5 Best Development Environments (IDEs) For PHP

It is absolutely possible to start PHP programming with a simple text editor like Notepad. However, it is more convenient to use a feature-rich and complete development environments (IDE) like Zend Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse PHP Development Tools, PHPStorm, or Sublime Text, especially when it comes to professional web development. You can find out why and what advantages and disadvantages are associated with it here.

A good IDE contains many useful functions that enable rapid development and effective PHP programming. There are several cross-platform IDEs that are supported on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Some are free to download and some are commercial products. Here’s a quick rundown of the 5 best development environments (IDEs) for PHP:
 

 

What is Zend Studio?

 
Zend Studio is an excellent commercial PHP IDE that was developed by the American software company Zend Technology. The development environment is aimed at professional web developers.
 

Features of Zend Studio

Zend Studio is supported on Windows, OS X, and Linux and works with the latest PHP versions, including PHP 7. The IDE has an intuitive user interface and most of the modern features and tools needed to accelerate PHP and web development generally contribute. An interesting and powerful feature of Zend Studio is support for mobile app development in addition to existing PHP apps and the server backend.
 

Advantages and disadvantages of Zend Studio

Zend Studio benefits include:

• Faster performance when validating, indexing, and searching PHP code.
• Debug with Zend Debugger, Xdebug, and integration with Z-Ray.
• Support for the Eclipse plugins ecosystem.
• Docker and Git Flow support.
• Intelligent code editor that supports PHP, Javascript, CSS and HTML.
• Cloud support for Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS.
• Support for PHP 7 Express Migration and seamless integration with the Zend Server.

Disadvantage:

• Complex and difficult to learn
• Not backward compatible with its own earlier version
• A bit slow

 

Features of NetBeans PHP version

 
NetBeans is the PHP IDE most suitable for beginners. The development environment is feature-rich, free, and supports multiple languages. The free version of NetBeans date from 2010. NetBeans has been downloaded more than 18 million times since it was released. The IDE has one of the largest communities of developers who are continuing to develop the integrated open source development environment.

The current stable version of NetBeans is lightweight, very fast, and supports everything PHP needs. The software also works with other PHP frameworks such as Zend, Doctrine, Smarty, WordPress CMS, and Symfony2.
 

Advantages and disadvantages of NetBeans

The advantages of NetBeans PHP Version include:

• HTML, Javascript, CSS, editors.
• Integration with app servers or web containers (Glassfish by default).
• Integration of control version systems.
• Automatic deployment of your application and debugging.

Disadvantage:

• Many plug-ins that are often not needed.
• Low adaptability, unneeded plug-ins cannot be uninstalled.
• The debugger is very slow compared to IntelliJ or Eclipse.

 

What is Eclipse PHP Development Tools?

 
Eclipse PDT (PHP Development Tools) is another open source option that is available for free. Eclipse has a huge community of developers working on all kinds of plug-ins to add functionality to Eclipse that other IDEs like PHPStorms, NetBeans, and Zend Studio offer. The Eclipse package for PHP developers offers PHP language support, XML editor, Git client and the Mylyn user interface. The download is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

Some of the main features are syntax highlighting, code support, code formatting, refactoring, code templates, code navigation, PHP debugging, syntax validation, and an Eclipse ecosystem with a huge community to support. Eclipse PHP Development Tools is suitable for beginners because there is no license fee to be paid. The wide variety of plugins available for Eclipse make it a valuable tool for Java, web development, UML modeling, and more.
 

Advantages and disadvantages of the Eclipse PHP development tools

The Eclipse PHP Development Tools offer the following advantages:

• Free to use
• Fast and safe development
• Active community

Disadvantage:

• Very slowly

What is PHPStorm?

 
PHPStorm is a commercial IDE for PHP and has the most modern features that enable fast web development. The IDE is developed and marketed by the company JetBrains. JetBrains is one of the most popular companies in the developer tools market, making programming easier and more enjoyable for developers for 15 years.
The IDE keeps up with the latest trends in PHP and web languages and includes a variety of modern tools and is individually expandable. PHPStorm is very popular. Big brands like Expedia, Yahoo, Cisco, Salesforce, and Wikipedia have acquired PHPStorm IDE licenses in the past. A trial version can be tried out free of charge for 30 days.
 
 

Properties of PHPStorm

PHPStorm works well with major frameworks like Symfony, Zend Framework, Yii, CakePHP, Laravel, and with major CMS systems like Drupal, Magento, and WordPress.

Any web development project is incomplete without front-end technologies and this is where PHPStorm shines most. The IDE offers live editing for almost all front-end technologies such as CSS, Sass, HTML5, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, JavaScript, Stylus, Less, etc. With help for code refactoring, debugging, and unit testing.
 

Advantages and disadvantages of PHPStorm

PHPStorm offers the following advantages:

• Automatic generation of helper functions such as autocomplete and tooltips from a project’s PHPDoc comments.
• Easy configuration of popular PHP debugging tools that work even when running in a virtual machine.
• Simple plugin and template formats that allow centrally managed teams to easily customize the environment.

Disadvantage:

• Loading large code files can be slow in PHPStorm, especially if there hasn’t been time to parse and cache all of the metadata.

What is Sublime Text?

 
Sublime Text is a powerful text editor and PHP IDE. It’s lightweight, feature-rich, and supported on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. The functionality of the Sublime text editor can be expanded and adapted using plug-ins. In practice, there are many PHP plug-ins that help turn Sublime Text into an elegant PHP development environment. These include, for example, a package control, Sublime PHP companion, xDebug client – CodeBug, PHPCS, CodIntel, Simple PHPUnit, and PHPDoc.
 

Properties of Sublime Text

Sublime Text is made up of custom components and is very responsive. Projects in Sublime Text capture all of the contents of the workspace, including changed and unsaved files.

Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit optimized for speed and beauty, taking advantage of native functionality on each platform. The editor is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Users only require one license to use Sublime Text on any computer.
 

 

Advantages and disadvantages of Sublime Text

• Easy editing of the PHP code
• Easy to navigate
• Functionality can be expanded
• Multi-line editing possible
• Beginner-friendly
• Many plug-ins available

Disadvantage:

• Not open source
• Some plug-ins are faulty
• Large files are slow to load (Windows)
• Not a full IDE

Conclusion:

PHP is the most popular and comprehensive programming language for website development. The job of a PHP IDE is to accelerate web development with manageable and scalable code. The PHP IDEs presented here to offer a very good approach for efficient PHP programming; almost all of them are available in different versions. When making your selection, it is important to look carefully and select the IDE that best suits your individual requirements.
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