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NetBeans vs Oracle SQL Developer comparison

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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 September 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of NetBeans is 4.9%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle SQL Developer is 7.1%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle SQL Developer7.1%
NetBeans4.9%
Other88.0%
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)"
"One of the most important features is that Apache Maven supports it."
"Overall, for our company, it has been a good addition, as development times have been shortened using NetBeans."
"Server 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."
"It comes out of package fully-loaded with a lot of great features for web development."
"Use it and you will not regret your decision."
"It's a no-cost license and it offers outstanding functionality on that basis."
"The main benefit of SQL Developer is that it is free."
"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."
"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."
"Customer Service: Good. Technical Support: Good."
"The main benefits of using Oracle SQL Developer include maintaining different connections with environments such as development, quality, and production while ensuring good access control to prevent data mishaps."
"Helps us to test and to develop scripts for monitoring applications."
"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."
 

Cons

"Background scanning of sources on demand, disallowed by Options (processor usage, build cannot be deleted by the old version build)."
"The background scanning of projects should be optimized after starting NetBeans."
"There are always rooms for improvement for any product."
"The debugging mechanize could be improved compared to IntelliJ, for example."
"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."
"It is a very heavy load on the computer, especially when you compare with Sublime Text Limited plugins and themes."
"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 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."
"They were not supportive. I didn't get a solution."
"I find Oracle SQL Developer less interactive and less developer-friendly, particularly when it comes to debugging, which was easier in TOAD."
"I occasionally have some difficulties with the import of data from other sources, so it sometimes aborts or is not very stable in those areas that still could be improved with Oracle SQL Developer."
"The interface could be friendlier for the DBA by having the dashboard show real-time statistics from the database engine."
"It should be more Mac friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the Real Time SQL Monitoring."
"The initial setup is always a problem, it cannot find the Java SDK."
"If they had something on the Web then you wouldn't need to install it, just query, like Enterprise Manager."
 

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

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Insurance Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
 

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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.