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Netbeans > Eclipse

prime21 20th Nov 2008

Eclipse is a great IDE, and has dominated the Java development scene for years. However, last few releases of Netbeans have been REALLY impressive. I now use Netbeans full time and have completely switched away from Eclipse.

Netbeans has a simpler user interface (in my opinion) and better plugin integration. Maven integrates seamlessly, web development is a pleasure, the GUI builder is the best I've ever used for any language in my life (better than VB, Powerbuilder, etc). Also, Netbeans supports JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, and Python. Eclipse has decent plugins for these languages too, but Netbeans has done a better job. Doing JavaScript and Python development within Netbeans has been great.

Can Sun continue to spend money on the development of Netbeans? I don't know. But considering the number of partners that help build Netbeans, someone else will pick up the torch and run with it if Sun fails to keep up.

If you use Eclipse and haven't used a recent release of Netbeans, I'd strongly recommend that you download this latest version and give it a try. It's really impressive.

-Bryan