"Most developers recognize NetBeans as the original free Java IDE. It is that, and so much more." Netbeans IDE is part of an open-source project, the Nebeans Project (which includes the Netbeans Plat... More

"Most developers recognize NetBeans as the original free Java IDE. It is that, and so much more." Netbeans IDE is part of an open-source project, the Nebeans Project (which includes the Netbeans Platform) which is sponsored by Sun Microsystems. It was originally intended as an IDE for Java. It has a very strong support for Java EE, Java SE, and Java ME. The software itself is based on Java, meaning it is cross-platform (Windows, Mac OS, Linux or any other system that supports Java). However, currently there are a good number of programming languages and software development technologies supported by the IDE. Just to name a few, Netbeans 6.1 (the latest stable release) or 6.5(now in beta) supports Java(EE, SE & ME), C/C++, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Groovy on Grails, PHP, JavaScript, XHTML/CSS , Ajax, Databases, REST, SOA, UML, XML, WSDL, GlassFish etc. It has great WYSIWYG GUI builders for the web, desktop and mobile Java applications. Since it is also a platform itself, a wide range of pulig-ins have been developed for it. The support for Ruby and Rubuy on Rails is one of the best if not the best according to those who have used it. The new PHP/MySQL (6.5 beta) support is very promising, with all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a fully fledged PHP IDE, code completion, syntax highlighting, code snippets, debugging etc. JavaScript developers have also been given due notice with the new debugger and all the other features that have been added. One of the really nice features is the support for the most common JavaScript libraries (I have used it with jQuery and I can say I am really surprised). Of course what is a modern day IDE with out support for XHTML & CSS, the simple yet very powerful editors for these two are of great value by themselves, the usual Java style documentation for CSS is very useful and quite comprehensive. The Netbeans IDE Team have promised support for Python (the language of choice for most Linux based Operating Systems, e.g. Ubuntu) in future releases of the software. The two base products of the Netbeans Project (IDE and Platform) are free for commercial and non-commercial use. The source code to both is available to anyone to reuse as they see fit within the terms of use. The Project has a very healthy and growing community. With over 18 million downloads of Netbean IDE to date, and over 500,000 developers participating, the project is thriving!   [edit]  Less