NetBeans IDE Testimonials

People are saying great things about NetBeans - here's some of what we've heard about recent NetBeans releases. Thanks for your support and feedback! Got something to say about NetBeans ? Let us know!

• S Mandal

  I've been using NetBeans since version 4.1 which was released back in 2005, primarily for Java work, and have now upgraded to v6.5. The development has been fabulous all the way, and the product is now at a level of maturity which rivals commercial grade products in many aspects. The clean and highly intuitive interface has always been nothing short of amazing. There haven't been too many times when I've had to refer to some online documentation to find out a certain way of doing something, thanks to the so-very thoughtful UI. Best of all, the new PHP centric abilities in 6.5 are absolutely second to
none! I've been using a combination of tools for working in PHP so far (6 years! ;)), and it did get cumbersome from time to time. NetBeans 6.5 takes all of that away and gives you one rock-solid, all rounder, definite "go-to" tool for rapid and robust PHP development. This is really what I had been waiting for. 6.5 is a tremendous achievement for the NetBeans team, a huge thanks to you all.

• Anzaan

  NetBeans IDE is the best thing to happen in PHP world since sliced bread. I have used many different editors, Aptana, Eclipse PDT, Dreamweaver etc. But nothing beats the new NetBeans IDE in terms of features and ease of development. (I could be biased here as I use NetBeans for java development and favour it over Eclipse and other Java IDEs, and for good reasons.) ... Kudos to the NetBeans team for making perhaps one of the most significant contribution to the PHP community.

• Angel Escobedo

  I work in .net development, but in my last project I used NetBeans 6.1 IDE for J2EE, because we were running low on time. We really fell in love with the environmental tools and with the templates (Spring and Struts). We used the GlashFish integrated server for a first demo, but then we changed to tomcat for the more complex work. It's impressive that this IDE has everything in one box. i think that now it is even more helpful with all the new features in 6.5. I love this!

• Ray Gayton

  I really love NetBeans for PHP. I had downloaded several different IDEs looking for one that would work with PHP and have seamless integration with the database of my choice. I was also looking for an IDE with a good debugger. I had tried most of the popular IDEs. Komodo was the best until I found NetBeans for PHP. Unfortunately, I had already ordered Komodo when I came across NetBeans for PHP. NetBeans PHP blew the competition away. I installed it, setup a project, connected to MySql and Oracle all within a about 30 mins. You can't beat that! I only wish I had found NetBeans first! Thanks for a great IDE.

• JR

  I just wanted to say for the past year I have been struggling with Groovy support in
Eclipse. I have tried NetBeans 6.0, 6.1, but for some reason I always had trouble getting
Groovy and Grails support for it. I downloaded 6.5 Milestone 1 last month and have been using it every day for the past month and I just want to say THANK YOU! NetBeans 6.5 is by far the best Groovy/Grails IDE I have used. Please keep up the good work! Again, thank you!

• Brian W

  From a designer first and developer second, I've tried the latest in Aptana and NetBeans. I waited to install NetBeans last but was that a mistake. I was really impressed with NetBeans's ease of use and the amount of tutorials a user can plug into once they've completed the install. I'm sticking with NetBeans/notepad(from time to time) here on out!

• Adil Aliyev - Software Developer, IDRAK Technology Transfer LTD, Azerbaijan Re

  In our research team we planned to make some visual components like windows-based applications for web platform.

We wrote a project plan, and our student-programmers began writing for the
components. We planned to make components which would take two months to write.

Accidentally one of our developers saw NetBeans 6 JSF Visual Web Components. It had all components which we needed. We destroyed the team working on building components. :) NetBeans and JSF technology saved us more time. Thanks NetBeans and Sun Microsystems.

• Mike Jennings

  I have been working on a new project recently for a client, where they wanted me to use NetBeans 6.1 beta as the IDE to do all of my development in. I was excited to have a reason to use the new NetBeans IDE because I have been hearing so many good things about it. To my surprise, since I hated the old versions of NetBeans, the IDE blew me away. I am now so impressed with it that even some of the minor bugs that I encountered are not enough to stop me from using it.

The new NetBeans is by fare one of the fastest Java IDEs that I have used in a long time. The code completion and insight tool is so quick that the popups would get in my way sometimes. I love the way that the IDE uses Ant to compile and distribute your source code for you. That is refreshing, and seems to make the code more portable. The software seems to live up to all of its hype.

• Abhrajit Mukherjee

  NetBeans to the rescue:

After wasting more than an hour putting the layout (of a platform independent hard disk search software in place), I decided to download NetBeans. My computer is quite an old machine (PIII 750Mhz, 256MB RAM), so didn't install NetBeans before. After installing NetBeans the speed was good considering my machine configuration. I started the NetBeans GUI Builder(formerly Matisse) and my layout was up and running in 8mins sharp. Wow! Kudos to NetBeans for saving my day. I won't say it was a breeze working with NetBeans, rather it was tornado.

• Salman Ahmed

  Congratulations to all the developers and other people associated with NetBeans that put out the NB 6 release for winning the 2008 Jolt Award in the "Development Environments" category!

I've only been using NetBeans for about two months now, and this being my first experience ever with a Java development IDE has been tremendously positive - and productive! I've been using various versions of MS Visual Studio on Windows over the past 10 years and I've been used to the command line (and gcc and make on UNIX), and I can say that NetBeans 6 is an awesome IDE product. There are a few rough edges here and there, but overall this is an awesome IDE.

Congratulations to all the NetBeans developers and the NetBeans team for this release, and for winning the Jolt award. As a software developer, I know full well the hard work, effort, and dedication it must have taken to get to this point. Really well done everyone!

• Wayne Miller

  Recently, I took two Java classes at the University of Pheonix. Primarily, I used TextPad
to write all the script to create GUIs as part of class projects. Creating these GUIs with TextPad was difficult to say the least. Once class was over, I downloaded NetBeans 6.0 and found the Docs & Support link. Very soon, I found that NetBeans makes child's play of creating GUIs. I love the drag and drop functionality.

• Sushant

  I started Java some 3 years ago. At that time, I was only familiar with C programming and little with VB. Unfortunately no one around me could guide me for it. A friend suggested that I needed to download JDK 1.4 to compile and run Java programs. When I was searching for JDK 1.4 I got links of NetBeans. After reading about it and the installation instruction, I downloaded it and installed it on my PC with little effort.

At that time, there was no book in our library about Java. So I simply used to Drag & drop and some blind exploration on NetBeans only. I downloaded some tutorials from various sites and tried them. Method listing and its javadoc was very helpful and slowly I got to work with many components well. I used to work mostly on GUI components. At that time I was so comfortable with these GUIs that I dared to grab a project in Java from a low Profile company from Delhi. Later came many books in our library and it greatly enhanced my skills. Especially the books from Sun Microsystem were really good.

I owe my Java skills to NetBeans. It would have taken much longer if I have used any other IDE I believe.

• Simon Grantham

  I have been programming for 30+ years and so have, of course, used many, many development environments for many operating systems. I just wanted to pass on my thanks and kudos for a fabulous product. Blows the doors off of eclipse. Keep up the good work!

• Tres Finocchiaro - Solutions Developer

  Having started with VB6 and VB.NET, it was a long road to learn Java, better yet a new interface. After reading some of the tutorials, editorials, and release notes, I have to say, this is far superior to anything I've ever developed in before! A colleague of mine is considering using NetBeans for his C/C++ MUD server that he's been writing in "vi" for nearly a decade. My favorite feature is the advanced code completion, specifically the "Getters and Setters". I made a cheat-sheet for my desk at work! I look forward to converting my jEdit-written projects to this IDE, and I'd like to thank the NetBeans community as a whole for making this excellent product available to the public! For the record, I have this application running in both Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.10 at work, with minimal effort! :) Thanks again.

• Varun Nischal

  I am an engineering student in Computer Science, currently in my 3rd year. I was supposed to make a project in DBMS (Database Management Systems) when I was in 2nd year, IVth semester.... I was keen to use Visual J# for making the project using Java-JDBC interactions, but support for Java was not so good and time was running out...!!! Also, I couldn't find a DLL (Dynamic Linked Library) for a thin driver to interact with Oracle through JDBC in Visual Studio .NET 2005, then I went for Eclipse and it asked for so precise details to just kickstart a project, but at that time I was not so good in Java. I was looking for an IDE which would enable me to use features as in .NET, mainly the drag-n-drop functionality, but with complete support for Java. Finally, I got NetBeans from my batch mates, who were already working on it and were pleased. It took just few days to create mine as well as their mini project!!! Hats Off to NetBeans...!!! Thanking You.

• Bradley Longstreth

  I was tasked to create a simple application to test the architecture of a distributed network based application for a work related project. I chose to develop this as an SDI application using NetBeans platform. The NetBeans architecture and tools really made this project come together quickly. I probably could have done this using simple Swing. However, I would not have developed something nearly as powerful, nor would it have represented anything real or like the final (non-test) application. I have sold my management and most of my team members on the power of NetBeans. I would like to take the time to thank everyone who has helped me get up-to-speed with NetBeans over the last several weeks. Also, I would like to thank the founding fathers and current developers of NetBeans for their great work and would like them to know they are responsible for me becoming a NetBeans addict!

• BrainMaster

  This tool is so awesome. It helps me understand how to build applications in Java. It's been three years since I started, and now I understand advanced Java because of this tool. (Why don't you use NetBeans too?)

• Grace Sojor

  It all started back in 2005 when I was introduced to NetBeans while attending a national conference for Information Technology instructors and I was two years fresh from college. Then, it was unfortunate that our instructors didn't introduce to us NetBeans. I guess I am one of the lucky ones that my path crossed with NetBeans and I got hooked. I learned a lot in NetBeans and I appreciated programming more. The robust performance NetBeans provided with its GUI functions made it more appealing to me. That's how my love affair started with NetBeans. And these days, I definitely feel lucky that I have the chance to introduce this amazing IDE to my students.

• Corey Ogburn

  I was a part of a State Java Programming competition in 2007. I had been using NetBeans to learn Java for about a year before hand. I tried all sorts of IDEs, from Blue Jay all the way to Eclipse, I finally tried NetBeans and I was sold, I never used another IDE as long as I had a choice. Come the state competition, I installed NetBeans and quickly threw together a program to win second place (I rushed and didn't include comments... silly me). That second place got me a first class ticket to New York City for the National Java Programming competition being held by Business Professionals of America (BPA), where I used a very basic IDE (to prevent cheating) and I placed First in the nation. I know it's been almost 2 years since the competition, but I've been busy taking jobs and going to other programming competitions. I took my first steps in learning any programming language in NetBeans 5, and have continued to use NetBeans 6 to expand my knowledge of Java and programming concepts. I thank you so much for such a wonderful product.

• Wilman Arambillete - IT Manager, SPTPublicom, Montevideo, Uruguay

  I had the chance to work with different IDEs in the past when Java was just starting and none of them convinced me at all, especially in regards to code generation for Swing or AWT components. After trying many of them, I ended up coding with my old editor to obtain the kind of code I really wanted. It was really frustrating and simple programs took forever. After working with VStudio .NET using C#, which is a great language by the way, and a great environment, I had to work again with Java. This time I tried NetBeans and I am pleased about it. NetBeans rocks! It has most of the useful features of other commercial IDEs and the Java generated code is neat and clear. Good for the guys behind this. Go ahead!

• Rajiv Perera

  I work as a Software Engineer and for me NetBeans is like food to human. I have been using this IDE for 3 years as part of the application my company developed using the NetBeans RCP platform and today I am very confident about this IDE that i can recommend NetBeans as the IDE to any developer. Even our .Net team are also amazed by the features of it.

• Neeraj Shah

  I have been working on Java for 6 years now, and I treat Java as almost a part of me. I also work on .net but I have a certain bonding with Java. I was introduced to NetBeans accidentally 2 or 3 years ago while surfing the net about Java. I was glad to find out that there such a great IDE for Java, almost comparable to Visual Studio. I use NetBeans to learn Servlets,JSF,JSP and all other J2EE technologies. I also recommed it to my friends learning J2EE. Learning J2EE with NetBeans saves time in deploying WebApps and also it reduces the deployment time errors. Good job NetBeans Community.

• Marcelo Castellani - Senior Analyst

  I work in desktop applications development, using Swing. It is painful to develop advanced layouts only with code, and NetBeans makes my life easier with Matisse. By the way, NetBeans is today my favorite IDE for C too. I'm now a NetBeans addict.

• Alvaro E Martinez

  I have been trying NetBeans 6.1 Beta for a while, actually on a development of a new client application, and I have to say that it's been great most of all concerning the increase of speed for loading and memory management.

• Paul Richards

  NetBeans 6.0 is amazing. The standard "JavaSE" flavor has almost everything I need and
works perfectly on all the platforms I use (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows).