Update 2/8/2008: Since I posted this they shipped the release version and now intellisense is working beautifully. Over the last month NetBeans has become my go-to IDE for Rails.

I downloaded and started using NetBeans 6.10 Milestone 10 last night. I am thoroughly impressed! I’ve been using Aptana(RadRails) and Komodo Edit and although each is a decent Rails IDE, NetBeans has the better features by far. The Intellisense / Autocomplete crutch feature that I have become dependent on accustomed to is the best one I’ve seen for Rails so far. The intellisense for CSS and Ruby is good, but it doesn’t pick up Rails specific methods or objects.

Some of the features I have instantly enjoyed:

• I also love the CSS editor and it’s live element preview.
• It has a great way of displaying project files where you get the models, views and controllers folders up front and you still get the ability to look at the file structure in the normal way.
• I like the Subversion integration.
• It has a GUI front-end for managing Ruby Gems!
• One button click to run all tests
• An Action Navigator accessible within the controller – one click brings you to the action.

For a free editor, this IDE is a very nice option if you’re into Rails development!