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I remember briefly using NetBeans in my high school programming class. Anyone still use it? Is it a good alternative to corporate-backed IDEs?

nobleach 2y ago
It definitely feels like JetBrains won this battle. I used NetBeans for Rails development of all things (JRuby).
- cr125rider 2y ago
  For Java? VSCode is killing it in interpreted languages like JS and Python
sebazzz 2y ago
Still using a old version of NetBeans to develop a Java EE 7 application. I would switch to IntelliJ if possible, but honestly, unlike .NET - Java IDE and the toolchain are so much tied together (it is not just a bunch of MSBuild) files, chaining the IDE for a project that old and on life support anyway is a journey not worth it.
- jcon321 2y ago
  I've brought my company's JavaEE 7 web application through NetBeans' upgrade life cycle, starting at NetBeans 8 I think. 10 or so years ago. NetBeans was great, when I first started, around version 8 or 9 - almost every "EE" feature worked. The years during transition to Jakarta were rough, most EE features lost. However during this time I've learned a lot more about java as IDE "magic" was mostly gone. (Converting ant to gradle, better understanding of dependency management, jaxws wsdl generation, better understanding of the deployment and application container, probably more...) I'll probably upgrade to 25 soon. Now-a-days there's never any problems when I upgrade, I guess because I'm no longer reliant on any IDE feature. At this point NetBeans is just a text editor with remote debugging capability. I enjoy it.
blain 2y ago
I still use it occasionally, it was one of my first IDE in first job programming in PHP and was working well. It is free and it had code formatting and built-in language server back in the day where it wasn't a common thing. It has some issues like chugging memory or language server bugging out in large projects but overall a great IDE and I'm glad its still maintained.
alzoid 2y ago
It was my go to back when I was doing Java Desktop / Servelets / Java EE. I found it easier to use than Eclipse, which most people I knew were using. I recently did a Google AppEngine project to collect and display weather data and used Netbeans for dev and Spring for the framework. It still works well, integrates with the package managers and build tools easily enough. Before Netbeans I was using Textpad with shortcuts mapped to javac. What I liked about Netbeans at that time (2005ish) was that you could press the Run button and your application just ran, weather it was a desktop app or a servelet web app. It reminded me of Visual Studio and the VB6 IDEs.
pjmlp 2y ago
Me, in what concerns Java based projects, Eclipse at work, Netbeans at home. Still the best one integrating UI designers for Swing, two way editing for Web projects, profiler, and best of all JNI support in the box (InteliJ wants to sell you two IDE licenses for this one). And best of all, Maven and Ant build files just work as IDE projects, no additional configuration.
szquadri 2y ago
I use NetBeans extensively. It is a fully open-source, batteries-included IDE with excellent Maven project support right out of the box. The FlatLafDark theme is also good. It can be used as a JDBC/database desktop client, allowing you to browse your database and execute SQL from within the IDE. Additionally, it provides a Java LSP Server, which you can use with VSCode if you want to (I haven't tried it yet).

nobleach 2y ago

It definitely feels like JetBrains won this battle. I used NetBeans for Rails development of all things (JRuby).

cr125rider 2y ago
For Java? VSCode is killing it in interpreted languages like JS and Python

sebazzz 2y ago

Still using a old version of NetBeans to develop a Java EE 7 application. I would switch to IntelliJ if possible, but honestly, unlike .NET - Java IDE and the toolchain are so much tied together (it is not just a bunch of MSBuild) files, chaining the IDE for a project that old and on life support anyway is a journey not worth it.

jcon321 2y ago
I've brought my company's JavaEE 7 web application through NetBeans' upgrade life cycle, starting at NetBeans 8 I think. 10 or so years ago. NetBeans was great, when I first started, around version 8 or 9 - almost every "EE" feature worked. The years during transition to Jakarta were rough, most EE features lost. However during this time I've learned a lot more about java as IDE "magic" was mostly gone. (Converting ant to gradle, better understanding of dependency management, jaxws wsdl generation, better understanding of the deployment and application container, probably more...) I'll probably upgrade to 25 soon. Now-a-days there's never any problems when I upgrade, I guess because I'm no longer reliant on any IDE feature. At this point NetBeans is just a text editor with remote debugging capability. I enjoy it.

blain 2y ago

I still use it occasionally, it was one of my first IDE in first job programming in PHP and was working well. It is free and it had code formatting and built-in language server back in the day where it wasn't a common thing. It has some issues like chugging memory or language server bugging out in large projects but overall a great IDE and I'm glad its still maintained.

alzoid 2y ago

It was my go to back when I was doing Java Desktop / Servelets / Java EE. I found it easier to use than Eclipse, which most people I knew were using. I recently did a Google AppEngine project to collect and display weather data and used Netbeans for dev and Spring for the framework. It still works well, integrates with the package managers and build tools easily enough. Before Netbeans I was using Textpad with shortcuts mapped to javac. What I liked about Netbeans at that time (2005ish) was that you could press the Run button and your application just ran, weather it was a desktop app or a servelet web app. It reminded me of Visual Studio and the VB6 IDEs.

pjmlp 2y ago

Me, in what concerns Java based projects, Eclipse at work, Netbeans at home. Still the best one integrating UI designers for Swing, two way editing for Web projects, profiler, and best of all JNI support in the box (InteliJ wants to sell you two IDE licenses for this one). And best of all, Maven and Ant build files just work as IDE projects, no additional configuration.

szquadri 2y ago

I use NetBeans extensively. It is a fully open-source, batteries-included IDE with excellent Maven project support right out of the box. The FlatLafDark theme is also good. It can be used as a JDBC/database desktop client, allowing you to browse your database and execute SQL from within the IDE. Additionally, it provides a Java LSP Server, which you can use with VSCode if you want to (I haven't tried it yet).