IntelliJ IDEA vs Apache NetBeans

Apache NetBeans is free for commercial and non-commercial development under Apache License 2.0; its site lists no paid plan. IntelliJ IDEA’s Free Tier is also free for commercial and non-commercial use, but seat and usage limits are not published. Ultimate for individual use costs $19.90 monthly or $199 annually, with a 30-day trial; it is personal-use only and not reimbursed. Commercial organization pricing is $71.90 per user monthly or $59.92 per user monthly when billed annually. Individual Ultimate continuity discounts lower the annual price to $159 in year two and $119 from year three. The All Products Pack costs $29.90 monthly or $299 annually for individuals, and $97.90 monthly or $81.58 per user monthly when billed annually for organizations. Paid commercial costs grow by licensed user; AI credit top-ups cost $1 per credit.

These are development environments, not hosted APIs. The product pages do not identify an API style or SDK for either IDE. JetBrains describes IntelliJ IDEA as an IDE for Java and Kotlin, with code-aware navigation, suggestions, and built-in tools to run, debug and test applications. The JetBrains homepage also describes a Kotlin ecosystem of tools, libraries and integrations, but does not name IntelliJ IDEA-specific integrations. Apache NetBeans provides editors, wizards and templates for Java, PHP and other languages; its homepage also names JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS. The NetBeans site links to a Plugins section, help resources and Java and PHP tutorials. Neither homepage documents a CLI workflow. NetBeans highlights syntactic and semantic code highlighting and refactoring; JetBrains emphasizes code-aware navigation and customization. Check plugin and language support against your project before standardizing on either.

Apache NetBeans is open source under Apache License 2.0. JetBrains does not state whether IntelliJ IDEA is open source; its pricing includes a free tier and paid named-user commercial licenses. The product pages present both as development environments rather than hosted servers. NetBeans says it can be installed on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and BSD. Neither product page documents self-hosting controls or a data-export format. For migration planning, check the project’s language and build-tool requirements, plugin dependencies, and whether project metadata and settings can move with it. The product pages do not establish a migration path or export guarantee, so assess those details against your own projects before switching.