NetBeans vs Oracle SQL Developer comparison

Apache and Oracle are both solutions in the IDE category. Apache is ranked #10, while Oracle is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.0. Apache holds a 3.5% mindshare in IDE, compared to Oracle’s 4.1% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

NetBeans

Read 8 NetBeans reviews

446 Views
446 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Oracle SQL Developer

Read 34 Oracle SQL Developer reviews

828 Views
638 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

NetBeans

Oracle SQL Developer

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetBeans and Oracle SQL Developer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two IDE solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed NetBeans vs. Oracle SQL Developer Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetBeans vs. Oracle SQL Developer

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 868,759 peers since 2012

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

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IDE category, the mindshare of NetBeans is 3.5%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 4.1%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IDE Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Oracle SQL Developer	4.1%
NetBeans	3.5%
Other	92.4%

IDE

Featured Reviews

Dragan Bjedov

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.

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Vikram_Kumar

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Large scale of projects, templates, and coding support."

"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."

"Server Support"

"C++ 11 support (for a long time)"

"It comes out of package fully-loaded with a lot of great features for web development."

"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."

"One of the most important features is that Apache Maven supports it."

"It is easy to deploy, manage servers, and ORMS resources."

"The newer version has a lot of new features. It generates output and scripts for your Ultrix. It can generate JSON, XML, etc."

"I have a lot of flexibility with it."

"You do not have to install it, just dump it on the OS, then use it."

"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."

"You can install it on every platform. It just works. The other thing is that it's free. And Oracle is committed to the development of the tool, so it has been improving."

"Using execution plan, I am able to do lots of query tuning."

"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."

More Oracle SQL Developer pros

Cons

"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."

"One of main areas that the tool can improve is performance."

"t is a very heavy load on the computer, especially when you compare with Sublime Text Limited plugins and themes."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The competing products have more features."

"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."

"Oracle SQL Developer could improve the speed, it is a bit slow."

"There is room for improvement in the Real Time SQL Monitoring."

"I would like it to support background processes better."

"The initial setup is always a problem, it cannot find the Java SDK."

"There are occasional runtime issues that are easily worked around, especially on a Windows deployment."

"If they had something on the Web then you wouldn't need to install it, just query, like Enterprise Manager."

More Oracle SQL Developer cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open source and free tool, with no changes, and the licensing allows me even to change source code, if I need."

"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 basically free."

"It's a free tool."

"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."

"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

No data available

Financial Services Firm

23%

Insurance Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	19

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Oracle SQL Developer?

Oracle SQL Developer has disadvantages, such as the inability to execute or debug a query in a stored procedure, which is something we had in TOAD, a licensed tool with a richer feature set. So, we...

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What is your primary use case for Oracle SQL Developer?

I have been working with Oracle SQL Developer for different database entities, such as scheduling jobs that run on data and send mail notifications using an SMTP server. Additionally, we handle var...

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What advice do you have for others considering Oracle SQL Developer?

I recommend users looking to implement Oracle SQL Developer to consider using cloud solutions instead of relying solely on Oracle DB, as the cloud offers better scalability and reduces maintenance ...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IDE

September 2025

Download NetBeans product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle SQL Developer

September 2025

Download Oracle SQL Developer product report

Overview

NetBeans IDE. The Smarter and Faster Way to Code. Quickly and easily develop desktop, mobile and web applications with Java, PHP, C/C++ and more. NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.

Apache

Oracle SQL Developer is a free integrated development environment that simplifies the development and management of Oracle Database in both traditional and Cloud deployments. SQL Developer offers complete end-to-end development of your PL/SQL applications, a worksheet for running queries and scripts, a DBA console for managing the database, a reports interface, a complete data modeling solution, and a migration platform for moving your 3rd party databases to Oracle.

For more information on Oracle SQL Developer, visit Oracle.com

Oracle

Sample Customers

Weyco Group Inc.

Prinova

Buyer's Guide

NetBeans vs. Oracle SQL Developer

September 2025

Free Report: NetBeans vs. Oracle SQL Developer

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