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NetBeans vs Oracle SQL Developer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

NetBeans
Ranking in IDE
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle SQL Developer
Ranking in IDE
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the IDE category, the mindshare of NetBeans is 4.0%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

DB
Some of the valuable features are Java development, RCP ​support and support for various other languages.
* Java development support. (The Java editor is one of the best Java IMHO editors. Java projects support Ant and Maven.) * RCP support * GUI editor for Java windows * RCP support: An easy way to create your own app using NetBeans base. There is a lot of documentation for RCP creation. * Plugins can be easy created. Also there is support for other languages as C/C++, HTLM5, Javascript, Groovy, PHP... There is a lot of plugins that can be easily installed.
Theodoros Loizou - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful features, simple implementation, and scalable
For first-time users of Oracle SQL Developer, it's going to be a bit difficult, but they can find their way around over time. I rate Oracle SQL Developer a nine out of ten. I didn't face any other issues other than it being a bit slow when you have a lot of work to do.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"One of the most important features is that Apache Maven supports it."
"Server Support"
"C++ 11 support (for a long time)"
"The learning curve is easy and fast because the interface is simple and intuitive, enabling us to easily train developers who are not expert in metrics."
"It is easy to deploy, manage servers, and ORMS resources."
"When you have to develop in Java, this IDE is ideal because it has many plugins that make your life easier... For example, when working with Hibernate or with JPA, creating entities is very easy through a graphical interface."
"It comes out of package fully-loaded with a lot of great features for web development."
"Large scale of projects, templates, and coding support."
"Ability to analyze performance, using Explain Plan statement."
"I like it because it's very similar in output to SQL *Plus, and it has many convenience features that make it easier to read the data and use the basic reporting features it provides."
"The newer version has a lot of new features. It generates output and scripts for your Ultrix. It can generate JSON, XML, etc."
"You do not have to install it, just dump it on the OS, then use it."
"It's easy to deploy, I can copy it onto the system and run it without having to install it and this makes it a very good solution for quick use."
"I have a lot of flexibility with it."
"Using execution plan, I am able to do lots of query tuning."
"It allows us to implement a form of test driven development (TDD) for database-resident code."
 

Cons

"One of main areas that the tool can improve is performance."
"I would like there to be better integration with Git, as there are IDEs such as Eclipse that offer this integration in a much more elegant way than NetBeans."
"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."
"There are always rooms for improvement for any product. The good thing with NetBeans is that since it is Open Source, you can just go ahead and contribute whatever you want to change yourself."
"Background scanning of sources on demand, disallowed by Options (processor usage, build cannot be deleted by the old version build)."
"The debugging mechanize could be improved compared to IntelliJ, for example."
"t is a very heavy load on the computer, especially when you compare with Sublime Text Limited plugins and themes."
"I would like it to support background processes better."
"There is room for improvement in the Real Time SQL Monitoring."
"It's more stable sometimes and less stable other times. I have used it in Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's variable, it's not the same stability. I think that can be improved on."
"The initial setup is always a problem, it cannot find the Java SDK."
"It would be nice to have the ability to access DBs than Oracle."
"Oracle SQL Developer could improve the speed, it is a bit slow."
"I think it would be great to have an overview over the sessions it opens so that we could easily see and control which connections to the database we want to keep open, which ones are hanging; and it would be great to make them independent from each other."
"Scalability has room for improvement. Often if you have to do a heavy load of queries or are getting large result sets you have to be careful not to overload the Java virtual machine that's running."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"NetBeans is free and open source."
"I am sad that CLion is not free. Currently, it has no support for Linux makefiles, only cmake, and this is a big mess."
"It is an open source and free tool, with no changes, and the licensing allows me even to change source code, if I need."
"It has the advantage that it's free. The next best competitor would cost several thousand dollars."
"It is basically free."
"It's a free tool."
"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weyco Group Inc.
Prinova
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBeans vs. Oracle SQL Developer and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.