Brackets vs PhpStorm

Brackets will automatically refresh the browser and load the latest saved version of a file open in the browser. This works with php as well. Editing a css will even highlight the tag that's currently being worked on. However, it only works with Chrome.

Brackets is easy on memory usage and it starts up quickly.

Brackets is entirely free and open source.

The functionality of Brackets can be extended via a simple-to-use extension manager. The extension manager also has a considerable number of extensions and themes.

A feature called "Quick Edit" allows the user to select a tag in (a html file, for example) and edit the associated style without switching over to the css document. It also supports SASS and LESS pre-processors.

Brackets is being actively maintained and developed.

Hovering over colors hex codes or image paths will pop up previews of corresponding colors and images.

Brackets supports drag and drop of text, as well as multi / rectangular selection.

The editor is built using html, css, and javascript, making it extendable by any front-end developer.

You can have your cursor independently on multiple lines and so creating templates and/or editing multiple things at once is really fast and easy.

Vim-style editing is already built in the text editor.

A default extension allows for the extraction of PSD resources, such as images and styles. There's good integration for placing extracted resources into source.

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.

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

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

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.

Has built in support for Xdebug including remote debugging.

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It recognizes Vagrantfile and allows full control from the IDE.

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.

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.).

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

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