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As a business owner or web developer, you want your website or web app to run flawlessly on the web. The basics of website or web app development are the language and tools used to develop it. For 78.9% of all the websites, PHP is used as a server-side scripting language.
PHP has become the most common server-side language scripting language when it comes to web apps and websites. To boost coding productivity and make work easier, the professionals have created various PHP development tools.
The purpose of these tools is to make up for an ideal PHP IDE, a platform for PHP developers to create intuitive, unique, and feature-rich projects.
There are several PHP Development tools available in the market. Picking tools for your task can become a task in itself. Hence, we have made it simpler for you. This blog will cover the top 5 PHP development tools you can use as an entrepreneur or a novice developer for your chosen project.
1. Zend Studio
Many websites are coded in PHP version 7. Zend Studio is ideal for PHP 7 and is leveraged by most developers for the same. The best feature of Zend Studio is that it has optimal speed. You can script and debug code with Zend Studio & Zend Debugger without spending additional time.
It syncs Xdebug, X-ray, and Zend Debugger and debugs scripts. It is an all-inclusive PHP IDE, and it has an advanced set of functions that can deploy applications on multiple servers with the ones in the cloud. In fact, developers have an option to utilize Eclipse plugins and extend Zend Studio.
USPs of Zend Studio:
- Enables better coding with a smart code editor
- Permits debugging and profiling
- Use interoperability: GitHub, CVS, SVN, and Git.
- Deployment gets easy & applications can be deployed to public and private clouds.
Extra Features
- Supports multiple languages such as JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Visual Basic
- Supports multiple platforms such as Linux, macOS, and Windows
2. Code Lobster
Codelobster IDE is an IDE designed by the Codelobster software firm. This one is considered the favorite one by the developer community among all the PHP development tools. Codelobster supports all frameworks such as CakePHP, Joomla, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Drupal, and Symfony.
Codelobster has a unique quality to simplify and organize the development process. Moreover, it has applied auto-complete features of tags for languages such as HyperText, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, Markup Language, and the names of functions, arguments, and features.
The developers can verify their code locally with its internal debugger. Besides, this tool naturally detects the server’s existing settings and configures the needed files, making it simpler for you to use the free debugger.
USPs of CodeLobster:
- The debugger has all the details you get while debugging a compiled language.
- Aids in finding the reason behind intricate, complicated, and simple bugs.
- Several well-known framework plugins like Joomla, Magento, and WordPress.
Extra Features
- Supports languages like HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
- Supported Content Management System: Joomla, Magento, WordPress, and Drupal.
- Supported Platforms: Fedora, Ubuntu, Mac OS, Mint, Windows, Debian, and Linux.
3. Sublime Text 3
Sublime Text 3 is one of the most sturdy and classy text editors for PHP developers. It has outstanding designs and feature-rich functionalities that make it the most loved one amongst the developer community.
Besides, it is highly lightweight and supports Windows, OS X, and Linux. This tool is not an IDE, but you can download specific plugins to make it an ideal editor for building different apps. A few most essential packages are Sublime companion, CodIntel, Doc, Simple Unit, xDebug client-CodeBug.
USPs of Sublime Text 3:
- Enables various sections to make more than 10 changes at one time.
- Allows interacting with many lines simultaneously and alter variable names and other features
- The immediate project switch feature
- Several plugin API and packages
- Supports split editing
Extra Features
- Supports mostly all the well-known programming languages
- Supported platforms: Linux, Mac OS, and Windows.
4. NetBeans
It is a PHP IDE formerly built by Sun Microsystems as open-source and was held by Oracle later. It is not shifting to Apache and is referred to as Apache NetBeans. Also, It was built by Java development and was relatively slow, but the existing version is more supportive and much faster.
You can create large-scale web apps with NetBeans, and it even supports a range of languages such as Japanese, simplified Chinese, English, Russian, Brazilian, and Portuguese.
The reason behind the popularity of NetBeans is its best features such as efficient project management, getter setter generation, quick fixes, hints, smart code completion and editing, code templates, and refactoring.
USPs of NetBeans
- Assists script bug-free code.
- Cross-platform support.
- Rectangular Selection
- Quick user interface development
- Getter Setter generation
- Code folding and formatting
- Syntax highlighting
Extra Features
- Supports various languages such as JavaScript, C, C++ and HTML5
- Platforms supported: Solaris, macOS, Windows, and Linux.
5. AWS Cloud 9
This is a cloud-based IDE. The browser can help you code, execute, and debug your code. It is a whole solution and includes a code editor, debugger, and terminal. The best part is that you only need a web-connected device to use it; your location does not matter.
This cloud-based IDE renders a development environment for tons of programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, C, and C++.
The best part about using this tool is that it allows you to build and perform serverless apps, debug remotely, and define resources.
USPs of AWS Cloud9:
- Reformatting Code.
- Iterate your code directly.
- The debugging process is synced.
- In-build photo editor.
- Conduct real-time language analysis.
Extra Features
- Support languages such as HTML5, C, C++ and JavaScript.
- Supported platforms: macOS, Solaris, Windows, and Linux.
Final Thoughts
These are the 5 best PHP development tools you can use for your website or web app projects. These tools are only a few available in the market. The best part is that most of them are open-source and have incredible features like debugging and syntax highlighting. Hope this article helped you to know what suits you the best according to your needs.
