17 years helping Singaporean businesses
choose better software

About PhpStorm

A smart integrated development environment and editor for PHP and Web developers.

Learn more about PhpStorm

Pros:

A lot of plugins from the community marketplace to extend features and tweak the IDE UI.

Cons:

It starts to be a bit buggy and sluggish when using for a long time or with larger projects.

PhpStorm ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
4.5
Customer Service
4.5
Features
4.8
Value for Money
4.4

Likelihood to recommend

9.1/ 10

PhpStorm has an overall rating of <span class="">4.8</span> out 5 stars based on <span class="">144</span> user reviews on Capterra.

Have you used PhpStorm before?

Share your experiences with other software buyers.

Filter reviews (144)

Ritesh
Ritesh
front end developer in Nepal
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Amazing IDE

5.0 last year

Pros:

It has a great user interface. The version control is integrated very well. The keyboard shortcuts and code suggestion makes the software development very easy.

Cons:

The pricing could be a bit improved. Also it consumes the lot of computer memory.

Lee
Web Developer in UK
Marketing & Advertising, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

The best IDE I've used by a mile.

5.0 last year

Comments: Explained my overall experience with the pros of the software, it's a fantastic program.

Pros:

The versatility of PHPStorm is unrivalled, there's so many features that you don't even know you're using that help make day-to-day tasks easier. The ability to customise the appearance is a great bonus, along with being able to customise code structure and formatting so you can auto-format code with a keyboard shortcut, so every file created is formatted exactly the same.

Cons:

Honestly, there's not much I don't like. If I was to be fussy, I'd say there's potentially too many options, but my usage of PHPStorm is quite limited compared to some users, so they will likely benefit from those extra features.It does occasionally cause your system to slow down due to memory hogging, but it is only occasional, I see it as it's telling me to take a break.

Alternatives Considered: Adobe Dreamweaver and Visual Studio Code

Reasons for Choosing PhpStorm: I did a contract with an agency where their lead developer suggested it to me, best decision I made.

Switched From: Sublime Text

Reasons for Switching to PhpStorm: Mainly because it was recommended to me. But I had some experience with Dreamweaver, and wanted to try a new program.

Kyle
Kyle
Front End Developer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Excellent PHP-focused IDE

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: Overall, it was a positive experience, but I ultimately stopped renewing my license because VSCode works better as it allows me to stay within a single IDE for whatever my current development needs may be. If you're for sure only going to be doing PHP and PHP-adjacent languages, I doubt there's a better IDE than PhpStorm.

Pros:

It made working with PHP and WordPress about as easy as it can be with any IDE. It's nice that PhpStorm is solely for PHP which allows it to be leaner and more focused, versus, say, Eclipse or other jack-of-all-trades IDEs

Cons:

I don't work solely on PHP and while it's easy enough to do JavaScript and other PHP-adjacent languages in PhpStorm, for Rails work, I have to use VSCode.

Theodor
Theodor
Fullstack Developer in Lebanon
Verified LinkedIn User
Online Media, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

A must have for PHP Developers

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

In a shortcut, this is the best PHP IDE. Quick updates to various PHP versions. Auto completion help coding much faster and amazing compatibility with most Web coders like GitHub, Laravel framework and Dockers.

Cons:

Price is slightly increasing whenever you renew yearly instead of decreasing.

Christian
Christian
Programmer Analyst in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great PHP IDE

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: I use PhpStorm as my primary IDE for all my PHP related freelance projects. I use it with Laravel and Wordpress projects and am able to customize it for both types of projects quickly and easily.

Pros:

Clean, simple, customizable, and easy to use. It is loaded with features and has a vast array of plugins to extend functionality beyond what’s available “out-of-the-box”.

Cons:

Sometimes the indexing slows down my computer and if a project is not set up properly, it will consistently re-index after changes are made.

Alternatives Considered: Sublime Text

Reasons for Choosing PhpStorm: Features that PhpStorm offers makes Dreamweaver feel like an old text editor.

Switched From: Adobe Dreamweaver

Reasons for Switching to PhpStorm: PhpStorm is focused on making a great dev IDE for PHP related projects.

Irfan
Irfan
Senior Software Engineer in Pakistan
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Absolutely Wonderful Solution for PHP Development

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: As a PHP Developer I thank JetBrains for this wonderful product because It is a complete PHP IDE where I can develop, deploy, debug and even remotely debug. Great overall experience

Pros:

- A complete PHP development IDE with all the modern features an IDE must possess like Version control, Database access, Debugging are so good to have feature for PHP Development environment - Built with powerful features of IntelliSense which makes PHP Coding really great as well - Support for a number of themes and add-ons is great so developer can customize according to their own needs - SSH and terminal support is out of the box you don't need to switch to other terminal apps during your development like for using git commands in terminal or accessing SSH. - Support for saving files as templates is just awesome. Plus its coding suggestions to improve as per chosen coding standards and templates is great. - A large number of built-in keyboard shortcuts plus feature of adding custom short cuts is great - It has add-ons to support different PHP Frameworks. Which is great - Being a PHP Developer myself there are so many things to appreciate PHPStorm that I can even write a book about it

Cons:

- With a lot of good features there are some issues as well like it gets a bit slow while loading huge projects. That's because it indexes all files for faster search but sometimes if system is low on memory that can be very painful because it can get really slower - Some configurations like debugging configurations can be a bit more difficult for new users sometimes they might need to go through a lot of research to set up development environment with all features - It is not free or a bit expensive as compared to some other options available

Alternatives Considered: Sublime Text

Reasons for Choosing PhpStorm: NetBeans is good too but if you compare NetBeans with PHP Storm I would suggest to try PHP Storm and you will become its fans too and that's because of its extensive features.

Switched From: Apache NetBeans

Reasons for Switching to PhpStorm: That's because of its full features

César José
César José
Software Developer in Peru
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Expensive but worth it.

5.0 3 years ago

Pros:

PHPStorm integrates easily into your current work environment. Despite being a private development IDE, it has many tools and plugins that make it easy for the user to transition from their previous IDE to this one. It analyzes all your code in search of errors and teaches you how to optimize it, allowing the user to have a more efficient and clean code.

Cons:

To be a fairly powerful IDE, it consumes a lot of computer resources, which is why it is necessary to use a computer with good RAM and processing capacity if we want PHPStorm to work smoothly in it. In addition, its high cost makes it not accessible to any user, but in my opinion I consider it to be a cost worth paying.

Daniel
Daniel
Founder in Argentina
Verified LinkedIn User
Internet, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

PHPStorm is the best paid IDE I tried

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: It helped me wrote better code: code completion it's a breeze, syntax highlighting helps you a lot, documentation is superb. I created projects almost without effort, keeped it all very tidy and orderly.

Pros:

It has all the features the other IDEs have, and more. it's easy to integrate it with other tools.

Cons:

It could be expensive. It's learning curve may be steep.

Alternatives Considered: Apache NetBeans and Sublime Text

Reasons for Choosing PhpStorm: I needed something more robust to manage big projects

Switched From: Sublime Text

Reasons for Switching to PhpStorm: It has more an better features.

Kennedy
Kennedy
Web developer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

PhpStorm - The best PHP IDE

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: We use Phpstorm to code our web applications and it has drastically reduced the time our developers are building web applications and there are fewer programming errors thanks to phpstorm.

Pros:

The syntax highlighting is very good for PHP, HTML and Javascript. The User Interface is friendly and easy use. Keyboard shortcuts are available that speed up development. Phpstorm supports version control which makes going back to commits easy. Further, you can deploy your application to your server right from Phpstorm and integrates well with third party plugins such as Laravel IDE helper and there arelots of plugins from the official plugins repository that can be accessed from the IDE itself. There is also a student pack that gives free licences for a year to students to help them taste the full power of PHPstorm.

Cons:

The price is the only thing that I dont like about PHPstorm.

Alternatives Considered: Microsoft Visual Studio

Reasons for Switching to PhpStorm: Its elegance and features. Its also a mature IDE that has been in the market for long

Artem
Fullstack Developer in Ukraine
Information Technology & Services, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Magento 2 developer review

4.0 last year

Pros:

The best parts are:- Pretty easy to configure debug;- Integrated database connector;- Possibility to code via remote host using SSH;- Has a lot of plugins for Magento 2;- Has a lot of integrated environments (and also detects environment type).

Cons:

If You'll face with some newly released feature or driver (for example, databases like MySQL, MariaDB) it's possible that you'll face with connection issues

Lamrabet
engineer in Morocco
Computer Software, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

PhpStorm best Product for you

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

It's an Intelligent Code Editor, PhpStorm offers a powerful code editor with advanced features such as code completion, syntax highlighting, code formatting, and refactoring tools. It provides intelligent suggestions and auto-completion based on PHP language specifics, frameworks, and libraries.

Cons:

Nothing It the perfect product that i still have.

buddhi
Senior Software Engineer in Sri Lanka
Computer Software, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

PhpStorm since 2017.

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: When I was studying at the university, the language that I like the most was php. Those days I did coding with php using multiple different IDEs and finally ended up using phpStrom. The only IDE that I was satisfied with coding PHP was this.

Pros:

This has set of features like smart debugger, version controlling support, highlight the syntax issues and code smells, integration with other tools and plugins, availability of code templates. I love the easy navigation shortcuts.

Cons:

IDE uses resources of the machine since the php code base is somewhat large. So I felt some slowness those days.

Jérémie
Technical project manager in France
Computer Software, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

The time saved is clearly worth the price of PHPStorm

5.0 3 years ago

Pros:

I was very sceptical that paying for a tool would really change anything. I tried the free trial for 30 days, and I didn't hesitate. I even bought other software from the company because there is a real monitoring of the tool, the possibility to continue using the software via their fallback license system and a real monitoring of the trends in terms of Framework. These are all points that have made my daily life easier in my work. I have gained in productivity; but it is above all the gain in work comfort that I appreciate. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Cons:

The most negative point for me is the memory consumption. Combined with a Docker, 8GB of RAM quickly becomes saturated. A little effort on this side and it's perfect.

Alternatives Considered: Visual Studio Code

Switched From: Apache NetBeans

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

One of the best PHP IDEs out there

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: I absolutely love PHPStorm, I've been using it for a while now and I don't myself changing everyday. Initially I wanted to use it for the code completion in large projects but as I used it I realized it was great for productivity. Now it's not even a question that it our IDE of choice, I have so many good things to say about it, it's just amazing!

Pros:

I can do lots of things without even leaving the IDE, database, ssh, deployment, command line, git, testing, it is just packed with a lot of features The IDE's code completion is just so intelligent even when when dealing with projects with a certain level of abstraction. The code refactoring is also great as it makes it easy to changes lots of changes in one go. It has an option to use multiple cursors which is great for copying multiple statements at once or making multiple changes in one go. If you use other JetBrains products it's not even hard to learn. It has great support for Javascript platforms as well, such as node Every updates always has something to look forward to, I like the new user interface to design it somewhat reduced space wasted, the new look is much neater

Cons:

I feel like it uses a lot of memory and for me it takes a bit of time to open up which means I have to factor opening it into my time. I also feel like having an HTML preview without having to leave the IDE would definitely be great but I guess there may be some plugin to do that.

Wilco
Wilco
Webprogrammeur in Netherlands
Verified LinkedIn User
Program Development, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

The best software to manage PHP projects

4.0 5 years ago

Pros:

PhpStorm comes with a lot of built in features. It is easy to get started but you can also do some really advanced things if necessary. The autocompletion is really fast and good. The inline documentation lookup is very useful and makes programming a lot faster if you forgot what a method does exactly or how it should be used. It is also very accurate at giving type errors when needed, which is quite difficult with PHP since it is dynamically typed. It can also handle very large projects without becoming unresponsive or slow, even with searching through files.

Cons:

Sometimes PhpStorm interprets a variable as having a different type than it actually has when there are two classes in the project with the same name. Autocompletion of object functions only works when PhpStorm knows exactly the type of the variable. Sometimes it can be hard to find certain settings/options because of the large number of customizable settings.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

The best IDE for PHP based projects

5.0 3 years ago

Pros:

PHPStorm is made to support all PHP based projects even Laravel and CodeIgnitor. It indexes the entire project to provide autocomplete features and I find it the most productive IDE for PHP. I hate having multiple IDEs but for any PHP based, my goto is PHPStorm.

Cons:

The only con I find is that unlike VSCode, this doesn't have a very easy to use search in entire project feature. I prefer VSCode's search over this.

Ganeev
Software Developer in India
Computer Software, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Overpriced but one of the most astonishing IDE for PHP development.

4.0 2 years ago

Comments: I have been using it for almost 2 years now and it is the finest IDE for PHP projects. Highly Recommended.

Pros:

It gives an overall package needed for PHP development. We can customize themes according to our preference, install plugins needed to make coding simplified and fun. Integration with GitHub helps a lot and we can manage our code very easily. Multiple developers can work on a single license. Compare with clipboard and check local history of code are life saving features.

Cons:

It is high priced! If the license expires, it only gives you 30 minutes of usage time. It takes almost half of the memory, you will need a good configuration system to run big projects.

Ravindu
Ravindu
Software Engineer in Sri Lanka
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Phpstorm the best for PHP

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: I used code igniter and laravel frameworks with this software and its easy to use, show suggestions, easy to use. have built in terminal make it easy and saves time. supports git for very easy to commit and push.

Pros:

Fluctuating and Perforce source-control backing is recognizably better. Local history which gives control source like GIT, it record history on documents that aren't in source control. Code refactoring is easy and reliable and increasingly clever comprehension of code setting. Good customer service. Cross platform Support. Built in terminal saves time.

Cons:

Licence cost is high for some users. Not very light weight. Lacks in support for some new languages PreCSS etc.

Anton
Anton
Web Developer in Russia
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great IDE for WEB development

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: Tried this IDE when it was like 0.8 or 0.9 version and absolutely loved it. Use it everyday for develompent. It has all the functions I need, works with database, vcs, ftp, testing tools and allows to make http requests right from IDE. Currently I don't need any other tool for my work.

Pros:

Lots of useful and handy features, regular updates, stability, plugins and built-in functonality.

Cons:

Java-based, so can be slow in some situations

Joel
Joel
Software Engineer in Congo - Kinshasa
Verified LinkedIn User
E-Learning, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

The one perfect world IDE

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

The suite of features for code edition, like auto-completion, snippets and version control

Cons:

The cost of software and the RAM needed for run them

Permana
Permana
Backend Developer in Indonesia
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Standard IDE for PHP development

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: This software was able to improve productivity. There are warning if you're using deprecated code, and we can avoid using it because of this warning.

Pros:

Have support for Drupal 8 , Symfony framework, and general modern PHP development like composer, vagrant, docker. Run exactly like Apache NetBeans but with more features.

Cons:

Consume a lot of memory, but I think it is acceptable considering this is an IDE. Also a little bit complex for first time user.

Gihan
Gihan
Full Stack Developer in Sri Lanka
Verified LinkedIn User
Program Development, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

The best IDE for PHP & Web Development works

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: I use Phpstorm as my daily basis coding editor. I help me to complete my work quickly, and it easy to use. I highly recommended Phpstorm to Web Developers!

Pros:

PhpStorm has professional Interface. I love dark skin theme. The autocomplete feature helpful for fast coding. Also, it supported with different kinds of files like HTML, CSS and JS. So it can use for all type of Web development work. Also, it has a terminal tool. So I don't need to open the terminal separately. It important when I work with Laravel.

Cons:

There have no cons about the features and performance of this editor. Only thing is the price is a little bit high.

Michele
Michele
Developer in Italy
Verified LinkedIn User
Internet, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

A great software, a great experience

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: I use the software every day for several hours. It is absolutely the best experience I've ever had with a platform to develop the web!

Pros:

PhpStorm is a stable and full of feature software. Perfect to be the unique software you use to develop the wab cross-language

Cons:

I noticed some bugs about the AngularJS integration in a php file that includes HTML and I highlighted them but they haven't been fixed yet and the support team stopped to answer me

Robert
Producer in US
Music, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

For An Occasional Coder, It Makes It Much Easier

4.0 4 years ago

Comments: PhpStorm makes the process a lot easier for an occasional coder. The GUI and the workflow help me get in and out faster. It commands a slightly higher price because of this, but so far I've been finding that to be a fair trade off. As I am customizing/maintaining modules for some of my other business software with it, it is definitely worth having around.

Pros:

The Customer Support team is excellent, and the GUI, layout, and general workflow, while not revolutionary, feel particularly elegant compared to the competition. For a little background, I do some coding occasionally when I need to customize other software that I use. Though the items I listed are mainly cosmetic, workflow related, or have to do with the upkeep of the software, they can make a big difference when I'm only spending a little time in the program here and there.

Cons:

It is not the most affordable option last time I checked. I considered a few alternatives and made my judgement based on the UI and workflow, but it might be worth shopping around as this program does seem to carry a premium price for what it does. Aside from that, there are a few quirks with the refactoring system and docking system at times, but it's probably something a more experienced user wouldn't mind.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

PhpStorm Review

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: My experience with this software has been a fair one

Pros:

the software comes with several support packages for each language like HTMl, angular, VueJS and more thereby making it a very good development tool

Cons:

setting up its web server can prove a very tedious task if you are a beginner thereby not so much for ease of usage