When comparing Eclipse PHP Development Tools vs CodeLite IDE, 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 CodeLite IDE is ranked 23rd. 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/).
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Pros
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.
Pro Advanced support for all popular framework
Including Laravel, WordPress, Drupal, jQuery, Bootstrap and so on
Pro Modest memory footprint
CodeLite takes up about 50 MB when loaded into memory with a workspace opened.
Pro Open source and free
CodeLite is licensed under GPL with source code available on GitHub.
Pro Extensive plugin support
Git, SFTP, Subversion, and many more plugins are fully supported in CodeLite IDE.
Pro Rapid development cycle
CodeLite is actively developed with activity almost daily on Github.
Pro Workspace view reminiscent of File Explorer
The workspace view, unlike other IDEs, is a reflection of the actual directory structure on the file system (with user filters applied).
Pro Excellent Node.js debugger
This makes fixing issues more efficiently and debugging code less painful.
Pro Intelligent code completion
Cons
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.
Con Bland UI
The UI is fairly boring and has limited customization options. There is a dark theme available; however it only applies to the editor. The surrounding windows and borders remain light. You can see a collection of screenshots here.