBeans is set up to work with multiple programming languages, and the learning curve is shallow, so I can do just about anything I need to (except for Perl or Matlab, which probably should be avoided anyway). Oh, and SVN support built in is pretty sweet, too (though I seem to have trouble getting my Windows Vista machine to connect to anything with remote ssh, I don’t think that’s a NetBeans issue).
    I realize it’s not as modular as Eclipse, but I have not yet run into the problem that I can’t solve with it. Eclipse is more popular so I expect more people to sing its praises just because they have more experience with it and know how to do the snazzy things with it that NetBeans hasn’t caught up to yet. But NetBeans is continuing to grow rapidly, and I expect it will bridge the gap when 7 comes around. 🙂

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