Differences:

1)Support for Maven is better in NetBeans. Because you can get GlassFish with Java EE package for NetBeans, it is easier to use than in Eclipses (as you have to configure GlassFish separately).

2)NetBeans comes with build-in GUI builder for Swing, but you need to use a separate plug-in in Eclipse.

3)NetBeans has a strong support when you are developing MVC based application in Java. Servlet/JSP development is fairly very simple compared to Eclipse, especially in the field of deployment and debugging.

4)NetBeans comes with in-built support for and SQL, MySQL and Oracle drivers plus it includes some others too. So this definitely makes things easy for beginners. However Eclipse has JDBC driver support ? but it takes some serious time to configure the connection.

5)Netbeans editor is missing several Eclipse features. Spell check being one prominent one. Quick complete (Ctrl-K, Ctrl-J) is an underused Netbeans feature. Snippets being another (though they have an auto-complete template which fills a different, but similar niche).

The general opinions within the Java community about these two IDE are fairly similar. For basic Java (Java SE) development, they both offer comparable features. But if you have a specific purpose, one IDE might be slightly better than the other. For example, there is a general consensus that for developing on OSGi platform, Eclipse is the better option, while NetBeans is better for Java EE development.