BZ Research has released its latest survey of Java tools. Let’s start with the caveats:

• The survey is based only on subscribers to SD Times.
• Out of 19,623 subscribers invited to take part, only 758 (3.9%) completed the questionnaire.

I’m not surprised: I get bombarded with requests to take part in surveys, and rarely do so. Even so the results are interesting, and the year-on-year comparisons may be indicative of trends.

On to the results (note that percentages are non-exclusive so sum to more than 100):

• Eclipse increased its usage slightly to 69.6%; NetBeans climbed to 2nd place with 23.3% (up from 17.9%).
• Oracle’s JDeveloper is up from 15% to 19%.
• IBM RAD has a decent showing, up from 10.8% to 19.5%, not far behind its WSAD at 22.1%.

The survey also covers app servers. Here, all the shares are down, implying more diverse usage than last year. WebSphere is first with 36.9%, then JBoss with 32 %, then BEA WebLogic at 23.7%. Oracle and Sun are 4th and 5th.

Overall, nothing dramatic to report, though the gain for NetBeans shows that Sun’s investment in this IDE is having some success.

CodeGear’s JBuilder doesn’t feature in the top 5, nor does the excellent IntelliJ IDEA.