Cursor vs. PhpStorm

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cursor
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Cursor is an IDE and code editor built for programming with AI. Cursor includes an autocomplete that predicts the next edit. Once enabled, it is always on and will suggest edits to code across multiple lines.
$20
per month
PhpStorm
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
JetBrains supports PhpStorm, an integrated development environment (IDE).
$99
per year per user
Pricing
CursorPhpStorm
Editions & Modules
Pro
$20
per month
Teams
$40
per month per user
Pro+
$60
per month
Ultra
$200
per month
Enterprise
Custom
For Individuals
$99
per year per user
For Organizations
$249
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CursorPhpStorm
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsEvery plan includes a set amount of model usage. Additional usage is based on the models and features used. The Bugbot add-on is available at $40 per month, per user, or with Custom pricing for Enterprise customers. A discount is available for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CursorPhpStorm
Considered Both Products
Cursor
Chose Cursor
We use both Claude Code and Cursor. However, we find Cursor to be quite fast compared to Claude Code. Claude Code seems to be able to reach higher levels of intelligence, though that's not really necessary much of the time. The speed of Cursor can really stand out in comparison.
Chose Cursor
Cursor is superior because its integration is easy; it provides the same benefits as the others, but it does so by managing LLMs in a more intuitive way. The fact that it is now proprietary to SpaceXAI might make the use of Grok more efficient and maybe cheaper for users …
Chose Cursor
Cursor contains multiple AI model from different LLM Model builders, so Cursor stacks up against them with even their model also and other models also and gives a free composer model to do coding easily for the developers. Even when the token completed for the subscription …
Chose Cursor
graphical user interface is really the thing that setting apart because other code harnesses are really focused on commandline interfaces but whenever you want a good graphical interface with all of the tools and workflow that us software developers we want I think that Cursor …
Chose Cursor
Better agentic coding quality, inherent context of code by repo caching, easier to configure guardrails - these all amount to better quality code with less iteration and fussing around with the agent to get it to do what you want.
Chose Cursor
Softr's chat AI is less sophisticated. However, it is great for building simple database-driven webapps. I have used it together with Airtable to build a very simple webapp. It is drag and drop. Vercel V0's chatAI is faster and more friendly. The user interface is also …
Chose Cursor
Cursor has built-in AI and is a fork based on Visual Studio Code. So the fact is, it is better than Visual Studio Code because of AI, and if you are a developer that uses more than notebooks, in my opinion, it surely beats Jupyter Notebook, too. It is my go-to for basically all …
PhpStorm
Chose PhpStorm
A few of my team members started on VS code but after switching to PhpStorm they never looked back. Many of VS code features require adding in add on after addon to get at or near the included feature set of PHP storm that includes it out of the box. Plus PhpStorm allows so …
Chose PhpStorm
While these two are also code editors, they are far from as robust as the PhpStorm IDE. Although these editors also support plugins to perform functions similar to PhpStorm, by bringing it natively it is much more efficient and you get rid of compatibility worries, etc. and it …
Chose PhpStorm
PhpStorm is without compare for a shop that works entirely in PHP. We've evaluated some of the other text editors on the market and while they have their perks, specifically speed, they aren't nearly as easy to navigate within the codebase or make sweeping changes.
Chose PhpStorm
Easier to use, more features, more reliable. Much more purpose built with specific integrations aimed directly at php code instead of the broad generic interfaces the other software have that are aiming to support many different languages.
Chose PhpStorm
I believe PhpStorm has a bit more functionality then VS Code, however VSCode is a free option for a casual user.
Chose PhpStorm
When I have evalutated Eclipse and Netbeans (years ago), I have noticed that PHPstorm have more features already included, and overall, they are better in quality.

For example code refactoring, code analysis, debugging - everything was easier in PHPStorm.
Chose PhpStorm
Both Visual Studio Code an Sublime Text are excellent code editors, and even offer a better performance than PHPStorm. However they are not complete IDE's and do not perform half of the tasks that PHPStorm does.
Chose PhpStorm
Two things were decisive for choosing PhpStorm, and the first was the Education version since we were a university we were able to license for free, and the other was that we just had to use a single tool to develop our activities (coding, versioning), and operations in the …
Chose PhpStorm
Before PHPStorm, most of us were using Komodo IDE. PHPStorm's performance is quite a bit peppier, though, and that makes a huge difference on large projects. PHPStorm's rolling feature releases also give a better window into the direction of the tool, and JetBrains has been …
Chose PhpStorm
Notepad++ is exactly that, notepad on steriods. However, PHPStorm was designed specifically for PHP ( my language of choice ) and thus, common settings that I would have to tailor within Notepad++ ( ever time an update comes out, which is very often ), do not have to get reset …
Chose PhpStorm
Each one of the products I've listed are great in their own right, but non of them provide as complete a solution as PhpStorm in my opinion. Very few products offer all of the features that PhpStorm does and those that do don't have the greatest performance in my experience. …
Chose PhpStorm
In comparison to many other popular code editors, PhpStorm stands out in terms of its fantastic integration of so many high quality and extremely useful features. In particular, the code quality analysis and code navigation features are not available in many other development …
Chose PhpStorm
I found phpstorm had either more features, or performed faster than all the other IDE's I've used in the past so I haven't even tried them lately.
Chose PhpStorm
PhpStorm is the most complete IDE for PHP that I have used. It is stable and solid, and it works on all platforms. There are some editors that are quicker loading, Sublime Text, Notepad ++, but they don't have the depth and solid foundation that PhpStorm has. This is why we …
Chose PhpStorm
PhpStorm compares comparably to Visual Studio for a PHP development environment. It is the most powerful editing environment I have come across for PHP. Having a background in C#, it feels much closer to and similar in power to VS. Has many of the same built in functions …
Chose PhpStorm
It has support for almost any third party tools that you'll use for PHP development. You have a great support for employees and it's always being updated so it supports the latest technology.

Chose PhpStorm
PhpStorm has a free trial. Visual Studio IDE does not. I believe that VSIDE is better suited for C+/.NET development and not PHP. Despite their PHP plugins & debugger, stepping through the code on PhpStorm always feels better and more intuitive than stepping through PHP with …
Best Alternatives
CursorPhpStorm
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CursorPhpStorm
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CursorPhpStorm
Likelihood to Recommend
Cursor is really great when you care most about access to a variety of models. It's very high-performing for code indexing, meaning models run very fast.
Read full review
PhpStorm is well suited for any PHP development. It integrates well with Symfony, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Cake & Twig. I have used it very successfully in the past and despite not being my go-to editor, I will still use it when working on PHP heavy frameworks.
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Pros
  • Generate code
  • Guide webapp development
  • Guide webapp deployment
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  • Version Control: Git, Subversion, and Others.
  • Alerts about code being developed, alerts like errors, discontinuation of some function, suggestions for improvements.
  • Application database access can run SQL commands directly from PhpStorm without having to have any other clients open.
  • Shortcut keys that assist in the coding process.
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Cons
  • The composer tool can still get more accurate
  • More LLM models
  • automate the creation of folders and files in a project
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  • There is a bug sometimes, when you pull that the directory structure it forgets all the folders
  • It's not free
  • When I copy paste the default is to not keep the same spacing/tab pattern of the original, which I'm not a fan of
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Usability
it is really easy to set up and to connect with GitHub or any other git manager that you have and our team really loves the fact that whenever we do work, it’s very easy to open PRS for a Sr software staff to check the PRS and just merge it
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PhpStorm is very easy to use, once you get the hang of it. It can take a while to get the hang of it because there's so many options, some of which are buried in the imposing settings panel. It could use some help with multi-cursor, especially multi-file editing but that's a minor gripe.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
The JetBrains community is all about helping others succeed, even in the most obscure setups. I have never had a question go unanswered, or I have never been able to come up with empty results in searching for the answer. My questions or concerns are typically address from other users in the community, so timing is pretty quick for a response
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Alternatives Considered
Cursor is superior because its integration is easy; it provides the same benefits as the others, but it does so by managing LLMs in a more intuitive way. The fact that it is now proprietary to SpaceXAI might make the use of Grok more efficient and maybe cheaper for users compared to Claude and Gemini.
Read full review
Each one of the products I've listed are great in their own right, but non of them provide as complete a solution as PhpStorm in my opinion. Very few products offer all of the features that PhpStorm does and those that do don't have the greatest performance in my experience. Some have a great text editor but lack other critical features while others have a bounty of features, but the text editor is garbage. Before I tried PhpStorm, I stuck to using simple text editors because the features the IDEs offered didn't outweigh performance hit of running such a large, slow program. PhpStorm isn't lightweight by any means but I haven't noticed any of the common performance issues that I experienced with other IDEs.
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Return on Investment
  • Mostly I have positive impact on Cursor only for implementing complex features and functionalities.
  • Cursor mainly save our development time testing time more than 50%.
  • Cursor helps to improve code quality of our all project folder and files.
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  • Recent AI advancements have saved us time to build by integrating it direct with the IDE allowing build to deployment to happen at a more rapid pace than previously possible
  • Integrated AI commit message generation saves time and effort from team members shorting time writing documentation allowing more time spent in development
  • Integrated git development causes less friction across team with version control and merge conflict resolution shortening development work flows
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ScreenShots