Standards-Based Project System 

The NetBeans IDE uses industry-standards build technologies, which means you can build and run your projects outside the IDE exactly the same as inside the IDE. You can import Eclipse and JBuilder projects. Imported Eclipse projects stay synchronized with their original when you modify them in Eclipse.

Java projects use the non-proprietary Apache Ant 1.8 by default. Additionally, the NetBeans IDE can open and create Maven projects. C and C++ projects use make.

Hudson Continuous Build Server

The NetBeans IDE supports Hudson continuous build servers for Maven and (Ant-based) Java SE project types; the project files can be versioned using Subversion or Mercurial.

Use the Services window to add a Hudson server; in a Maven project, configure your pom.xml file to point to the Hudson server and NetBeans connects automatically. To start continous build jobs, right-click a Hudson Builder node in the Services window, or create a new job using the Team menu.

Hudson Status Reports

Browse your hosted jobs, builds, workspaces, and artifacts, and inspect the build console in the IDE's output window. When a build fails you are notified immediately in the IDE's status bar.

To find out why a job failed, right-click a build node and inspect stack traces for all failed tests. You can also view the changelog and browse file diffs in a user-friendly way, right inside the IDE.

Apache Maven Projects 

The NetBeans IDE supports Apache Maven 2 and Maven 3, a software project tool to manage a project's dependencies, build, reporting and documentation. Open, build, run, profile and deploy your existing Maven projects, or create new ones based on Maven Archetypes. Use the context menu to quickly update the POMs of projects hosted on java.net.

Use the Maven integration for Java SE, web applications, Groovy and Scala projects, Java EE 6 and EJB projects, including full support for JAX-WS Web Services. It's now easier to register an application server for Java EE projects, and select web frameworks such as Spring or Struts. You can configure the JDK with which the Maven build will be executed.

Use the Maven Checkstyle plugin to bootstrap code formatting rules in the Project properties. The editor supports Compile On Save / Deploy on Save and includes a new Quick Fix hint that helps you identify artifacts in repositories that contain unknown classes or interfaces.

Apache Maven POM Editor

When running, testing, or debugging, the IDE executes Maven goals from your pom.xml file, or you can remap custom Maven goals to IDE actions. Your productivity will benefit from the code completion, code templates, documentation popups, code generators and hyperlinking when modifying your pom.xml, settings.xml, or profiles.xml files in the XML editor.
Creating an Enterprise Application Using Maven

Apache Maven Library Dependency Management 

View library dependencies, runtime dependencies and test library dependencies: the listing distinguishes transitive versus direct dependencies, and marks the local availability of javadoc and sources.

The Maven Repository Browser displays the contents of your local repository and any remote repositories that are used in your open projects. You can add your own repositories, search for artifacts and add artifacts as dependencies to projects.

You can use the menu actions to download all library sources, install artifacts, sources or javadocs, remove direct dependencies and exclude transitive dependencies. If meta-info is available, you can navigate to the library home page.

Apache Maven Library Dependency Graph

The Artifact Details Viewer shows artifact info, artifact project info, a list of direct dependencies, and a graph of transitive dependencies. The Library Dependency Graph is a great tool that identifies and fixes version conflicts. You can now add proper dependency exclusions to the project pom.xml using the Exclude context-menu on an artifact.