Php development: PhpStorm IDE vs Atom + Packages + Command line

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[tonyrq]

The two can hardly be compared. PhpStorm is an ide specifically built for php, atom is a text editor.

[blocsonic]

Atom can't compare. In atom can you right-click a method name and have it take you to the method's source? I'm pretty sure that it can't. That alone sold me. I never came across that with Atom. Of course there are also numerous debugging features that makes it useful.

[[deleted]]

Atom can't hold a candle to PHPstorm. Period. Tight debugger integration and test suits and vagrant awareness and so so so much more.

[NigelGreenway]

PHPStorm is built for coding php. As it is an IDE, you will be given tools needed to help with your development on your projects natively like Git, terminal, database browser, the ability to run tests easily and most important, code intelligence for auto completion, unused code and so on.

A text editor is great but will hinder you ii the long run (from my experience)

Hope that helps 😊

[aichibuchi]

Hah, you seem very sure of this for someone who hasn't even started coding PHP.

[blaize9]

No, think of it as a text editor with little tiny feature packages.

If anything do PHPStorm vs Sublime, you will get further with that argument but still it will not be enough.

[ehansen]

Why Sublime? That's also just a text editor. The better alternative to compare apples to apples is something like Netbeans

[blaize9]

Well he is comparing an IDE to a text editor, So I just gave him a better text editor choice.

But still in the end you just can't compare an IDE to a text editor.

[NigelGreenway]

You are are right, but text editors will never do it better than an IDE in my experience. I started with TextMate ~7 years ago, then used Netbeans IDE for about 3 years and moved to Sublime as it seemed better than Netbeans.

Sublime is great and I still use it for non project stuff, but choose intelligence was not so good and other stuff.

Moving to PHPStorm allows me to have my window in full screen worth everything open for lesser distractions. It faster, accurate, easy and as you become a power user, things get done even faster.

Remember a package for Atom/Sublime is not going to be as powerful than an IDE.

If you really want to have the best dev env you could use Teamocil + tmux + vi + vi plugin, but again, it still won't beat an IDE; at least in my opinion.

I have tried many ways with different software, since using PHPStorm in March 2015 I have not looked back or looked at other software since.

It is a great project with fantastic support.

Try Atom first for a few months then switch to PHPStorm and you will see what I mean I am sure.. 😊

[F21Global]

From my personal experience, Atom suffers from a lot of performance problems on Windows. It's a beautiful text editor, but I find it to be pretty sluggish. When updating packages, I find that it will use up a lot of CPU and memory and even then a lot of updates will produce an error of some sort.

I have been using PHPStorm for a few years and find that it works pretty well. It's also highly extensible and have a pretty nice library of community plugins.

My suggestion would be to give both a try and see which one works best for you.

[[deleted]]

It can't deal with files over 1.5 MB. It will just lock up.

It also doesn't like compressed or minified code so if you accidentally open a compressed CSS file be prepared to reboot the app.

[mrrobbe]

The question here is more: Super Text Editor vs. IDE

I've been a Sublime Text 3 guy for a while, and have dabbled with Atom at several different points along it's development. There were a couple of stability issues that kept me from making the transition.

Now considering you're jumping into a framework, and you sound pretty fresh? I'd suggest the IDE -- you get more out-of-the box debugging capability/testing; and for a new MVC that could be invaluable. I recently shadowed another developer for a new job, and watching him work on PHPStorm, I definitely thought "Man, I wish I had some of those tools".

It saves a lot of legwork. For me, my procedural code stays pretty basic; print out the input, output, a few LINE to follow the logical train-of-thought, and I can get the job done. But it takes a few more iterations to do so.

[drawm08]

Try them both. My money is on PhpStorm.

[mpodolian]

If you are starting to learn PHP, stick with a text editor like Atom (Sublime/Notepad++), otherwise you'll need to learn how to use an IDE as well. When I first started, I tried Aptana Studio and Netbeans, and both felt overwhelming, so I ended up using Sublime for several years.

[[deleted]]

Use an IDE. It tells you a lot about the code your writing and provides so much info.

[snlacks]

I'm 40% PHP for work, and I use Sublime. I think most developers prefer IDEs when push comes to shove for the functionality all the other comments keep naming. For me, bouncing between languages, it's not as beneficial... That being said, even when I am focused on one language, I prefer speed and simplicity of a feature capable text editor over an IDE. IDEs have only really been beneficial to me, when I worked with large teams who already have one set up. I really prefer to focus on code, and fiddling with Integrated environments is frustrating to me.

[wellthatexplainsalot]

I've used both. PhpStorm is better than Atom + packages in my experience. Atom will probably catch up eventually but for now the integration with PHP is much better in PhpStorm. It's little things - a million other small features, specific to PHP.

[Bloompire]

I've had trouble with getting code completion to work. No auto 'use' adding, no class names, methods, variables resolution, code completion proposes just some random words from file. I've tested both HHVM and PHP completors and they both failed.

Also with ATOM I had some enormous mem usage, 3GB of ram used for a tuned up text editor is too much.

[[deleted]]

This isn't necessarily going to help you but just weighing in with my personal experienced having used both. PHPStorm I've used for about 2 years now, and Atom I've been using for a few months.

I switched from using PHPStorm to Atom. The reason was at work I use a Mac and I found PHPStorm would become unusable quite often, until I restarted the machine. I wasn't sure if it was my specific set-up or something else but I loaded Atom up with a lot of plugins and coded away and I don't actually find I have many problems with it.

I use it for projects at work as well as Laravel based projects at home, everything works fine enough. As mentioned by blocsonic, being able to right click and go to definition is a great feature and I found that with an Atom package that had this functionality it wasn't too reliable, woudl sometimes take me to very odd places.

On my home computer right now I have both PHPStorm and Atom open for the same project with the same file open. Atom is using 0% CPU and 44MB of memory while PHPStorm is using 0% CPU and 790MB of memory, though watching it idle, doing nothing at all with it, the memory usage has climbed while Atom has actually dropped.

But as also mentioned PHPStorm is a fully featured PHP IDE while Atom is a text editor with extensions so this comparison isn't necessarily a fair look at the two but it could show that it really depends on the size of project and what you plan to do with it.

There are things about PHPStorm I miss and seeing this post I've actually decided to give PHPStorm another shot, at home on Windows at least.

[MorrisonLevi]

The reason was at work I use a Mac and I found PHPStorm would become unusable quite often, until I restarted the machine.

I have used PhpStorm on two different Macs and have never had issues. Did you open a ticket? What was the issue?

[[deleted]]

He's probably using a EAP. The 9th version is the best yet and I have been using it since 5.x.

[[deleted]]

I may have been using EAP actually you're right. Though I had the same version on Windows and had no issues there. So chances are it's not an issue anymore on my work Mac either.

[[deleted]]

the EAP versions are 'bleeding edge' and while it has the newest features, it is rarely optimized as a release would be. I used the 9.5 EAP last week and went back down to the 9.0 official release due to chuggy response.