TnTonly Official Homepage

What do you think is better? NetBeans with a great IDE with integrated GUI Builder, or Eclipse with a lot of plugins out there and a huge community? Which one do you use? Which is good for Java study and which is good for rapid Java development?

I consider NetBeans is better, just because I can’t see anything Eclipse that’s a lot better than NetBeans. But seem to be the Java developer community don’t think so.

Vang Anh says

I’ve found this one, hopw that they will help.
- 1 document from netbeans (of course netbean will get higher mark)
- 1 article from IBM, however, only eclipse 3.0 & netbeans 3.6 are touch. The recent version of them are netbeans 6.1 & eclipse 3.4

In my opinion, I did tried Eclipse only a time before, when the knowledge about java is very very poor. And I did not satisfy while using it. Then I’ve changed to Netbeans until now. There are some reasons make me feel comfortable when using Netbeans:
1. First download:
- http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
- http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.1/final/
Take a look at both of them, Eclipse lists the one you wish to download in terms of what you are intend to use: C++, Java only, J2EE, and whaterver. Netbeans lists the releases in type of table with characteristics that you can find in each version. It makes the comparison to what you need than others. It’s easily to choose the suitable download version.
2. Documentation & help support:
- Eclipse, the supports are articles, and I can also see many languages for that. So nice!
- Netbeans, just jump to the Docs & Support tab in the menu, all are arranged follow by structures. And it makes Netbeans easy coming to newcomer-developers.
3. Only Java language:
- Eclipse, only things that related to java
- How is your interest with PHP? you can code PHP using Netbeans from version 6. I’m also coding PHP using Netbeans and this is what I looked for while working with PHP. Cheer!!!
4. Sponsor:
- Eclipse is a foundation
- Netbeans is Sun sponsored Open source project
(when talking about learning java, even only langue itseft or java framework, the first website is java.sun.com, why!!!)

I attach the files that I’ve found and URLs to article. Try it by yourself and choose the best which make you satisfy.
Hope that helps!
- http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-ecnbeans/
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=cfc3779fe166807e2c72ece7a2ba4575&t=901686&page=2
- http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:n0B9vY7vh2QJ:edu.netbeans.org/contrib/slides/netbeans-platform/nb-vs-eclipse.pdf+workbench+netbeans+-+eclipse&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=sg&client=firefox-a <– this is the URL to the PDF file, but better to read the file attached.

Takaj says

In my opinion, Netbeans is the best choice for lazy-type developer like us. Netbeans start with an all-in-one IDE, editor, debugger, visual GUI design, blah blah and blah blah. That’s the reason why I said that Netbeans is even better than Visual Studio. Eclipse try to build a generic IDE, then you can customize the IDE to fit your need. Thus, there are a lot of Eclipse-based IDE are well known (Aptana: an IDE for web application builder, Carbide, a C++ IDE for Symbian…), but I think the IDE for Java itself is suck ^^

Comparison between Netbeans and Eclipse
Setup IDE:

* Netbeans: damn easy, click next, next, next … until you can start coding.
* Eclipse: damn easy also. Click next, next, next, open file, copy, paste, search google, next, back back, @__@ and keep repeat until it might work.

Coding:

* Netbeans: Amazing hot keys & coding aid functions.
* Eclipse: I don’t care lah, since I cannot setup the IDE myself T_T

GUI:

* Netbeans: Now I feel it’s ok, but the first time I take a look at Netbeans, it’s suck!
* Eclipse: So nice!!! (eh, as a beautiful huh? brainless )

Visual GUI designer:

* Netbeans: Amazing: design GUI for Desktop app, mobile form, form sequence & flowchart, UML diagrams, etc.
* Eclipse: May be can, I don’t know. But have to setup yourself with many pains in ass T_T

Debugger:

* Netbeans: Of course
* Eclipse: Of course, but I don’t know we have to setup or not!!!

Code coverage, unit test, subversion, blah:

* Netbeans: Embedded
* Eclipse: Do it yourself lah, you are so lazy.

he he he, what I meant is: Just use Netbeans and kick Eclipse out of your mind. Netbeans is damn good and everything come out with a single click. The community of Java itself is quite big (there are a lot of them are using vim, gedit or notepad++ to code Java. So don’t worry about what’s the IDE they are using!). I think the eclipse community & Netbeans community itself is not a big problem since nearly all of them joined Java community without caring about: ‘what the hell IDE the others are using ?’ . You can use both if you need, since 2 of them are pure free
Nevertheless, I’ve been using Netbeans around 3 years, and I totally satified with it. Just my two cents.

NetBeans won the war

Popularity: 4% [?]