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NetBeans vs Windsurf comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
AI Code Assistants (4th), AI Software Development (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the IDE category, the mindshare of NetBeans is 4.4%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windsurf is 8.0%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IDE Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windsurf8.0%
NetBeans4.4%
Other87.6%
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.
Rusira Sathnindu - PeerSpot reviewer
Automation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
AI coding agent has boosted daily commits and now speeds up complex feature delivery
Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements. When you prompt it again repeatedly, after the sixth or seventh prompt, it may start performing poorly. That is one of the key things I have noticed—its performance is not very consistent with continued prompts. Additionally, it sometimes hallucinates things. Although this previously happened a lot, it has improved, and now these checkers and linter functions ensure the code it writes is correct, reducing those hallucinations, but the performance inconsistency is still something I have noticed. The UI is good as it is basically a Visual Studio fork, so it has a good user interface. Moreover, every Visual Studio integration works here, so all of those are good. One of the main issues is the agent hallucinating and the generations not being good; those are two main points.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is easy to deploy, manage servers, and ORMS resources."
"C++ 11 support (for a long time)"
"One of the most important features is that Apache Maven supports it."
"Server 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."
"Large scale of projects, templates, and coding support."
"Windsurf is a fully magical platform where we can generate our fully complete full-stack application."
"Time saving is one of the significant benefits with Windsurf, as it has saved a substantial amount of time compared to previous methods, with a 25% time reduction in code generation and completion of projects."
"As we're experimenting with different AI IDEs, Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by providing options."
"Windsurf's best feature is that it is agentic."
"I have seen a return on investment with Windsurf because I have saved time and money and needed fewer resources since using it."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
"Windsurf has positively impacted my organization by improving our code quality and reducing our development time."
"Windsurf has saved a lot of time, and productivity has gone up at least 200%."
 

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."
"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."
"Debugging: Watches, Evaluate Expression, and data inspection are limited."
"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)."
"I feel that Windsurf can be improved, as sometimes it keeps giving the same answer again and again, which makes me feel stuck at those points in time, because it is giving the same answer in a loop."
"Even though Windsurf has a good understanding of the codebase, sometimes when you ask it to do a complex task, it may complete it in the first try but may need improvements."
"Windsurf should definitely improve on the retrieval coverage side and multi-agent side, which Cloud Code and others have."
"Windsurf can be improved in several ways, such as enhancing response times and better handling of massive codebases when dealing with over 100K plus files, along with improved security controls."
"Windsurf is stable approximately 95% of the time, but there are occasional latency issues that occur."
"Sometimes, Windsurf is not able to develop the feature that we want and hallucinates a lot."
"Since using Windsurf, I notice more errors, but we deliver approximately twice as fast."
"I would like to add that Windsurf is very good and fits well into my workflow, but I would prefer if the cascade agent of Windsurf could be a little better."
 

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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
University
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Windsurf?
I did not have to give any money for it, so it is fully free, which is the best. I did not incur setup costs.
What needs improvement with Windsurf?
Windsurf can be improved in several ways, such as enhancing response times and better handling of massive codebases when dealing with over 100K plus files, along with improved security controls. AI...
What is your primary use case for Windsurf?
My main use case for Windsurf is writing code with AI solutions and refactoring existing code. A quick specific example of a task or project where I have used Windsurf for writing or refactoring co...
 

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: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.