When comparing Microsoft Visual Studio vs NetBeans IDE, the Slant community recommends Microsoft Visual Studio for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs for C++ on Windows?” Microsoft Visual Studio is ranked 2nd while NetBeans IDE is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Microsoft Visual Studio is:
The Community Edition of Visual Studios and the Unity add-on can be downloaded and used free of charge.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free Community Edition
The Community Edition of Visual Studios and the Unity add-on can be downloaded and used free of charge.
Pro IntelliSense
IntelliSense is the general term for a number of features: List Members, Parameter Info, Quick Info, and Complete Word. These features help you to learn more about the code you are using, keep track of the parameters you are typing, and add calls to properties and methods with only a few keystrokes.
Pro One of the few bearable C++ debuggers available
Pro There's a huge library of plugins
Visual Studio has a massive library of plugins to choose from.
Pro Extensions
Pro Modern language support
The recently released 15.7 branch provides competitive modern language support.
Pro Product backlog
In agile development teams, one really needs features such as product backlogs where you can assign features to team mates and track their progress on them. VS provides a web based interface for you to track your team's complete progress on the project.
Pro GitHub integration
Makes production faster especially if git is used. One can see changed files at the go and commit (with push possibility) when ever one so desires.
Pro More modular installer
Visual Studio 2017 supports a much more modern and modular installer. You no longer have to install many gigabytes of stuff you don't need. Everything is broken down into much smaller pieces and it's much more apparent which pieces you need.
Pro Embedded cloud storage
Your Visual Studio Online account gives you a place to store your code, backlog, and other project data with no servers to deploy, configure, or manage.
Pro Friendly UI
Pro Comes with a Windows framework
Pro Cross-platform
NetBeans is a free, GPL-licensed IDE. It can run on any computer with a Java virtual machine. If a computer has a Java virtual machine (JVM), Netbeans can run on it. Netbeans can, therefore, run on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, *nix, and Mac OS.
Pro Good refactoring
Pro Easy to learn
Very easy to learn, unlike e.g. Eclipse (which is probably the most flexible).
Pro Good support for integrated Database e Servers (E.g. Tomcat)
Pro Multiple revision control system integration
Pro Customizable theme
Pro Take less memory
Cons
Con Sluggish
Horribly slow on low-end machines due to bulky size, they should modularize it instead of trying to do everything.
Con It's very large
The most basic Visual Studio installation will take up 5GB of disk space.
Con Non native window frame
IDE main window lacks standard window frame (titlebar/borders) - a custom solution is in use where custom titlebar contains numerous application-specific controls. This results in inconsistent UX and can also be problematic when you're using shell replacements or other various window-management software (such as bbLean).
Con Little support for UML
Unless you load extensions.
Con Slow
The Netbeans IDE is known to take a large memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available on the market. The slowdown can decrease productivity and frustrate programmers.
