{"slug": "netbeans", "name": "NetBeans", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 3.614, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-18", "latest": "2026-07-23", "why": "Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://netbeans.apache.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["NetBeans"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 767363280, "item_id": 47960205, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47960205", "by": "znpy", "date": "2026-04-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Netbeans had a very nice one", "excerpt": "Keep in mind, we don't do a lot of things that big IDES used to do. Dumb example: graphical user interfaces. Heavyweight IDEs used to have a GUI designer (Netbeans had a very nice one). GUI development is niche nowadays. Also we have much better cross-editor tooling, just think of language servers (https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/) and build servers (https://build-server-protocol.github.io/). Bac", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI designer", "switched_from": "", "story": "\"People who don't use AI will be left behind\""}, {"id": 747442769, "item_id": 46715173, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46715173", "by": "Semaphor", "date": "2026-01-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "switched to netbeans which I already liked more", "excerpt": "I used eclipse in university around that time (2005), then first switched to netbeans which I already liked more, then discovered IntelliJ and have been using that ever since. Everything about Eclipse felt worse in ways neither of the others did, but all of that was still during university (though I now use JetBrains professionally).", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "Eclipse", "story": "Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code"}, {"id": 741092274, "item_id": 46318267, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318267", "by": "monegator", "date": "2025-12-18", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me.", "excerpt": "Not ones from Jetbrains. I've use eclipse many times in the past, and hated every second of it. Stupid defaults, very stupid defaults. I also don't like visual studio, the way it forces me to work with \"solutions\", like i can't have two different projects open at the same time. Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me. And MPLABX is of course the one i use most of the time (like 60%, then 10% VSCode and 20", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "VS Code deactivates IntelliCode in favor of the paid Copilot"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["java development", "gui designer"], "compared": [{"slug": "eclipse", "name": "Eclipse", "co": 6, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "intellij-idea", "name": "IntelliJ IDEA", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "gnu-emacs", "name": "GNU Emacs", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "vim", "name": "Vim", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48990219", "title": "Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48967256", "title": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47953011", "title": "\"People who don't use AI will be left behind\"", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47258885", "title": "Smalltalk's Browser: Unbeatable, yet Not Enough", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46713526", "title": "Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46499674", "title": "I program without syntax highlighting", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 784365458, "item_id": 49022841, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49022841", "by": "hocuspocus", "date": "2026-07-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "headless Eclipse JDT or NetBeans", "excerpt": "Java LSPs are essentially the same approach, headless Eclipse JDT or NetBeans. While Metals for Scala was an overhaul from the former Eclipse plugin (and Ensime) plus early experiments embedded in the Scala 3 compiler. And Metals v2 is yet another rewrite. Metals is architectured in a completely different way, see the BSP: https://build-server-protocol.github.io", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Escape IntelliJ: Scala and Kotlin LSPs on Emacs Eglot"}, {"id": 783636226, "item_id": 48977264, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977264", "by": "badsectoracula", "date": "2026-07-20", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Java had some great tools and IDEs (NetBeans, Eclipse)", "excerpt": "Even at the time Java had some great tools and IDEs (NetBeans, Eclipse) and both computers and the JVM were fast enough for any performance issues compared to fine tuned C++ to not matter much, especially for a game like Minecraft that didn't (at the time anyway) push the CPU much. Java allowed Minecraft to run pretty much everywhere, including as an applet (very important in its early time) and it relied (and still ", "context": "", "use_case": "Java development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Minecraft: Java Edition now uses SDL3"}, {"id": 767363280, "item_id": 47960205, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47960205", "by": "znpy", "date": "2026-04-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Netbeans had a very nice one", "excerpt": "Keep in mind, we don't do a lot of things that big IDES used to do. Dumb example: graphical user interfaces. Heavyweight IDEs used to have a GUI designer (Netbeans had a very nice one). GUI development is niche nowadays. Also we have much better cross-editor tooling, just think of language servers (https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/) and build servers (https://build-server-protocol.github.io/). Bac", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI designer", "switched_from": "", "story": "\"People who don't use AI will be left behind\""}, {"id": 756222976, "item_id": 47263936, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263936", "by": "whartung", "date": "2026-03-05", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use NetBeans, so I have a project view of packages and classes", "excerpt": "Whenever I tried dabbling in Smalltalk, I would feel constrained by the system in terms of raw real estate. I never cared to view the system through the narrow slit of the method code editor. I would suffer the explosion of windows. All of it was off putting to me, and I never pushed through it to work with a project long enough in order for it to be comfortable. But, let's contrast it to Java, which pretty much is i", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Smalltalk's Browser: Unbeatable, yet Not Enough"}, {"id": 747442769, "item_id": 46715173, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46715173", "by": "Semaphor", "date": "2026-01-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "switched to netbeans which I already liked more", "excerpt": "I used eclipse in university around that time (2005), then first switched to netbeans which I already liked more, then discovered IntelliJ and have been using that ever since. Everything about Eclipse felt worse in ways neither of the others did, but all of that was still during university (though I now use JetBrains professionally).", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "Eclipse", "story": "Threat Actors Expand Abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code"}, {"id": 744653699, "item_id": 46540856, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46540856", "by": "pmontra", "date": "2026-01-08", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I went through some IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans) because Java would have been nearly impossible otherwise", "excerpt": "> Supporting all languages equally future-proves the editor, because who knows which language we will use in ten years? I remember which editors I used in 1990: emacs for most of my code and vi (vim now) for light editing mostly on remote machines. They are the same editors I'm using today. I went through some IDEs (Eclipse, NetBeans) because Java would have been nearly impossible otherwise but I never left those two", "context": "", "use_case": "Java development", "switched_from": "", "story": "I program without syntax highlighting"}, {"id": 741092274, "item_id": 46318267, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318267", "by": "monegator", "date": "2025-12-18", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me.", "excerpt": "Not ones from Jetbrains. I've use eclipse many times in the past, and hated every second of it. Stupid defaults, very stupid defaults. I also don't like visual studio, the way it forces me to work with \"solutions\", like i can't have two different projects open at the same time. Netbeans instead, that always felt so natural to me. And MPLABX is of course the one i use most of the time (like 60%, then 10% VSCode and 20", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "VS Code deactivates IntelliCode in favor of the paid Copilot"}]}