IntelliJ IDEA vs. NetBeans

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IntelliJ IDEA
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE that aims to give Java and Kotlin developers everything they need out of the box, including a smart code editor, built-in developer tools, framework support, database support, web development support, and much more.
$19.90
per month
NetBeans
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
NetBeans is a free and open source platform and integrated development environment (IDE).N/A
Pricing
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
Editions & Modules
For Individual Use (Monthly billing)
$19.90
per month
For Organizations (Monthly billing)
$71.90
per month
For Individual Use (Yearly billing)
$199
per year
For Organizations (Yearly billing)
$719
per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll Products Pack (For Individual Use) – $299 /1st year, $ 239 /2nd year and $ 179 /3d year onwards All Products Pack (For Organizations) – $979 / year
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
TrustRadius Insights
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

IntellliJ IDEA, from JetBrains and Apache NetBeans are IDEs, both of which primarily support Java development. NetBeans is an open source option supported by its community, with a large number of community-built plugins available to support specific use cases. IntelliJ IDEA is also available for free via the Community Edition, but the paid Ultimate edition provides advanced features, and users are supported directly by the developer. Both IDEs are used across companies of all sizes, with IntelliJ IDEA being more widely adopted overall. The IntelliJ ID paid edition is far more popular across larger enterprises willing to bear the cost to enjoy official support, along with its advanced features.

Features

Both IntelliJ IDEA and NetBeans are well regarded and actively used IDEs, however each option presents some distinct advantages.

IntelliJ IDEA is praised for its themes, particularly its dark theme; it is described by users as being pleasant on the eyes, and thus far easier to work with and ergonomic relative to other options. It is generally strong in every other area important to choosing an IDE as well: its plugin library is extensive, it integrates capably with any tool that a developer is likely to use in tandem with it, and offers direct database connectivity. Finally, its code completion feature, IntelliSense, helps developers code better, and is reliable for generating basic code.

Compared to IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans is similarly praised for its ease of use and strong integration with version control options (e.g. Git). It also boasts code complete options with in-built defactoring and debugging that work. Notably, it works for Java but is not as Java-focused as IntelliJ IDEA.  NetBeans also supports C/C++ and PHP development. Lastly, NetBeans includes the Visual Web Pack, which supports rapid development with drag-and-drop binding to data sources, and is well-regarded.

Limitations

NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA present users with some limitations to consider.

IntelliJ IDEA is primarily Java-focused, and also is described by users as a resource hog, consuming high CPU and loads of memory while running. Additionally, its installation files are larger than other IDEs, leading to a tedious startup process, and upgrades that take a fair amount of time to complete. Because the Ultimate edition presents a cost, it can give the solo-dev pause when there are many free options available.

NetBeans also presents resource usage issues, however these reports are primarily about performance in the course of working with large projects, with some speculating that the IDE is not terribly memory efficient. The IDE can be slow to open, and unstable when handling large projects. Additionally, the downside to being free and open source is that users do not receive individual-level white glove support. Support is available at the community level only.

Pricing

Apache NetBeans is available free, and is extensible with free plugins as well. IntelliJ IDEA’s Community Edition is free, but the more desirable IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate JVM IDE is available for $499 the first year, $399 the second, and $299 each subsequent year per user. For $649 per user IntelliJ IDEA is available in JetBrains’ “All Products Pack,” which bundles the Java IDE with a suite of related developer tools and IDEs (CLion, PyCharm). The second year cost for the bundle is $519, and the cost for each subsequent year is $389 per user.

Best Alternatives
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
Small Businesses
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IntelliJ IDEANetBeans
Likelihood to Recommend
IntelliJ IDEA is very well suited for developers working on Java, Javascript, and related technologies. It is the best IDE I've found so far for software development in Java. IntelliJ IDEA is specifically well suited for web software development using Java as it provides default configurations for web frameworks like Spring and Spring Boot. For other use cases, I feel it is more than good enough.
Read full review
If your organization works with developing or supporting Java applications and is focused on running efficiently with a lean budget, NetBeans would be a good choice to consider.
If your development staff uses other languages, or prefers a high level of available professional IDE support, it may be better to consider a paid option if your budget allows.
Read full review
Pros
  • Compared to Eclipse, basically it is a easier to learn which results in faster learning curve. Good for small or mid-sized projects. Generally speaking developers can be productive in a short training and use.
  • Very rich plug-in capability, such as out of the box support for version control systems.
  • User friendly interface. Responsive and interactive than other IDE tools.
Read full review
  • Great code completion, just start typing some code and the program will fill in the code.
  • Find/Replace is a key feature and works through whole projects as opposed to just a single file.
  • Side by side code comparison right in the interface allows me to update similar pages.
  • I appreciate the ease of using variable highlighting, with a wave of the mouse you can see visually where a given variable exists in your code.
Read full review
Cons
  • IntelliJ IDEA wins as long as the language is Java. Outside that , e.g., in other languages, it is not so advanced.
  • It is licensed, with a steep licensing cost. All features are not included in the free edition.
  • It is not as light as Eclipse, so in a weak system, it can be a pain.
Read full review
  • Heavy software needs more RAM. It does tend to use a lot of your computer's resources if you're loading up a huge project and slow things down.
  • Problems with configuring plugins.
  • With every release of a new version, there are some bugs which create problems while coding.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
VS Code is maturing and has a Scala plugin now. The overall experience with VS Code - for web development at least - is very snappy/fast. IntelliJ feels a bit sluggish in comparison. If that Scala plugin for VS Code is deemed mature enough - we may not bother renewing and resort to the Community Edition if we need it.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
There is always room for improvement, but I haven't met any IDE that I liked more so far. Even if it did not fit a use case right out of the box, there is always a way to configure how it works to do just that.
Read full review
Netbeans enhances my coding work, shows me where I have errors and helps find variable instances. I would be lost without find/replace in projects functionality as I use projects as templates for new projects. Occasionally the code hints aggravate me, but I understand that it is actually making me a better coder, working to get the 'green light' of a clean file with no errors or clumsy code.
Read full review
Support Rating
Customer support is really good in the case of IntelliJ. If you are paying for this product then, the company makes sure that you will get all the services adequately. Regular update patches are provided to improve the IDE. An online bug report makes it easier for the developers to find the solution as fast as possible. The large online community also helps to find the various solutions to the issues.
Read full review
NetBeans has a very strong user community. We can find solutions here for almost all the problems we face. In addition, we can forward NetBeans Support teams the problems we cannot solve. We can get quick feedback from the support teams, but I generally try to solve my problems by following the forums.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
This installs just like any other application - its pretty straight forward. Perhaps licensing could be more challenging - but if you use the cloud licensing they offer its as simple as having engineers login to the application and it just works.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
In summary, IntelliJ is more polished and feature-rich out of the box, especially for Java development. Eclipse is extensible but can be rougher around the edges. IntelliJ costs money for advanced features, while Eclipse is free. IntelliJ offers many developers a better experience, but Eclipse remains a viable open-source alternative.
Read full review
IBM Rational Application Developer and IntelliJ IDEA are great with hell lot of features packed into the product and are subscription based. However, most of the features they were providing were moot from my organization's business perspective and the cost was expensive. Eclipse is an opensource product with great features, but is difficult to configure and use as compared to NetBeans. One of the frustrating issues we faced with Eclipse was its slowness while saving a file. http://https//stackoverflow.com/questions/40166270/eclipse-neon-pathetically-slow
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Boosts productivity: IntelliJ IDEA is efficient to operate, and with its shortcuts and customization, the possibilities to improve your productivity are endless.
  • Clean code: IntelliJ IDEA will catch or syntax errors, or even suggest a way something could be written better, or call our your duplicated code or unused imports.
  • An easy learning curve for new guys: It's much easier to use than some of the competition, so it helps the new guys hit the ground running by being easy to operate and understand.
Read full review
  • It changed my way of coding. In my early days of development I never indented code, but with NetBeans my coding way has changed.
  • One IDE for all languages. I can write code in PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in only one editor or IDE.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IntelliJ IDEA Screenshots

Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA interface overview: the Project tool window (left) outlines the code structure and the Editor (right) is used to read, write, and explore the source code.Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA analyzing the context. It then suggests the most applicable and relevant code.Screenshot of the Search Everywhere window, where users can search for files, actions, classes, symbols, settings, UI elements, and anything in Git, all from a single entry point.Screenshot of inspections to help find probable bugs and dead code, detect performance issues, and improve the overall code structure by providing quick-fixes for any code that contains potential concerns.Screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA's support for frameworks with dedicated assistance for Jakarta EE, JPA, Reactor, Spring and Spring Boot, and other popular frameworks.Screenshot of the AI Assistant that provides features for software development. It can explain code, answer questions about code fragments, provide code suggestions, generate documentation, and commit messages.