When comparing PSPad vs Eclipse PHP Development Tools, the Slant community recommends Eclipse PHP Development Tools for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs or editors for PHP?” Eclipse PHP Development Tools is ranked 3rd while PSPad is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Eclipse PHP Development Tools is:
Eclipse has a huge community developing plugins that can then be found on the [marketplace](http://marketplace.eclipse.org/).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free
PSPad is completely free to download and use.
Pro Simple and small
PSPad is simple, small, and lightweight. It's also quite fast.
Pro Code highlighting for many languages
PSPad supports code highlighting for several languages.
Pro Portable version
Pro Column mode
Editing in column mode.
Pro Integrated HEX editor
Pro Accented words
In PSPad, the user can add accents to words.
Pro Integrated FTP client
Pro Access to a wide variety of Eclipse plugins
Eclipse has a huge community developing plugins that can then be found on the marketplace.
Pro Free, cross-platform
PDT is available for free on Windows, OSX and Linux.
Pro Modular architecture offers flexibility in setup
Since Eclipse is highly modular by design, relying heavily on plugins for functionality it can be set up so that it includes only the necessary functionality and nothing else.
Pro A plethora of configuration options
Each component of Eclipse can be configured separately offering fine grained control.
Pro Syntax highlighting
Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT) has such good syntax highlighting for PHP, CSS, HTML.
Pro Syntax validation
You would not be regret for having PDT as you IDE choices for PHP Development. It will help you validate your PHP code without you worry it will be wrong.
Pro Remote Xdebug possible
If you are running your PHP in an Docker-Container you can easily connect Xdebug remotly with Eclipse.
Cons
Con Windows only
It's only available for Windows.
Con No code folding
Does not support code folding.
Con No content assist
Con Doesn't support blade files
Con You need big memory of RAM
You need at least 4GB Ram for get the fastest PDT if you plan to use it as your PHP tools.
Con Configuring Eclipse is time-consuming
Setting up Eclipse can be difficult. Each section and each plugin of Eclipse has its own preferences that together add up to lots of tweaking.