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NetBeans vs Windsurf comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

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
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windsurf
Ranking in IDE
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (4th), AI Software Development (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of NetBeans is 4.0%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 8.6%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Windsurf8.6%
NetBeans4.0%
Other87.4%
IDE
 

Featured Reviews

DB
Java Developer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
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.
reviewer2748786 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founding BackEnd Engineer
Enhancing productivity with advanced code generation and low-cost accessibility
What they can do further and venture into next is to provide a CLI environment, similar to the command-line interface environment that Cursor offers. It allows for running a cursor agent from the command line to make changes, review pull requests, or access certain other capabilities. These capabilities are currently not in Windsurf. Windsurf focuses on the productivity and the ID/editor part. I would rather look for the inclusion of pull request reviews or a kind of a TRD or technical requirement general documentation generation, or system diagram generation directly from the codebase in Windsurf itself. These should be the next obvious features they launch for developers. In our team, there are certain people who use Windsurf regularly and appreciate using it. However, it is not a collaborative tool where someone is going to use the same tool and interact in the same IDE. Everyone does their local development, pushes it to different Git branches, someone reviews the PR, and then merges the branch. It is very localized in that sense.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"One of the most important features is that Apache Maven supports it."
"It comes out of package fully-loaded with a lot of great features for web development."
"It is easy to deploy, manage servers, and ORMS resources."
"C++ 11 support (for a long time)"
"Large scale of projects, templates, and coding support."
"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."
"Server Support"
"I have seen a return on investment with Windsurf because I have saved time and money and needed fewer resources since using it."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by increasing productivity, because during a one-week hackathon we were able to build a product from scratch that would have taken at least two to three weeks, making the time savings substantial."
 

Cons

"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."
"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."
"Background scanning of sources on demand, disallowed by Options (processor usage, build cannot be deleted by the old version build)."
"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."
"One of main areas that the tool can improve is performance."
"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."
"I chose 7 out of 10 because I've used Cursor as well, and sometimes I feel Cursor hallucinates less compared to Windsurf."
"Since using Windsurf, I notice more errors, but we deliver approximately twice as fast."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"NetBeans is free and open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Insurance Company
9%
University
8%
Media Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise2
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
My experience with Windsurf's pricing, setup cost, and licensing was positive. I received a discount because I joined early, so the license cost or monthly rental of Windsurf has been reasonably pr...
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
I have no suggestions at the moment for how Windsurf can be improved. I would not add more about the needed improvements, even small things that could make my experience better.
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
I have been using Windsurf off and on for the last year. My main use case for Windsurf is for software development. Currently, we're working on an API, and Windsurf will help us develop a particula...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weyco Group Inc.
Dell, Anduril, MongoDB, Zillow, Atlassian
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBeans vs. Windsurf and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.