PhpStorm vs Coda

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

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Has built in support for Xdebug including remote debugging.

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

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

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.

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

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.

It recognizes Vagrantfile and allows full control from the IDE.

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.).

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

Makes styling a site in CSS simpler.

Publishing your changes to the web server is a one-click operation. That is, one click per file, or one click for all your changed files. Or even cherry-pick the files to be published in the next batch.

Although the software doesn't ship with these libraries, it does work once you have one installed.

Coda has been developed by Panic exclusively for Mac since 2007. The experience of the developers shows in the stability and polish of their product.

There is a huge library of user-created plugins, ranging from additional syntax modes, to code validation and beautification, to reference materials, code snippets, text actions and more.