DevelopmentProductivityProgrammingIDE

What are the best IDE for PHP?

3

Options
Considered

6

User
Recs.

Feb 11, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

3 Options Considered

Best IDE for PHP	Price	Cross Platform	Auto Complete
-- PhpStorm	89	Yes	Yes
-- NetBeans	-	Yes	Yes
-- SpaceVim	FREE	-	-

PhpStorm

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Top Pro

Lots of plugins

Lots of plugins from JetBrains and the community are available, from useful things like support for Docker, Vagrant, Angular, Vue.js and more useless (but fun) like a nyan cat progress bar. See More

Велимир Мајсторов's Experience

Really the best IDE i ever use for PHP (also for Java). See More

Specs

Cross Platform:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Multi Language Support:Yes

Top Pro

Templating support

Supports Twig and Laravel's Blade (among others). Technically the later is part of a framework which Phpstorm supports but I've seen IDEs (e.g. Netbeans) with Laravel support but no blade support so it does deserve a notable mention. See More

Top Pro

Excellent search tools

Especially the "find in path" feature that displays both results and file preview! See More

Top Pro

Database view

The database tab, while not perfect, provides all the tools you need for daily usage. You always have your DB overview on the side (you can hide it when not needed). See More

Top Pro

Built-in debugger

Has built in support for Xdebug including remote debugging. See More

Top Pro

Auto-sync with remote folders

It allows monitoring code and sync the files that need to be changed with a remote server. This works more efficiently than libnotify and faster than vagrant auto rsync. See More

Top Pro

Code Refactoring

Quickly rename classes, methods, and variables used across multiple files in the project. See More

Top Pro

Task/Context functionality

Similar to Eclipse Mylyn: you can create tasks or retrieve them from your ticketing system, and each task keeps its own context (opened files, modifications, etc.). See More

Top Pro

Emmet integrated

Top Pro

Regular updates for fixes and new features

PhpStorm is clearly being developed continually, which gives confidence that it will be available for some time and is not abandonware. See More

Top Pro

Integrated Vagrant support

It recognizes Vagrantfile and allows full control from the IDE. See More

Top Pro

Responsive core developers

Top Pro

Integrated Git GUI support

Allows users to manage their repositories directly from the IDE with a GUI which lets you do all Git commands. See More

Top Pro

Plugins allow futureproofing and customization

Active development work on plugins is always a plus, as it can extend the use of the IDE. See More

Top Pro

Phar package recognition

Phar support allows running complete applications out of .phar files. See More

Top Pro

External command support

Ability to setup custom external commands, which is something inherited from eclipse and found lacking on netbeans. See More

Top Pro

Inspections of all kinds

Not just for PHP, HTML and JavaScript, but especially good is SQL inspection and auto-completion of tables and fields. You can see at a glance, that your DB structure is in sync with your code. See More

Top Pro

PHPDoc support

PHPDoc is a documentation generator. It allows automatically generating documentation from specifically formatted comments. See More

Top Pro

Supports various PHP frameworks

Supports Symfony2 (including Twig and Doctrine), Yii frameworks, and Laravel. See More

Top Pro

Intelligent code completion

PhpStorm has two types of autocompletion: structural completion and word expansion. Structural autocompletion makes predictions based on its understanding of PHP, while the latter tries to predict the word currently being typed based on previously typed words. Word expansion also works in comments and docstrings and it's similar to vim's omnicompletion. Both types of autocompletion work extremely well, have little to no problems and are quite fast even when loading suggestions on the go. See More

Top Pro

It comes with Testing RESTful Web Services

Save time of building your own or integrating libraries for testing RESTful Web Services. PHPStorm enables you to test endpoints without leaving your workspace or disrupting your workflow . You can code your endpoints in one window and test it immediately from another window. See More

Top Pro

Zero latency typing

Type codes with pleasure. Delay of visual feedback on a computer display has an important effect on typist's behavior and satisfaction, as cited here. See More

Top Pro

Has built-in console and SSH clients

This allows execution of needed commands without switching to other windows. It also keeps track of what's happening right in the IDE, which is especially good with Vagrant, because you can connect to a VM in a single click. See More

NetBeans

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Top Pro

Best for PHP, HTML5 Apps Developemt

Richelly Italo's Experience

It's very simple. See More

Specs

Cross Platform:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Multi Language Support:Yes

Top Pro

Supports Twig templates

NetBeans provides code completion and documentation for all Twig elements. See More

Top Pro

PHPUnit support

PHPUnit is a testing framework. You can create test classes, run and see the code coverage directly from IDE interface. See More

Top Pro

FTP/SFTP synchronization

Supports synchronization with projects stored remotely through FTP or SFTP. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source, and cross-platform

NetBeans is a free, GPL-licensed IDE. It can run on any computer with a Java virtual machine. If a computer has a Java virtual machine (JVM), Netbeans can run on it. Netbeans can, therefore, run on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, *nix, and Mac OS. Being open source means that developers can contribute changes to the code to have the IDE better serve them. See More

Top Pro

Frameworks support

Supports Symfony1, Symfony2,Yii2 & Zend frameworks. See More

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