#26 in Code AssistantsUpdated 2026-08

Apache NetBeans

by Apache NetBeans · Development environment, tooling platform and application framework

37.3 — BenchRank score out of 100

Homepage

Visit website See full Code Assistants ranking

Overview

Apache NetBeans is a development environment, tooling platform and application framework. It highlights source code syntactically and semantically and supports refactoring, and provides editors, wizards and templates for Java, PHP, JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS. It installs on any operating system that supports Java, including Windows, Linux, macOS and BSD.

Best for: Developers building Java, PHP, JavaScript or HTML5 applications who want a cross-platform IDE
Pricing: No prices are shown; the software is downloadable and licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0.

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

Free to download under the Apache License 2.0
Runs on Windows, Linux, macOS and BSD
Editors, wizards and templates for Java, PHP and other languages
Syntactic and semantic highlighting plus refactoring tools

Trade-offs

Only runs on operating systems that support Java
Tutorials are under review, so learning material may be incomplete
Help comes from mailing lists and community; commercial support is separate

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

MCP support: 0 out of 100
API quality: 10 out of 100
Documentation: 50 out of 100
Agent friendliness: 45 out of 100
Customer sentiment: 80 out of 100
Changelog: 100 out of 100
Marketing site structure: 40 out of 100
Operational trust: 0 out of 100

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

Openness: 60 out of 100
Maintenance: 100 out of 100

This doesn’t look right — report a problem with Apache NetBeans’s score

Alternatives in Code Assistants

Ranked 1
76.8 — BenchRank score out of 100
Warp
Warp · Terminal for running and orchestrating coding agents
Best for: Developers running coding agents like Claude Code or Codex who want them managed in one terminal.
Ranked 2
76 — BenchRank score out of 100
Superset
Superset · Desktop app for running coding agents in parallel Git worktrees
Best for: Developers on macOS running several CLI coding agents in parallel across isolated Git worktrees
Ranked 3
71.9 — BenchRank score out of 100
Frontman
Frontman · AI website editor for existing WordPress, Next.js, Astro and Vite sites
Best for: Designers, PMs and marketing teams editing existing sites without waiting on developer tickets.