PhpStorm vs Visual Studio Code

Overview

PhpStorm

Stacks14.3K

Followers11.1K

Votes1.6K

Visual Studio Code

Stacks186.5K

Followers169.1K

Votes2.3K

GitHub Stars178.2K

Forks35.9K

PhpStorm vs Visual Studio Code: What are the differences?

PHPStorm and Visual Studio Code are widely used code editors for web development. PHPStorm is a specialized IDE for PHP development, while Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a lightweight and versatile code editor that supports multiple programming languages.

Language Support: PHPStorm is specifically designed for PHP development and provides extensive language support for PHP, including code completion, refactoring, and debugging features tailored to PHP projects. VS Code, on the other hand, supports a wide range of programming languages out-of-the-box, including PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and more, making it suitable for multi-language development projects.
User Interface: PHPStorm offers a feature-rich and customizable user interface that is optimized for PHP development workflows. It provides specialized tools and panels for PHP-specific tasks, such as integrated database tools and version control integration. VS Code features a clean and minimalistic user interface that can be easily customized and extended through a rich ecosystem of extensions.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Features: PHPStorm is a comprehensive IDE with advanced features tailored for PHP development. It includes built-in support for frameworks, seamless integration with build tools, and powerful debugging capabilities. It also offers code analysis, unit testing, and deployment tools specific to PHP. On the other hand, VS Code, while not as feature-rich as PHPStorm, can be enhanced with extensions to provide similar functionality and capabilities.
Debugging and Testing: PHPStorm provides comprehensive debugging and testing support specifically tailored for PHP applications. It offers debugging tools, unit testing frameworks integration, and profiling capabilities. VS Code also has debugging and testing support through extensions, but it may require additional configuration and setup compared to PHPStorm's built-in capabilities.
Ecosystem and Extensions: PHPStorm has a rich ecosystem with a wide range of plugins and extensions specifically designed for PHP development. It provides seamless integration with popular PHP frameworks, libraries, and tools. VS Code, on the other hand, has a vast and active extension ecosystem that caters to developers across different programming languages, allowing for customization and adding functionality to meet specific development needs.

In summary, PHPStorm is a specialized IDE for PHP development with robust language support, advanced debugging, and seamless integration with PHP frameworks. It offers a feature-rich and customizable interface. In contrast, VS Code is a lightweight code editor supporting multiple languages. It has a clean interface, extensive extension support, and the flexibility to work with different languages and frameworks. While PHPStorm excels in PHP development with advanced IDE features, VS Code provides broader language support and a thriving extension ecosystem.

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Advice on PhpStorm, Visual Studio Code

Johnny

Software Engineer at StackShare

Aug 15, 2019

Needs adviceon

Visual Studio Code

PhpStorm

WebStorm

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

1.02M views1.02M

Comments

Dennis

CTO at Prepaid-Hoster

May 17, 2020

Decided

PhpStorm has all the integrations you need to build cool PHP Applications. This starts from it's super helpful integrated IntelliSense to the composer-support over much more integrated developer tools, such as git, ToDo-Lists and database connections. I also like the material design you can use with a plugin.

57.9k views57.9k

Comments

Kamaleshwar

Software Engineer at Dibiz Pte. Ltd.

Jul 8, 2020

Decided

Visual Studio Code became famous over the past 3+ years I believe. The clean UI, easy to use UX and the plethora of integrations made it a very easy decision for us. Our gripe with Sublime was probably only the UX side. VSCode has not failed us till now, and still is able to support our development env without any significant effort.

Goland being paid, as well as built only for Go seemed like a significant limitation to not consider it.

1.36M views1.36M

Comments

Detailed Comparison

PhpStorm	Visual Studio Code
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.	Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
Smart PHP Code Editor;Code Quality Analysis;Debugging and Testing;HTML/CSS/JavaScript Editor;Cross-platform Experience;Support for all major PHP frameworks;VCS; SQL Editor; Unit Testing;	Combines UI of a modern editor with code assistance and navigation; Integrated debugging experience
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 178.2K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 35.9K
Stacks 14.3K	Stacks 186.5K
Followers 11.1K	Followers 169.1K
Votes 1.6K	Votes 2.3K
Pros & Cons
Pros 287 Best ide for php 232 Easy to use 218 Functionality 166 Plugins 160 Code analysis Cons 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	Pros 341 Powerful multilanguage IDE 310 Fast 194 Front-end develop out of the box 158 Support TypeScript IntelliSense 142 Very basic but free Cons 46 Slow startup 29 Resource hog at times 20 Poor refactoring 14 Poor UI Designer 11 Weak Ui design tools
Integrations
Vagrant Google App Engine	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to PhpStorm, Visual Studio Code?

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.

Atom

At GitHub, we're building the text editor we've always wanted. A tool you can customize to do anything, but also use productively on the first day without ever touching a config file. Atom is modern, approachable, and hackable to the core. We can't wait to see what you build with it.

Vim

Vim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set. Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems. Vim is distributed free as charityware.

IntelliJ IDEA

Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.

WebStorm

WebStorm is a lightweight and intelligent IDE for front-end development and server-side JavaScript.

NetBeans IDE

NetBeans IDE is FREE, open source, and has a worldwide community of users and developers.

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!

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Eclipse

Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.

Related Comparisons

Language Support: PHPStorm is specifically designed for PHP development and provides extensive language support for PHP, including code completion, refactoring, and debugging features tailored to PHP projects. VS Code, on the other hand, supports a wide range of programming languages out-of-the-box, including PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and more, making it suitable for multi-language development projects.
User Interface: PHPStorm offers a feature-rich and customizable user interface that is optimized for PHP development workflows. It provides specialized tools and panels for PHP-specific tasks, such as integrated database tools and version control integration. VS Code features a clean and minimalistic user interface that can be easily customized and extended through a rich ecosystem of extensions.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Features: PHPStorm is a comprehensive IDE with advanced features tailored for PHP development. It includes built-in support for frameworks, seamless integration with build tools, and powerful debugging capabilities. It also offers code analysis, unit testing, and deployment tools specific to PHP. On the other hand, VS Code, while not as feature-rich as PHPStorm, can be enhanced with extensions to provide similar functionality and capabilities.
Debugging and Testing: PHPStorm provides comprehensive debugging and testing support specifically tailored for PHP applications. It offers debugging tools, unit testing frameworks integration, and profiling capabilities. VS Code also has debugging and testing support through extensions, but it may require additional configuration and setup compared to PHPStorm's built-in capabilities.
Ecosystem and Extensions: PHPStorm has a rich ecosystem with a wide range of plugins and extensions specifically designed for PHP development. It provides seamless integration with popular PHP frameworks, libraries, and tools. VS Code, on the other hand, has a vast and active extension ecosystem that caters to developers across different programming languages, allowing for customization and adding functionality to meet specific development needs.

PhpStorm vs Visual Studio Code