When comparing Qt Creator vs NetBeans IDE, the Slant community recommends Qt Creator for most people. In the question“What are the best programming text editors?” Qt Creator is ranked 19th while NetBeans IDE is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Qt Creator is:
Qt Creator has a code model which basically has the same information as the compiler. So it can do really nice syntax highlighting (e.g. of virtual methods or local variables) as well as provide great code completion.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great syntax highlighting and auto-completion
Qt Creator has a code model which basically has the same information as the compiler. So it can do really nice syntax highlighting (e.g. of virtual methods or local variables) as well as provide great code completion.
Pro Integrates well with non-IDE workflows
Qt Creator uses normal .pro-files, CMakeLists.txt, Makefiles.am, etc. for its projects and rarely needs special configuration for projects.
Projects can be built on the command line as usual.
Pro Built-in Qt GUI editor
Allows for the creation of a window based UI in a graphical editor, no code required to build the UI.
Pro Fast and fully keyboard-navigatable
Responsive UI, no need to use the mouse for the power users.
Pro Supports CMake
Pro Very responsive when compared to similar software
Pro Much space dedicated to the code
Small and beautiful UI, almost all the space is dedicated to the text with hardly and toolbars. Can actually be used on a 1024x768 pixel screen.
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 Poor refactoring
QtCreator has lack of refactoring features. It's not even close to Resharper++ or CLion.
Con Poor multi-window mode support
While multiple windows are supported, many operations will activate in the primary window (debug, goto-line... etc).
Con Qt-focused
Qt Creator is focused on being an IDE for Qt, as a general purpose IDE it performs quite well, but there are areas which are lacking such as project file support (support for generic/CMake projects lags behind Qt projects).
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.