The use of an IDE eliminates a lot of efforts that go in web development. A PHP language aware editor can certainly help you focus your attention on a real job. Some of these IDE is very popular and used by thousands of PHP developers and programmers on a regular basis.
In order to get success in developing PHP sites, it is necessary to have a good development environment. While producing web sites it is often necessary to edit HTML, CSS and JavaScript files. That is why usable IDE should supply all those file types and provide a full set of tools for effective development.
PHP is one of the most popular web programming languages on the planet. The open source community of PHP has contributed many good tools for developers productivity, however, there is no one size fits all. Every project is unique and the requirements and preferences of developers are different.
This article includes a list of some most popular PHP IDEs: Codelobster PHP Edition, Eclipse PDT, Komodo IDE, NetBeans IDE, PHPStorm, NuSphere PhpED.
Below are the best PHP IDEs in our opinion, (not necessarily in any order)
Codelobster PHP Edition
Codelobster PHP Edition is accessible from CodeLobster Software. CodeLobster PHP maintains a Windows platform. Plug-ins are not free but the registration is absolutely free. CodeLobster makes possible to install the debugger automatically. To get help on how to configure the debugger, please, visit the official site. You have an ability to deploy projects on your local web server or remote server by FTP. By downloading free version of the mentioned software you get PHP, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code highlighting; JavaScript, HTML, PHP, and CSS code collapsing; HTML and CSS autocomplete; PHP and JavaScript Advanced autocomplete; HTML toolbar; Bookmarks; PHP Debugger; Context and Dynamic Help with search functionality for work with PHP, MySQL, HTML; Portable option; Pair highlighting; Pair selection, tags and attributes selection commands; Tooltip; Navigation by holding CTRL key; HTML/CSS code inspector; Class View; Project manager; Preview in a browser; File Explorer with FTP/SFTP support; Incremental find and other possible functionalities of similar programs. These plug-ins allow operating with famous CMS and Frameworks: Facebook, CakePHP, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, Smarty, JQuery, Symfony, CodeIgniter, Yii.
Eclipse PDT
Eclipse is designed to allow developers to choose the language, platform, and vendor environment. Eclipse Platform includes a wide range of plug-ins, tools, and examples. Eclipse is a program that makes available to construct, integrate, and use software tools. Supported operating systems: Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Installation includes all necessary tools to elaborate on PHP. It also involves Data Tools Platform to control the databank, plug-ins for interaction with JavaScript, C / C + +, XML editor, and other different tools. You can use Zend debugger or Xdebug for Debugging PHP applications on Eclipse PDT.
Komodo ActiveState
Komodo ActiveState is a PHP IDE that can be used as an international language development environment and supply Ruby, Perl, and Tcl Python. It can be installed using Smarty and Zend PHP frameworks. You can also use integration involving version control systems (CVS, Subversion and Perforce). Supported operating systems: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Komodo allows you to begin CGI Environment Simulation and construct web server holodeck. It simulates activities on a real web server. One of the advantages of CGI Environment Simulation is a very fast installation. It is possible to download free 21-day version of Komodo from ActiveState site.
PhpStorm
PhpStorm provides qualitative and rich facilities for PHP code editing including highlighting, the conformation of code formatting, fast error checking, intensive code autocomplete. PhpStorm editor is compatible with PHPDoc in your code and provides appropriate code ending based on proprietary, device and var annotations. PHP code refactoring also reviews PHPDocs to keep them up-to-date. Supported operating systems: Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. PhpStorm is focused on developer’s productive capacity that profoundly co-operates your code, assures smart code ending, quick navigation and very fast error checking. It will help you to form your code, run unit-tests or perform full debugging. PhpStorm is an IDE for HTML, JavaScript, and PHP. PhpStorm code ending functionality (Ctrl + Space) completes classes, functions, variable names, PHP keywords, and besides often used names for fields and variables depending on their types.
NuSphere PhpED
NuSphere PhpED works on Windows environment. If NuSphere is certificated you can use IDE with OS MAC or Linux via Wine emulator. Supported operating systems: Windows 2000, XP, 2003, 2008, Vista, Windows7. PhpED is provided with Advanced PHP Editor, PHP Debugger and PHP Profiler, Code Insight, Database Client, Integrated Help System, Code Insight. It completely supports JavaScript, HTML, CSS, XML, SMARTY, XHTML and others. IDE maintains PHP from 4.2 to 5.3 version and the Editor – from features and variables to spaces and aliases, Dynamic Syntax Highlighting, Multiple Language Syntax Highlighting, Auto Highlight variables, etc. IDE PhpED provides customers with a lot of tools and features useful for elaboration on PHP. There is a database management client, separate window to manage Telnet or SSH connections, NuSOAP window to work with web services. PhpED supports its own embedded web server adjusted in IDE, but the server is available for small applications only. Full web applications should be adjusted on the outer web server. Debuggers PhpED, DBG can interact with Apache, IIS, web server which maintains standard PHP utilization.
Zend Studio
Zend Studio is one of the very comprehensive PHP IDE available. It has very powerful PHP and Javascript debugging, team collaboration and remote server tools. The Zend studio is one of the highest priced PHP IDEs, though it has a free version however that does not come with very good features.
+2 Open Source Free PHP IDEs
NetBeans IDE(Free)
Elaboration of NetBeans IDE is performed by independent NetBeans community and NetBeans Org Company. Oracle maintains and invests in NetBeans IDE. The program allows editing several files at once by dividing the screen into several parts. In order to do it, you need to open two files and drag a marker of any file to the bottom of the screen. Then you can see a red framework in the text box in the lower part of the screen. Supported operating systems: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. All the tools necessary for the construction of professional desktop, web, and mobile applications with the Java platform, C/C++, PHP, JavaScript, and Groovy are accessible. A library of free source codes is integrated for software developers. NetBeans IDE 7.0, produced with language supporting to elaborate on Java SE 7, supports GlassFish 3.1, Oracle Database, Maven 3, Oracle WebLogic, HTML 5.
Aptana Studio PHP Editor(Free)
Aptana Studio, Developed by Aptana Inc. is a leading open-source HTML editor and many people are not aware that it also comes with a PHP support. Aptana Studio is developed on the Eclipse platform. Supported operating systems: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It has inbuilt support for Smarty and the recent versions for Aptana also include a Debugger for PHP developers. Aptana Studio is built on top of the Eclipse platform and is very stable and powerful.
Summary
Most of the IDEs have the opportunity to add and parse any library or framework. After this well-read work autocomplete feature works for the corresponding classes. However Codelobster PHP Edition, thanks to a special plug-in, has a possibility to create PHP projects using many open source PHP frameworks automatically, add new modules and components, look-ahead Templates in special Theme Editor and serve Context with help original sites. The choice is yours!
There are a number of other productivity PHP IDEs too, besides the ones mentioned. Do let us know if you have used some other tools or plug-ins which you were impressed with.
Article Updates
- Updated on May 2019: Minor changes and updates to the introduction section. Images are updated to HTTPS.
Half of these are neiither free nor open source. What gives?
Open source?
Free?
@xkortazar – Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it. We will fix the heading.
using these type of cheap way will lead your blog to panda….
You never fixed it. PHPEd and PHPStorm only have time-limited trials that are free. You're sloppy and a liar.
Greg – I am sorry to see you disappointed with the post. The post includes NetBeans and Aptana which are free and open source. Unfortunately we did not find many free open source IDEs for PHP development therefore the list could not be huge. The post includes both paid and free IDEs to make it a significant list resource. The Title of the post is to include "with open source free options".
May be title is still misleading?
I would like to know the reason why you feel offended about this. Please feel free to suggest ways to improve this post/title. Do you know of other free open source options so we can include in the post of benefit of others.
BS article, half of these are not free for a start.
If you're going to mention commercial IDE's that's fine, if you state so clearly.
1. Misleading title
2. Incorrect information
3. You neglected to mention quite a few other IDE's out there
4. I see no evidence that you genuinely reviewed ANY of these IDE's
5. You are factually inaccurate in several cases
In summary, a garbage article!
If you're going to review free IDE's for PHP development then at least make sure they are free!!!
Also, if you are going to mention commercial IDE's, then how can you not have mentioned Zend Studio? While I'm not particularly recommending it, it's expensive, it is one of the more 'serious' IDE's used by many professional developers – including myself.
This article is utter garbage.
In addition to being useless you've got nothing but spam and BS replies, one of which looks suspiciously like you wrote it yourself 😉
If you're going to blog about PHP, at least show you know what you're talking about and DO YOUR RESEARCH.
Lazy, inaccurate and misleading artictle, utter BS.
If you want traffic for your blog then at least put the work in, otherwise you'll just get known as a spamming idiot. If you're not then amend this stupid article, you can't even get your facts straight.
Yes I am annoyed, this kind of BS article just wastes all of our time and clogs up the search engines with what is basically empty waffle.
You are now another one on my time waster list.
If you do mention commercial IDE's then at least mention Zend Server, which is at least a fully featured and 'serious' IDE that is cross platform.
Personally I use Aptana/Eclipse, because Zend Studio is stupidly priced.
At least check your facts and do your research before you post this type of article. It's a completely useless article to the novice or the experienced developer – I can't quite believe you think you can get away with such garbage.
There is enough garbage online, this is a fine example of a garbage article that is a complete waste of space.
FYI I've 20 years experience in software engineering, 15 years web development, so I have a qualified opinion.
Change that title, or change to free only IDE's, better still, steer clear of writing about stuff you clearly know nothing about!
A completely useless and poorly researched article!
@Xav – Thanks for sharing your opinion on this article. I have tried improving this article several times. However it still does not look qualifying. My research may not be as deep as yours since you have really extensive (20 years) of experience. I will take this as constructive feedback and try to improve on it in future.
This post has been shared on several places with misleading titles that has caused a lot of confusion for our readers.
Thanks for your comment and candid feedback. I appreciate it.
BTW – You have spotted two spammers on this post. Those comments are going to be deleted. We don't believe in posting self praising comment like this ourselves 😉
Added Zend Studio to the list. This is not necessarily in any order.
I have used Yii which is a part of Codelobster, I think it is one of the best PHP framework that has the ability to develop Web 2.0 applications. Really with the help of this my half of the work is done and even the time consumed in building any application is less.
Codelobster Site not working
kind remove it from the list
Thanks for the feedback Varun, looks like it has come up now. That may have been a glitch. I appreciate you letting us know.
greats tools, thanks
I am really happy with this article because it helped me to find a very good freeware program (Codelobster) to code my websites. So thank you very much!
You condesending idiots need to read the headline again. It doesn't say that all are are free or open source. Take your demeaning crap somewhere else.
I'm not sure why you tolerate these idiots. Simply delete the posts. They're losers who have nothing better to do.
Is there a better than Komodo Edit 7 ?
Thanks for these tools i have used notepad++ earlier times to edit the php code. I like to use open source now i got here in this post Net beans nice sharing
All your mentioned IDEs are good for PHP development but I suggest Eclipse which has Two plug-ins. The first, PHP IDE Project, is an Eclipse Foundation project, which means it is developed using the Eclipse Foundation's tools and processes.The other is PHPEclipse and is developed independently.
Very good programs, but I use netbeans for website php developing 🙂
Java lovers’ gona love it, Check it out…. JavaOne 2013 is apparently being held at Hyderabad this year as well (8-9 May) at the same place guys…. They have also started accepting registrations (check this: )I am definitely going to attend the Java One again. Last time I had a chance to help people at NetBeans Booth, thanks to Java One Team for that great favor. I know, Java and NetBeans community will definitely attend this prestigious nd great conference this year too…..
I search the php IDE for myself and find this article.I think it's informative for me. After tested, besides Notepad++ editor, I choose Codelobster and netbeans IDE for coding.
I think he's just grumpy…
Thanks for list out the PHP IDEs which is best for website developers,it's very helpful for the learners.now i got the idea by go through this information.
Great resource and list, will certainly be bookmarking this page.I’m glad everyone is finding this useful,Thank For Post….
I was searching for PHP IDE. Certainly looking for IDE which is similar to visual studio?
All the collections are nice. All your mentioned IDEs are good for PHP development but I suggest Eclipse which has Two plug-ins. The first, PHP IDE Project, is an Eclipse Foundation project, which means it is developed using the Eclipse Foundation's tools and processes.The other is PHPEclipse and is developed independently.
Hi Sachin,
I admire your calmness and friendly way. May some critics have a point or not, I like how you handle it.
Don't get discouraged.
Cheers,
Oliver
Hi, thank you for share the php editor lists.I am only using notepad++ and will try PHP editor above.
Codelobster is the best!
I have started learning php and searching for an good ide with every feature like in Microsoft Dot Net but does not get as much useful ide developed by Microsoft. Finally i have used Codelobster PHP Edition and i am very happy with its so much benefits and now making my own website using this IDE…Awesome share!
MUST TRY GEANY!!
"a small and fast IDE"
pls add this to your list 🙂 thanks
LOL
Has anyone else every used KoolPHPSuite? Definitely a good tool to use with your favorite framework for quickly building custom applications. Im pretty sure you can get it at http://www.koolphpsuite.com
LOLOL
I recommend aptana studio to create web pages