NetBeans
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 19 of 33 IDEs by recommenders
Free, long-running Java IDE people recommend for its familiar layout and practical tools for everyday and hobby coding; critics often prefer Eclipse.
Free, long-running Java IDE people recommend for its familiar layout and practical tools for everyday and hobby coding; critics often prefer Eclipse.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 76%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Feels familiar and natural to use
“first switched to netbeans which I already liked more”
Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code” “Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me.”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “VS Code deactivates IntelliCode in favor of the paid Copilot” Good Java tools and editor
“Java had some great tools and IDEs (NetBeans, Eclipse)”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3” “my favourite Java editor for hobby coding at home”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “JetBrains cancels Fleet” Capable, practical tools for work
“Thing that IntelliJ and even NetBeans have going for them is that they seem like tools for getting work done.”
Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code” “something that Eclipse and Netbeans have been capable of for the last 20 years”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “JetBrains cancels Fleet”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Often rated below Eclipse
“I went through most IDEs, including the infamous NetBeans and Eclipse”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “No More JetBrains Products for Me” “Eclipse was a better experience for me than Netbeans”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding”
Other IDEs people recommend
The four most recommended other IDEs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBrains IDEs | 233 | 143 | 62% | 13 | 10 yrs39 owners | — |
| IntelliJ IDEA | 206 | 105 | 66% | 13 | 10 yrs18 owners | — |
| Microsoft Visual Studio | 165 | 165 | 50% | 12 | 10 yrs10 owners | — |
| Delphi | 126 | 44 | 74% | 13 | 23 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| NetBeansThis page | 13 | 4 | 76% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
16 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“good enough for most workflows”
“Netbeans uses a traditional "compile and run" button”
“I also bothered to learn the standard keybindings of the most popular IDEs of my kind of work (intellij, eclipse, netbeans, vs code).”
“Java had some great tools and IDEs (NetBeans, Eclipse)”
“I went through most IDEs, including the infamous NetBeans and Eclipse”
“Netbeans had a very nice one”
“runs an IDE headless (Eclipse, Netbeans, VS services,...)”
“I use NetBeans, so I have a project view of packages and classes”
“such an old project does not do the basics of having a screenshot front and center in the readme OR the website”
“Eclipse was a better experience for me than Netbeans”
“Thing that IntelliJ and even NetBeans have going for them is that they seem like tools for getting work done.”
“first switched to netbeans which I already liked more”
“I went through some IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans)”
“Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me.”
“something that Eclipse and Netbeans have been capable of for the last 20 years”
“my favourite Java editor for hobby coding at home”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.