PHP is the fastest and most generally used server-side scripting language for building sites and web applications. There are numerous valid justifications why several developers lean toward PHP to other languages like Python and Ruby. PHP incorporates point by point documentation, various ready-to-use scripts, a tremendous community, and well-supported frameworks. To make PHP work simpler, specialists have developed certain tools for PHP development that expansion programming efficiency. PHP tools are intended to represent an ideal IDE (Integrated Development Environment) where PHP developers can productively build engaging, innovative and feature-rich PHP projects.
The present market is overwhelmed with numerous PHP tools, and picking the best one among them is a difficult undertaking. Here are the top best PHP development tools that caught the attention of web development communities.
Top Tools For PHP Development
PHPStorm
With the idea of being lightweight, amazingly quick and smooth, PHPStorm is the most standard decision to other PHP development tools. This PHP IDE functions admirably with PHP frameworks like Zend Framework, Symfony, Yii, Laravel, CakePHP and with mainstream Content Management Systems (CMS) like Drupal, Magento, and WordPress. This IDE gives live altering help to significant front-end technologies like CSS, HTML5, JavaScript, and so on while supporting for code refactoring, unit testing and debugging. Plus, it likewise empowers developers to integrate with databases bases, version control systems, remote deployment, composer, command-line tools, rest-client and many other tools.
Zend Studio
Most web developers decide on Zend Studio on account of its ideal speed. Writing and debugging code in Zend Studio doesn’t request any additional effort and time from developers. While supporting PHP 7, it debugs PHP scripts by integrating X-ray, Xdebug, and Zend Debugger. This comprehensive PHP IDE accompanies an exciting set of features and fuelled to deploy applications on various servers including servers in the cloud. Developers can broaden Zend Studio by means of Eclipse plugins.
NuSphere PhpED
PhpED is a proprietary integrating PHP development tool offered by NuSphere. This PHP IDE contains an advanced PHP editor, Profiler, PHP debugger, and database client and code insight. This utility provides the developers with several tools and tweaks that will make the entire web development measure less unwieldy. With the assistance of the commercial PHP accelerator called PhpExpress, PhpEd speeds up the application development process. This IDE is an ideal choice to create complex sites and web applications. It supports JavaScript, HTML, and CSS3 while offering massive support for PHP 7.1. Its refactoring abilities empower developers to improve their code. PhpED permits developers to work through most famous PHP frameworks like Laravel, Zend, and Yii.
Netbeans
NetBeans, the most broadly used PHP IDE for PHP application development. This tool accompanies all the rich features, which bolsters multiple languages. NetBeans was at first used for Java development, however, the current form of this tool is lightweight, faster just as steady for PHP development services. It incorporates the extension to support other programming languages like C, C++, and HTML5. It underpins developing large-scale web applications and supports different languages like Japanese, Russian, English, Brazilian Portuguese, and simplified Chinese. This open-source PHP development too can work with almost all mainstream PHP frameworks, including Zend, Symfony 2, CakePHP, FuelPHP, Smarty and WordPress CMS. NetBeans PHP IDE offers different features explicit to developing web applications with the ongoing adaptations of PHP.
Cloud 9
Cloud9, an open-source cloud IDE gives a development environment to many programming languages and PHP, C, C++, JavaScript, Python are the names a couple. Developers can begin coding promptly with pre-configured environments called workspace and build web applications with features like browser compatibility testing & live preview. They can collaborate with their associates using collaborative coding features. This PHP IDE empowers you to take your PHP projects from anywhere. It offers a flawless encounter for creating serverless applications, empowering you to define resources, execute serverless applications and debug at the debug. You can share your development environment to your companions and it enables you to pair program as well as track every real-time input. As Cloud9 guarantees the effortless building of serverless application, you can simply code with your browser.
Aptana Studio
Aptana Studio, an open-source PHP development tool used in integration with various server-side and client-side web technologies. PHP, Python, CSS3, Ruby on Rails, Ruby and HTML5 are a portion of these advances. It bolsters the debuggers and command-line interface to make it simpler for PHP application development. It permits PHP developers to build as well as test web applications in a single environment. It accompanies SFTP, FTP, and IDE customization. This powerful web development engine leverages the flexibilities of Eclipse and comprises details about the range of support for every element in the leading web browsers. Aptana Studio is an elite PHP IDE and incorporates a wide scope of appealing features to increase your efficiency.
CodeLobster
CodeLobster IDE from Codelobster software firm is the most mainstream one among the PHP development tools for the developer community. It supports the vast majority of the PHP frameworks like Symfony, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Laravel, Magento, Joomla, and Drupal. CodeLobster IDE streamlines as well as simplifies the development process. There is no compelling reason to recall the names of the arguments, functions, attributes, and tags – it has implemented all these with autocomplete features for HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and CSS. With its internal PHP debugger, you can validate your code locally. Furthermore, this PHP tool naturally identifies the setting of the current servers and configures related files to make you use the free debugger. It additionally supports major CMS like Drupal, WordPress, Magento, and Joomla.
Sublime Text
Sublime Text is one of the leading text editors out there for PHP developers. However, it isn’t a quite IDE, with the installation of certain plugins/package; you can make it an appropriate editor for developing PHP applications. This cross-platform source code editor locally supports several programming as well as mark-up languages. With its feature-rich functionalities and exceptional designs, it makes the developer community consider the text editor as the best IDE for PHP development. leading customizable text editor with custom UI toolkit, it enables you to move over the symbols, words or lines utilizing proper key shortcuts. Also, you can make changes to any lines of your code.
PHPDebugbar
PHPDebugbar is a PHP debugger that can run with any project and show data from a wide scope of web applications. This PHP development tool includes two sections, namely: mainDebugBar object and data collectors and the render. A StandardDebugBar includes a pre- built-in set of collectors. Alongside PHP, you can catch JavaScript and HTML bugs also. Likewise, PHPDebugbar can inspect CSS component, monitor network, and check your JavaScript code. By offering more features that developers expect, it turns into a very noteworthy open source solution. It very well may be the most ideal choice for profiling of data from any web applications. It permits you to create your own collection or effortlessly for easy integration.
Eclipse
When you digitally search about the best PHP development tools, most of your search results will have the Eclipse in their list. Being a complete development tool, it ranks in the list of top PHP tools. With the liberty to select from a broad range of plugin, it makes it easier to develop as well as simplify the complex PHP code. It also aids you to customize and extend the IDE to address the needs of the project. This PHP IDE can support both GUI and non-GUI applications. This cross-platform PHP editor is ideal for large-scale PHP projects.
Selenium Test
Another new addition to our list of Top 10 PHP development Tools is Selenium, which enables PHP developers to produce automated Web app UI tests in any scripting language. When this is combined with PHPUnit, we can run an automated test with any web browser on your choice. All OS like Windows, Linux, Mac, etc supports the selenium PHP tool.
Scriptcase
Scriptcase is one of the powerful PHP tools that are widely used to generate web apps in PHP. Create Menus, Charts, Forms, and Reports automatically with a few clicks. This PHP Form Builder can build large web systems just within a few hours thereby saves your time and effort. It supports multiple regional languages including Italian, French, Spanish, and English. This PHP tool is geared for medium and large-scale companies better for developing applications in CodeIgniter and Laravel.
Each tool listed here is fully packed with outstanding features and capabilities that allow creating PHP websites quickly & easily. These PHP development tools aren’t the only ones available in the market. You can find much more paid and free PHP tools! However, the tools listed on this blog are the ‘best tools for PHP development’ that meets every requirement of your project. Keep in mind that new PHP IDEs are popping out every day; it is always worthier to keep an eye out on the latest trends in PHP.
Conclusion
The success of a cloud-based web application on PHP depends on various critical aspects like performance, web security, usability, user experience, scalability etc. We have worked extensively on enterprise-grade web applications that are cloud-based scalable systems. Along with experience and expertise, we extensively use some of the smartest and top development tools for PHP. We have gained tremendously by using the best practices and taken-in-use top tools for development.
Oditek is a leading custom software development company, with dedicated PHP developers who have worked on a wide variety of web applications. We offer the best of the skills & if you are looking to hire dedicated PHP web developers in India, we will walk you through the case studies and competency matrix. Reach out to us with details of the PHP web application needs to info@oditeksolutions.com.
