When comparing UltraEdit vs NetBeans, the Slant community recommends NetBeans for most people. In the question“What are the best GUI Sublime Text alternatives?” NetBeans is ranked 11th while UltraEdit is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose NetBeans is:
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. Being open source means that developers can contribute changes to the code to have the IDE better serve them.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Handles large files (>1GB) extremely well
UltraEdit has small memory usage and allows for fast parsing/searching when handling large files.
Pro Works perfectly with remote files
Supports several protocols for accessing remote files and working on them with the same ease as local files. Files can be integrated in the projects as normal files.
Pro Probably the most versatile general editor in existence.
If you need a general editor, UltraEdit is the way to go. If you were writing C/C++ all day, then this would be your editor. If you need to slog through large files then this is your go to editor. If you need to go through XML files, then this is your editor. If you need to sort data, then this your my editor.
Pro Fast, stable, easy to use
It loads with a short delay, but once loaded it's snappy and rock-solid. Anyone accustomed to using Windows text editors will feel at home in its interface, and those that prefer alternate keybindings can easily change them.
Pro Search and replace capabilities
From Ultraedit to Perl to Unix regex engines, the search and replace can accomplish just about anything.
Pro Responsive company
Whether for feature requests, technical support or license questions, IDM is always quick to respond.
Pro Nice hex display & edit
There's a handful of other features like this that make UltraEdit indispensable.
Pro Extremely customizable GUI editor
UltraEdit offer the best of both worlds. it has a full on GUI along with all the shortcut commands you need. There's no need for the user to suffer 80 char limitations of a terminal editor.
Pro Highly flexible
UltraEdit allows you to handle groups of files as a project.
Pro Free, open source, and 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. Being open source means that developers can contribute changes to the code to have the IDE better serve them.
Pro Multiple revision control system integration
Has built-in support for the most popular revision control systems
Pro FTP/SFTP synchronization
Supports synchronization with projects stored remotely through FTP or SFTP.
Pro Linux terminal inside IDE
You can run Linux terminal inside the IDE.
Pro Best for PHP, HTML5 Apps Developemt
Pro Frameworks support
Supports Symfony1, Symfony2,Yii2 & Zend frameworks.
Pro You can access source code history
There's a built-in local history that lets you compare code changes and revert to a specific revision. Helpful when source code file accidentally overwritten.
Pro PHPUnit support
PHPUnit is a testing framework. You can create test classes, run and see the code coverage directly from IDE interface.
Pro Git commits/local diff comparison is best
Git commits/local diff comparison is best
Pro Supports community plugins
NetBeans can be extended beyond the basic tool that you get out of the box through community made custom plugins.
Pro Accelerated HTML5 development support
Pro Less and Sass Compiler support
Pro Composer commands inside IDE
The most used composer commands can be done directly from IDE.
Pro Bower support
Pro Powerful debugging and performance optimization
Netbeans not only debugs your code, and points out errors but also gives you hints on which sections of your code could be further optimized.
Pro Supports Smarty
Supports Smarty Template Engine right out of the box.
Pro Refactoring is easy and very productive
Pro JMeter benchmarking tool support
Pro Supports Twig templates
NetBeans provides code completion and documentation for all Twig elements.
Pro ApiGen and PHPDoc support
Supports documentation generation through ApiGen and PHPDoc.
Pro PHPstan support
Supports static code analysis with phpstan
Pro ApiGen support
ApiGen allows automatically generating documentation from specifically formatted comments. It's easy to use, supports traits, allows fuzzy searching for classes and highlighting docblocks using Markdown.
Cons
Con Proprietary
It's not free and a license costs $79.99.
Con The themes introduced in version 20 regressed certain aspects of syntax coloring
The themes simplified the syntax highlighting which lost the capacity to have as many colors as one wanted to define. Now it is limited to around 20 different colors. In general it's not a problem but in certain cases it broke coloring.
For some reason, the classic theme is the only one that is totally pleasant for readability well with syntax highlighting.
Con Slows down occasionally
The Netbeans IDE is known to take a large memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available on the market. Slowdowns can decrease productivity and cause frustration.
Con Development has stalled dramatically
It went down from two releases a year with minor bug-fix releases to one release and no fixes. There seem to be fewer features added per release as well. There is no activity in the plugin community.
Con Default website code format is too strict
Sometimes you need to write allowed code that IDE hasn't spected, and it will annoy you filling all your code with suggestions.
Con Multilanguaje code completion fails
I example, sometimes code completion won't help you with html marks (or scripts) inside php echo (or print) sentences, and vice-versa.