PhpStorm vs Visual Studio Code

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!

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality.

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript.

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript.

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered.

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal.

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well.

Released under the MIT License.

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created.

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code.

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily.

ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style.

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript.

It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes.

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse.

All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need.

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable.

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows.

It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option.

Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension.

The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support.

It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it.

These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed.