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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
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle SQL Developer
Ranking in IDE
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of NetBeans is 4.9%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 6.4%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle SQL Developer6.4%
NetBeans4.9%
Other88.7%
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.
Vikram_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at Ontario Power Generation
Has improved development efficiency through reusable components and intuitive programming features
When errors occur while programming, they are very generic. Even when searching the internet, the errors remain generic and it takes considerable time to understand the fix. This was predominantly felt because we were mostly working on writing code and developing features. Error handling needs to be improved. The patches and upgrade process is very long. In the last year and a half, I haven't upgraded, so we don't know if latest features have arrived. Another issue is with sessions. If we were working on code and then switch off our laptop for two to three days, the session would keep running. This consumes many resources and flags to the team that a user has been continuously using Oracle SQL Developer. There should be a timeout period for inactive sessions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"NetBeans Platform can be freely used as a desktop application base, where all the functionality is prepared for me and I make only the business modules."
"C++ 11 support (for a long time)"
"It is easy to deploy, manage servers, and ORMS resources."
"It comes out of package fully-loaded with a lot of great features for web development."
"Go for it! You’ll never look back!"
"NetBeans has helped us to increase our productivity and defect solving since the IDE is smart."
"Setup is very simple and short, and integrating existing code and projects is also very simple."
"Use it and you will not regret your decision."
"Using execution plan, I am able to do lots of query tuning."
"Oracle SQL Developer is scalable; it can perform the same when more people use it, and most of the people in my organization are using it, with approximately 100 people in the organization."
"SQL Developer has reached a maturity level where it offers pretty much the same essential functionality (and much more) that you can find in other solutions, with the benefit of being free."
"The solution I've created is revenue forecasting and our organization goes to Wall Street with the earnings call, with the forecast."
"We used to use SQL *Plus, but we needed something with more of a GUI for users who are not technical users."
"Very, very impressed with the development and product management team for this particular tool."
"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
"License is free, setup is simple and scriptable."
 

Cons

"Background scanning of sources on demand, disallowed by Options (processor usage, build cannot be deleted by the old version build)."
"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."
"The debugging mechanize could be improved compared to IntelliJ, for example."
"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."
"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."
"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."
"The debugging mechanize could be improved compared to IntelliJ, for example."
"There are always rooms for improvement for any product."
"Versioning is there, check. But it sucks a lot, double check."
"It's more stable sometimes and less stable other times. I have used it on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's variable, it's not the same stability. I think that can be improved on."
"I would like it to support background processes better."
"Even though it installs easy, there is a lot of Java behind the tool. It seems like some of the Java is more memory-intensive."
"I want to address performance issues with large amounts of data. When I run queries that return lakhs or millions of rows, Oracle SQL Developer sometimes freezes, takes time to load, or even crashes compared to other tools such as DBeaver or Microsoft SQL Server."
"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."
"My only complaint over the years has been memory usage, which seems to improve with each release."
"While working with Data Pump, I have faced a few problems."
 

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."
"NetBeans is free and open source."
"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's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
"It is basically free."
"It's a free tool."
"It has the advantage that it's free. The next best competitor would cost several thousand dollars."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Insurance Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Wholesaler/Distributor
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle SQL Developer?
The pricing of Oracle SQL Developer depends on the size of the company and the project. I cannot use Oracle or other solutions if I am just starting. If I start with MySQL, it depends on the size o...
What needs improvement with Oracle SQL Developer?
I want to address performance issues with large amounts of data. When I run queries that return lakhs or millions of rows, Oracle SQL Developer sometimes freezes, takes time to load, or even crashe...
What is your primary use case for Oracle SQL Developer?
In my current project at Cognizant, Oracle SQL Developer is one of the targets to load the data after extracting and transforming it, so this is our use case for my project. For example, I was at a...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weyco Group Inc.
Prinova
Find out what your peers are saying about NetBeans vs. Oracle SQL Developer and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.