It has almost the same functionality, but supports fewer languages and is a bit slower and more resource intensive. Netbeans, the free alternative to PhpStorm, is in third place. It supports the most popular languages and adds more via plugins, and it doesn’t need a whole lot of setting up when configuring a machine from scratch.

It loads in under a second, instantly reacts to commands, supports projects and has a rich plugin culture with a very vibrant community.

Sublime Text is justifiably second – it’s free (in a WinRAR kind of way), multi platform, and blazing fast. Among the most popular arguments with the PhpStorm voters was the fact that it’s super fast considering its size, supports many languages and frameworks both out of the box and via plugins, and is true multi-platform, allowing you to share a single configuration file as easily as pointing to a cloud-hosted reference.

Due to this plugin based nature, PhpStorm can support other languages just as easily, allowing you to develop NodeJS, Dart, Go and other language apps in the same environment – a priceless perk. PhpStorm is an offspring of IntelliJ IDEA, the Jetbrains Java IDE, and is basically a stripped down version with PHP support embedded. We’ve covered PhpStorm before, and it’s no surprise it won due to the strength of its community, but an advantage such as this one in a sample of over 4000 valid responses was certainly not expected. In both Personal and Business choice, PhpStorm comes in at first place, Sublime Text is second, and Netbeans third.

Best php ide editor