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PhpStorm vs PyCharm: What are the differences?

Introduction

PhpStorm and PyCharm are two popular Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) used by developers. While both are developed by JetBrains and support multiple programming languages, there are key differences between the two.

  1. Language Support: PhpStorm is primarily designed for PHP development and provides comprehensive support for PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. On the other hand, PyCharm is specifically built for Python development and offers robust features, code analysis, and integration with popular Python frameworks like Django and Flask.

  2. Features and Bundled Plugins: PhpStorm comes with a wide range of features tailored for web development, including code completion, code analysis, debugging tools, version control integration, and database tools. It also provides a variety of bundled plugins for popular PHP frameworks. PyCharm, on the other hand, offers advanced Python-specific features such as code completion, intelligent code refactoring, debugging, testing tools, virtual environments, and support for scientific libraries like NumPy and Pandas.

  3. UI and Customization: PhpStorm has a more extensive user interface with multiple panels and tool windows, allowing developers to have a comprehensive overview of their project. It also provides a high level of customization options to tailor the IDE according to individual preferences. In contrast, PyCharm has a cleaner and simpler interface with a focus on Python-specific development tools and features.

  4. Community Edition Availability: PhpStorm is a commercial IDE and is not available for free. It requires a paid license to access all its features. PyCharm, on the other hand, offers a free Community Edition that provides essential Python development features. However, PyCharm also offers a Professional Edition with additional advanced features for Python development, which requires a paid license.

  5. Java Development Support: PhpStorm provides limited support for Java development, allowing developers to work on Java projects. It includes essential tools and features for Java coding, such as code completion, refactoring, and debugging. In contrast, PyCharm does not offer native support for Java development and is primarily focused on Python development.

  6. Web Development Support: While both PhpStorm and PyCharm offer web development support, PhpStorm has a more extensive set of features specifically designed for web development. It includes support for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with advanced tools for code completion, debugging, and integration with popular web frameworks and libraries. PyCharm, although it provides web development support, primarily focuses on Python-specific web development frameworks like Django and Flask.

In Summary, PhpStorm is specialized for PHP development, offers comprehensive language support, and provides advanced web development features. PyCharm, on the other hand, is specifically built for Python development, offers Python-specific tools and features, and has a free Community Edition available.

Advice on PhpStorm and PyCharm
christy craemer
Needs advice
on
EclipseEclipseIntelliJ IDEAIntelliJ IDEA
and
PyCharmPyCharm

UPDATE: Thanks for the great response. I am going to start with VSCode based on the open source and free version that will allow me to grow into other languages, but not cost me a license ..yet.

I have been working with software development for 12 years, but I am just beginning my journey to learn to code. I am starting with Python following the suggestion of some of my coworkers. They are split between Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA for IDEs that they use and PyCharm is new to me. Which IDE would you suggest for a beginner that will allow expansion to Java, JavaScript, and eventually AngularJS and possibly mobile applications?

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Replies (12)
Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Pycharm is great for python development, but can feel sometimes slow and community version has Somme very annoying restrictions (like they disabled jupyter notebooks plugin and made it premium feature). I personally started looking into VS Code as an alternative, and it has some very good potential. I suggest you take it into account.

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Recommends
on
PyCharmPyCharm

The Community version of PyCharm is free and should give you what you need to get started with Python. Both PyCharm and IntelliJ are made by JetBrains. IntelliJ is initially focused on Java but you can get plugins for lots of other things. I subscribe to JetBrains' Toolbox: https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox-app/ and have access to all of their great tools.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Hi, I will give my opinion based on my experience. I have used PyCharm, both community and Professional version. The community has limited functions, like you can't use a Jupyter notebook whereas it's available in the Professional version. PyCharm is slower compared to Visual Studio Code. Also Visual Studio Code is an editor which supports various languages. I myself have used both Visual Studio Code and PyCharm. I feel Visual Studio Code would be better choice. You may as well decide based upon your requirements.

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Charles Nelson
Recommends
on
IntelliJ IDEAIntelliJ IDEA

I couldn't imagine using a development tool other than the IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate All Products Pack. A single license allows me to work directly on my server running Ubuntu and/or my workstation running Windows 10 Pro simultaneously. My current project uses HTML, W3CSS, JavaScript, Java, Groovy, Grails, C, GO, Python, Flask, and Rust. For me it's worth every penny of the $150 license fee. And you can try it for free.

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Ivan Martinez Morales
Software Engineer Intern · | 4 upvotes · 698.6K views
Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I'd personally recommend Visual Studio Code as it gives you the flexibility of working in any language, so long as there are extensions to support it. It gives you the flexibility to learn Python, venture into Java, Javascript, and eventually AngularJS, and potentially mobile applications. It's also free and you can install it on your personal computer. I think Visual Studio Code would serve your intended use case best.

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awesomebanana2018
Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Visual Studio code is easy to use, has a good UI, and a large community. Python works great with it, but unlike some other editors, it works with most languages either by default or by downloading a plugin. VS Code has built in linting, syntax coloring, autocompletes (IntelliSense), and an api for plugins to do there own tooling.

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Isaac Povey
Casual Software Engineer at Skedulo · | 3 upvotes · 698.8K views
Recommends
on
IntelliJ IDEAIntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ really is the best for Java, I switched from eclipse years ago and never looked back. As for javascript, python and angular either using the standalone products from jetbrains (pycharm for python, webstorm for js) or installing the relevant plugins for InteliJ will be your best bet. Pycharm etc. are really just InteliJ with some additional plugins installed.

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Pranshu Verma
Engineer at Cisco Systems · | 3 upvotes · 698.7K views
Recommends
on
PyCharmPyCharm

If you starting with Python then PyCharm is better. For Java I would suggest to go with IntelliJ IDEA but people also prefer eclipse so I would say try both and then decide. For JS/Angular/React I would suggest go with VSCode. I personally use it and prefer as its light weight and have good integration with chrome for frontend development.

PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA are both products of JetBrains. They have a free (limited feature) and paid edition. Eclipse is free. VSCode is also free.

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Brian Turner
System Architect at Mary's Watch, Inc. · | 1 upvotes · 698.6K views
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on
IntelliJ IDEAIntelliJ IDEA

Easy to learn and everything you need

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Pritam Nandy
Engineering Manager at Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited · | 1 upvotes · 646.1K views
Recommends
on
PyCharmPyCharm

This is a very easy to use tool and gives you the opportunity to start coding right after the installation with almost everything setup automatically by the tool.

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Recommends
on
PyCharmPyCharm

Pycharm is all you need to get start coding in python or any of its framework. Its an awesome tool you should give it a try :)

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Recommends
on
PyCharmPyCharm

All three are great, however, I believe that IntelliJ IDEA's multiple IDE's are slightly more straight-forward and more up-to date than Eclipse. If I had to choose one specifically for Python projects I would go with PyCharm.

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Johnny Bell

When I switched to Visual Studio Code 12 months ago from PhpStorm I was in love, it was great. However after using VS Code for a year, I see myself switching back and forth between WebStorm and VS Code. The VS Code plugins are great however I notice Prettier, auto importing of components and linking to the definitions often break, and I have to restart VS Code multiple times a week and sometimes a day.

We use Ruby here so I do like that Visual Studio Code highlights that for me out of the box, with WebStorm I'd need to probably also install RubyMine and have 2 IDE's going at the same time.

Should I stick with Visual Studio Code, or switch to something else? #help

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Replies (15)
Erik Ostrom
Recommends
on
RubyMineRubyMine

If you're working with both Ruby and JavaScript, buy RubyMine and shut down the other two. It's much better for Ruby than Visual Studio Code is. It can also do everything WebStorm does, if you install the plugins you need from JetBrains, and they all work together nicely.

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Marc Swikull
Recommends
on
RubyMineRubyMine

If you install RubyMine, you shouldn't need WebStorm, as all the functionality of WebStorm appears to be included in RubyMine. (See here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/132950).

I've used PhpStorm for several years and have never needed to open (or even download) WebStorm for anything front-end or JavaScript related.

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Russel Werner
Lead Engineer at StackShare · | 6 upvotes · 271K views
Recommends
on
WebStormWebStorm
at

I work at the same company as you and I use WebStorm for 99% of my tasks. I also have RubyMine installed and use that when I have to tweak some backend code. I tried using RubyMine for JavaScript but was unhappy with how it felt and I believe that WebStorm is faster because it has less plugins and language extensions running. Summary: Buy and use WebStorm for primary development and keep VS Code around for when you have to touch Ruby.

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Danny Battison
Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

JetBrains all the way - my entire team uses PhpStorm and none of us would even consider switching.

The availability of IDEs for other languages along with consistency in environment and keyboard shortcuts is also a godsend, which is the reason I'd also choose Rider over Visual Studio (but also VS for Mac is trash, but I digress...)

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I've never had much issue running multiple IDEs and generally pick them based on the languages they best support. For front end work where I mainly use TypeScript, I stick heavily with Visual Studio Code. However, for backend work which we do primarily in Python, PyCharm is my go-to editor. The one thing that I do however is I do remap keyboard shortcuts so I get consistent keyboard ability even when I switch IDEs.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

If I have to choose one I would go with VS Code; it’s become pretty mature and keeps getting better. If those plugins are creating problems for you then just uninstall them, find an alternative, or make a PR to fix. But at the end of the day these are IDE’s and they are meant to save you time. I would go with whatever helps you develop code faster. If restarting VS code slows you down then make a switch, that personally would annoying the crap out of me. Else maybe it’s a quick restart, not the end of the word, hopefully someone will fix at some point.

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a text editor. And this is best option in my opinion. For Ruby, I cannot say how VS Code is good. If you wanna choose IDE, RubyMine should fit your needs. Because IDEs are more compatible with major needs. But text editors are just text editor. You can do same things with also text editors. I recommend to try both VS Code and RubyMine. And you will be able to find which fits better for your needs

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Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

So here is the deal man, bottom line you want to write code. All of these tools are built in a mouse-driven world, they are designed not for engineers, but office monkeys. If you want a real workflow that gives you ultimate performance, customization and speed you need to use a modal editor, I suggest NeoVim. Start using it 20% of the time on single file edits, watch youtube videos about it and teach yourself vim gestures. It will infuriate you for 6 weeks, make you cry for another 2 months. But as you use it more, as long as your usage goes over 40% of the time, in 6 months you will understand why most of the world's too engineers use it. Settling on lesser editors out of laziness is exactly the attitude that results in shitty the engineering. Yeah it's hard. You're smart. You do hard things. Once it isn't hard anymore you will blow yourself away at how much more efficiently you edit files.

Also vim keybindings in a mouse driven editor does not cut it. Managing files, buffers and workflow is half of the value of vim/neovim. It is OK if you have to use an IDE (currently I only use an IDE for java development, so I have little choice)

So use VSCode while you teach yourself vim.

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Kyle Schoonover
Senior Software Engineer at Nordstrom · | 2 upvotes · 233.5K views
Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

I'm personally a Visual Studio Code fan. I've used it for both Go and Java. It really depends on the quality and support of the plugins. Typically VS Code doesn't crash as much as a bad plugin causes an unforeseen error. Make sure you stay up to date and look at alternative plugins.

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Recommends
on
PhpStormPhpStorm

I usually have both running but do the bulk of my language work in the appropriate JetBrains flavor. One thing to watch out for in VS is that under the hood it is running the tools needed for whatever language you are working with. This is where tools like JetBrains shine. While I am sure you can tune the heck out of what you use in VS, the provides context and clarity...

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

If you find something that works and are comfortable with it, stay with it. Changing IDE's and learning their idiosyncrasies takes valuable time away from programming while learning setups and keyboard short cuts. I personally use VS Code for cost and decent multiple language support. I've had issues occasionally with it locking up, but it is under heavy development and continually improving. I have also found it more intuitive for new programmers. ** Having profiles for different languages can reduce the amount of plugins running and issues they can cause.

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Lungu Alexandru-Mihai
Recommends
on
VimVim

Well you can try for a while MacVim because it is already configured with tons of plugins. My favourite text editors are Sublime Text and TextMate which are lightweight and speedy. My feeling is that JetBrains IDEs are making you brainless.

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Recommends
at

Visiual Studio is the best

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Recommends
on
Visual Studio CodeVisual Studio Code

Are you using the prettier-vscode VSCode extension or prettier via prettier-eslint? The prettier-vscode extension recommends you...

Use prettier-eslint instead of prettier. Other settings will only be fallbacks in case they could not be inferred from ESLint rules.

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Recommends

An integrated development environment software with huge potential in the future is VS Code. So I would personally say you can use VS code.

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Decisions about PhpStorm and PyCharm

If you need an IDE for dotnet on Mac or Linux, Rider is really the only way to go. I recently started a .NET personal project, and initially used VSCode for it, since it had served me so well before for so many other languages. After downloading Rider using my free student license, however, I can never go back. To any other aspiring devs reading this: if you're doing something other than webdev and you can get one for free, please use a full-fledged IDE for whatever you're doing. It might be heavy and it might take getting used to, but the refactorings and quick fixes are going to be invaluable once you start really getting in there.

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Samriddhi Sinha
Machine Learning Engineer at Chefling · | 6 upvotes · 1M views

Lightweight and versatile. Huge library of extensions that enable you to integrate a host of services to your development environment. VS Code's biggest strength is its library of extensions which enables it to directly compete with every single major IDE for almost all major programming languages.

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Pros of PhpStorm
Pros of PyCharm
  • 287
    Best ide for php
  • 232
    Easy to use
  • 218
    Functionality
  • 166
    Plugins
  • 160
    Code analysis
  • 87
    Integrated version control
  • 76
    Great php ide for mac
  • 73
    All-round php ide
  • 62
    Local history
  • 53
    Themes
  • 18
    Best PHP IDE
  • 11
    Database control
  • 10
    Easy to find anything and everything in your code
  • 9
    Best bebugging
  • 9
    Best inspection variable
  • 7
    Command line integration
  • 7
    Great frameworks integration
  • 7
    PHPUnit integration
  • 7
    Getting Better
  • 7
    UX
  • 6
    Composer integration
  • 6
    Performance
  • 6
    Coolest IDE
  • 5
    Real time code validation
  • 5
    Easy to use and github interaction
  • 5
    Neat does the job and easy
  • 5
    Best ide for advanced php and symfony
  • 4
    Best ide for php
  • 4
    TypeScript support
  • 4
    Code indexing
  • 4
    It has no match. it filled one of the biggest void
  • 4
    Fast and relevant auto-complete
  • 4
    Great refactoring support
  • 4
    Cross platform
  • 3
    Integration with Vagrant and Docker
  • 3
    Debugger for Javascript
  • 3
    Good
  • 3
    Very good
  • 2
    Debugging in the Just-In-Time Mode
  • 2
    Perfect locahost / host sync
  • 2
    Awesome debugging features
  • 112
    Smart auto-completion
  • 93
    Intelligent code analysis
  • 77
    Powerful refactoring
  • 60
    Virtualenv integration
  • 54
    Git integration
  • 22
    Support for Django
  • 11
    Multi-database integration
  • 7
    VIM integration
  • 4
    Vagrant integration
  • 3
    In-tool Bash and Python shell
  • 2
    Plugin architecture
  • 2
    Docker
  • 1
    Django Implemented
  • 1
    Debug mode support docker
  • 1
    Emacs keybinds
  • 1
    Perforce integration

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Cons of PhpStorm
Cons of PyCharm
  • 14
    Uses a lot of memory
  • 10
    Does not open large files
  • 9
    Slow
  • 8
    Uses Java machine
  • 3
    No way to change syntax highlight for files without ext
  • 2
    No save prompt or asterisk on file change
  • 10
    Slow startup
  • 7
    Not very flexible
  • 6
    Resource hog
  • 3
    Periodic slow menu response
  • 1
    Pricey for full features

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What is PhpStorm?

PhpStorm is a PHP IDE which keeps up with latest PHP & web languages trends, integrates a variety of modern tools, and brings even more extensibility with support for major PHP frameworks.

What is PyCharm?

PyCharm’s smart code editor provides first-class support for Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, CSS, popular template languages and more. Take advantage of language-aware code completion, error detection, and on-the-fly code fixes!

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What companies use PhpStorm?
What companies use PyCharm?
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What tools integrate with PhpStorm?
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What are some alternatives to PhpStorm and PyCharm?
Visual Studio Code
Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
WebStorm
WebStorm is a lightweight and intelligent IDE for front-end development and server-side JavaScript.
Sublime Text
Sublime Text is available for OS X, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses. Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit, optimized for speed and beauty, while taking advantage of native functionality on each platform.
DataGrip
A cross-platform IDE that is aimed at DBAs and developers working with SQL databases.
NetBeans IDE
NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.
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