Zend Studio vs Geany
When comparing Zend Studio vs Geany, the Slant community recommends Geany for most people. In the question“What are the best IDEs or editors for PHP?” Geany is ranked 8th while Zend Studio is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose Geany is:
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Notices about unused code
Unused variables or namespace uses. Variables only defined orasigned but never used. A lot of warning and notices that allow you to have clean code.
Pro Tightly integrated with Zend Server
Pro Zend Framework integration
Pro Light and fast
Geany is very lightweight thanks to the smaller offering of features.
Pro Built-in plugin manager
Geany has a built-in plugin manager which can be used to install plugins and add new powerful features to the editor.
Pro Quick search on large files
In Geany you technically search once for a whole search query, unlike Gedit, where once you start typing, the file is searched for in accordance with each substring of what you're typing, all the while leading to terribly annoying lag.
Pro Cross platform
Geany is a cross platform editor, very similar to Notepad++ in Windows.
Pro Build in terminal
Press F5 and code will run without the need to switch between windows.
Pro Actively developed Free (as in freedom) Software
This software respects your freedom.
Pro Real syntax parsing (not just coloring)
Hence it is capable of showing the methods and inner classes of, e.g., a Java source file.
Pro Simple project management
Pro Native
It is a real app and not another frankenstein web/electron app. This means it runs great and doesn't extraordinary amounts of RAM.
Pro Options in the menu are easy to find
For example, there is an easy way to change the font and theme in the View menu. No need to search through several syntax styles like in Notepad++ just to be able to change the used font.
Cons
Con Expensive
Con Used to be quite good, but left behind by PhpStorm in terms of functionality.
Used Zend Studio for many years, forking out lots of money to do so. Since Zend stopped offering Zend Server as a free edition, I switched to PhpStorm. The difference is amazing - PhpStorm is so much nicer to use, and has many more time-saving and code-improving features. For a start, PhpStorm knows all about Drupal coding standards, and Drupal as a content management framework. It even spots when you create a project that uses Drupal: two clicks later you are configured for Drupal coding style and you have automatic code completion for Drupal hook functions!
Con Javascript is broken in version 13.6
Con Not very advanced
Although it has some IDE features, it is not as advanced as some other text editors that can be extended to contain IDE functionality.
Con Windows installer not digitally signed
Con Not many third-party plugins
Geany is not as popular as some other text editors with plugin support. As such it's understandable that it's missing lots of powerful plugins available in other editors.