Dave Dyer has written an essay comparing the various vendor IDE offerings. Also see the JavaWorld reviews.

IBM’s Visual Age is the most impressive, but it does not integrate well with other tools such as code beautifiers, editors and source code version control.

I mostly work without an IDE, but when I use one I use Visual Café Database edition. Jikes and Slickedit is a powerful combo that is much lighter on its feet than any IDE. I only use the IDE for source code debugging.

Most IDEs don’t include a source code debugger. Ones I know that do include one are: Café, JBuilder, VAJ, Forté.

Bruce Ingalls bingalls@panix.com did much of the work preparing this table. If you can help fill in the blanks in the table, please send me an email. Don’t forget URLs. It would also be nice to note which of these IDEs can do which sorts of refactoring.

The most commonly used free IDEs are Eclipse and NetBeans for advanced users and BlueJ for beginners. The most commonly used commercial IDE is IntelliJ.

IDEs
IDE Name	Alive?	Type	Comments
aCupOfCoffee
AFC
AnyJ		L
Aptivity
Arriba		L
AvaJava
Biss
BlueJ		FJ	Notes. Often recommended for people just getting started.
Bluette		F	by Hyung G. Kim of South Korea.
Bongo
CafeBabe
Café Carouser
Chicory		FJ	class diagrams and other software engineering tools too.
Code Crusader		OL W?
Code Fusion		L	not to be confused with ColdFusion, a web server.
CodeGuide		$L	notes. Does syntax checking, completion and refactoring. This is Marshall Spight’s favourite ide.
CodeWarrior		LMW	Notes.
Cosmo Code
Diva
Drag`enCode		$W
Dr.Java		F	For people just getting started.
Eclipse		F	Does refactoring. Originally developed by IBM. Popular. It is an enormous project encompassing more than just an IDE. SWT is a crack at tackling the same problem Swing does. This is Jon Skeet’s favourite IDE. It is the one I use. It is larger and more complex than JCreator. IBM is planning to replace it with an even more elaborate IDE. People who don’t like it find the interface non-intuitive. It is certainly not like anything else you have used. It also insists you lay your projects on disk its way which can be irksome unless you are starting an entirely new project. A class cannot belong to more than one project. It is the most popular power IDE.
ED
ElixirIDE		FL	no longer supported
EMACS JDE		OJ	handles JDK 1.2. It also includes an obfuscator. Most passionately loved and hated editor on the planet. This is David Pollack’s favourite ide.
FieldBird		FJO	open source. lightweight.
Freebuilder		FL
FreeJava			now called RealJ
FrIJDE Free Java IDE
Gel		WF	Gel is written in Delphi, natively compiled for Windows. It is billed as working quickly on less than top-of-the-line hardware. Supports both Java and JSP.
Grasp		J	JGrasp is written in Java, good for beginners.
Grinder
GWT
HahtSite
Hope
HotTEA
IBM Websphere Studio Application Developer		$	Comes in Application, Site or Enterprise editions. Great CVS support with syncronizing, diffing and such out of the box, based on Eclipse, WSED has JSP highlighting and code completion. Takes forever to start up on a P4 1.7 but has all the bells and whistles. $5556.00 CAD for Application Developer. Last revised: 2005-08-26
Instant Basic
Intellij Idea 7.0.3		$	Jetbrains Intellij Idea, written in Java. The IDE I use myself. Notes
J++			Microsoft’s variant of Java. They now have a language called C#.
Jakarta
JPadPro
JaSupremo
Jato
Java Jake		F	available for UNIX, Windows, and MacOS9. simple, light weight fast, somewhat out of date.
Java WorkShop		F	Sun, aka JDE
JavaMaker
Javelin			graphical IDE.
Javide
JaWiz
JBuilder		F$LW	Inprise/Borland. Notes. Requires 256 MB RAM to run reasonably.
JCoder		W	The entire download is only 2MB, so presumably this is a lightweight IDE that you would expect to run well on older equipment. I could not tell from the website if it were free.
JCreator Pro		$W	Free trial.$69.00 USD Last revised: 2005-08-26
JDE			based around EMACS editor
JDesignerPro		L
JDeveloper		JFLMW	Oracle’s offering. Many features. Now free. supports J2EE J2SE and J2ME as well as web services and pl/sql development includes UML, code generation and editing, debugging, profiling, monitoring testing, deploying…
jEdit			It has plugins to add different functionality such as JBrowse and JavaStyle.
JEditor
JET
JFactory
JIG		L
JForge
Jirvana		F	very slow response time. Be patient.
JJct
JMake		$
Jpad Pro
Jurtle		F	Logo-like turtle graphics and a beginner’s IDE for learning Java.
Kawa		$W	Simple to use. Now owned by Allaire. No longer being developed or distributed. Does not support Java 1.4.
Koala
Latte			Borland’s code name for beta JBuilder.
Lava
Lemur
Metamata			Notes. Metamata is owned by Webgain that went belly up.
Metrowerks
Mini Java Editor
Mojo
Mozart			concept programming
Netbeans		F	Evolved into Sun Forté then to One Studio, then to Sun Studio. Download is 15 MB vs 85 MB for One Studio. Has an absolute layout manager that they automatically convert to GridBagLayout. So you do your tweaking in the absolute layout manager and then do the conversion. I found the GUI builder quite buggy, though nicely designed. It would let you add any kind of component. It built event handling code. You could cut and paste components. It handled many kinds of layout. The lastest version is reputed to be remarkably quick.
Netbeans Mobility Pack		F	Add on to Netbeads for J2ME development i.e. cell-phones and PDAs.
Netcode
Optima++
OptimalJ		$	J2EE IDE by Compuware, built on NetBeans. Includes a package strucutura analysis tool. OptimalJ Community.
Parts For Java			A Java IDE environment similar to Smalltalk.
PowerJ
IBM’s Rational Software Architect		$$	very expensive. Does UML.
Ready To Program in Java			Java editor with minimalist IDE features for beginning Java students. Also runs on older and small windows desktop machines.
RealJ			formerly known as FreeJava, lightweight. good for students.
Revologic			workflow, pageflow, J2EE drag and drop
Roaster		M
SAWT
Seymour
Simplicity
Slickedit		$LW	Notes.
SNiff+J
Solstice WorkShop
Source Navigator		L	particularly good at browsing networks of classes quickly finding what you are looking for.
SubArctic
Sun Java Studio Mobility		free for now	still in beta, for J2ME
Sun Studio		$J	née Forté, then One Studio, from Sun, requires fast machine with 512 MB RAM to work well.
Super Mojo		L
SuperCede			bought by Instantiations and buried.
TJI		$FJ	light weight, designed for teaching Java. Lite version is free.
VIBE			by Visix
Vide
Visaj		FLM
Visual Age		FA	IBM. Notes. Smalltalk-like project management. Been largely replaced by Eclipse and IBM Websphere Studio Developer, Does not support Java 1.4.
Visual Café		$WM	now known as WebGAIN Studio.
webGAIN Studio			formerly Symantec Visual Café
WinGEN
WipeOut		L	in German
Xelfi

Sun’s Four IDEs

1. NetBeans provides a plug-in interface similar to Eclipse for third party ad-ins.
2. Sun Studio provides features needed for C/C++ development on Solaris and Linux.
3. JSE provides enterprise tools like UML.
4. Java Studio Creator is a RAD ( rapid development). It is a simple tool for cranking out GUI code, primarily for JSF.

All four of these are built on top of the NetBeans base.