IntelliJ also looks like shit. It has its own toolkit and the same horrible font rendering as any other swing program. If you want your IDE to be pretty, try Eclipse.

you are really mentioning Eclipse as a pretty IDE or is it a joke ? :P

If we're talking Linux, then yes, IntelliJ is a gruesome sight indeed.

Not in the guise of Android Studio, using the Darcula skin. It is actually rather pleasant to look at, as far as IDE's go. Just make those humongous fonts a bit smaller and it looks quite sleek. I wonder why so many Java apps insist on using oversized fonts and features, especially since Swing was introduced?

Font rendering is still horrible on Linux compared to Sublime.

Am i missing some magical eclipse configuration? I need to increase font sizes and at best i can only do half the IDE. Eclipse has been an atrocious experience for me so far.

I'll admit that the default eclipse theme looks hideous on a mac, which is why I use this: https://github.com/jeeeyul/eclipse-themes

This plugin should be preinstalled by default for all platforms.

Yeah, still doesn't let u customize the right fonts. I am using it now. I think a newer version removed that feature (wtf)

Re antialiasing, if it's not looking right, try passing -J-Dswing.aatext=true -Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd -J-Dorg.netbeans.editor.aa.extra.hints=true (on the command line or add it in $NETBEANS/etc/netbeans.conf)

It is really ugly and yes with jeeyuls themes, yum! Soon Eclipse will have icons ready for dark themes too, can't wait.

When you make a comment like this, please specify what operating system you're running the software under. I think Netbeans looks quite good on OS X. Much better than Eclipse (low bar) and competitive with other IDEs.

Regarding UI appearance, it really depends on what OS you're using and what theme/feel you choose. Though I agree, some people using some very ugly Netbeans settings [0].

[0] - https://blogs.oracle.com/geertjan/entry/leiningen_clojure_an...

Good point! I find that the look of the IDE is the most important feature when I'm coding.

It doesn't have to look that bad, their screenshots are not using the OS's native look and feel (LAF) but the really ugly Java fallback one.

Netbeans is actually my favorite IDE for PHP development.

JetBrains isn't free, and for PHP I do prefer Netbeans anyways.

I like the IntelliJ community edition. Sure, it doesn't have everything in the full version, but it's pretty good for what it offers.

Unfortunately, the IntelliJ community edition doesn't support most non-JVM-based languages. This is the main thing holding me back from it -- I mostly program in PHP but I do a fair amount in Python, a little in Ruby, some in Javascript, and recently some in Clojure. To do all this with IntelliJ requires the full commercial "Ultimate Edition."

And just to top it off, from all appearances the free Clojure plugin is being deprecated in favor of the third-party Cursive Clojure, which is free now but "will be a commercial project at a similar price point to PyCharm or RubyMine." Since it's not a JetBrains product, that's more than likely means another $99 on top of the $199 for Ultimate. I like what I've seen of JetBrains' stuff but I don't think I like it enough to shell out that much.

Author of Cursive here. You're right, it's unfortunate that I can't get around having to charge on top of Ultimate.

However note that the Community edition now includes their Python support (although not the frameworks), and for a lot of people one of their specialised IDEs (PyCharm or RubyMine, for Python or Ruby support with all the web tech) will be sufficient. I'm going to look into providing Cursive as a plugin for those IDEs to make the price more reasonable for folks who don't want Java, but I'm not sure how much work that will be since those IDEs don't include the base Java support that Cursive relies on.

(Just catching up a bit late...) Yeah, I don't blame you for not being able to get around charging. The only obvious solution is being bought by Jetbrains, but neither of you may be interested in that outcome. :)

I'm in what's probably a minority position of wanting to have Python, PHP and Clojure all in the same place. I can get there, just not at a comfortable price point...

While I enjoy being able to use tools for free, as a developer I do appreciate the value of paying for tools.

The said teams need to be able to live from something.

Netbeans and Eclipse can be free, because Sun/Oracle/IBM get their money from somewhere else.

JetBrains sells only InteliJ based tools.