NEI can cheat things in if you want it to, but it does have a recipe mode which only shows you the recipes for things. NEI has much greater support mod wise, so you could see things like IC2's ore washing plant recipes, EnderIO's SAG mill recipes and thermal expansion's machine recipes. NEI is like craft guide, but better 
NEI has 3 modes, cheat mode, utility mode and recipe mode.
In the version i am using i was able to switch modes, but it didn't make a difference. the behavior of NEI seemed to be only dependant on the game type(creative/survival). In recipe mode NEI should only show recipes. In cheat mode it gives you the items when you click on it.
There are also the keys U for use and R for recipe. With them you can look up recipes/uses in cheat mode, too
NEI can cheat things in if you want it to, but it does have a recipe mode which only shows you the recipes for things. NEI has much greater support mod wise, so you could see things like IC2's ore washing plant recipes, EnderIO's SAG mill recipes and thermal expansion's machine recipes. NEI is like craft guide, but better
crafting guide does show ore washing.. what does it do better that makes it more valuable to a survival mode? ( IE it should recognize your in that mode and not allow spawning of items)
NEI is not really better than Craft Guide and shows the same recipes, machines included. It's just different.
Guide
appreciate it
I used Crafting Guide for better then wolves, since NEI uses forge.
I use craft guide. Forge or not
I use NEI because of it can show you a machine's GUI that can make you do it easy
also I change the config to lock NEI mode so that's fine.
