WebStorm is an integrated development environment (IDE) by JetBrains. Designed for JavaScript and TypeScript development, WebStorm also aims to make it easy to tackle the most challenging tasks. Whether resolving Git merge conflicts or renaming a symbol across multiple files, it takes just a few clicks.
$0
per year
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 9.8 out of 10
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Laravel is a free, open source web application PHP framework.
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PhpStorm
Score 9.5 out of 10
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JetBrains supports PhpStorm, an integrated development environment (IDE).
Originally, it was a decision between Zend, CodeIgniter, and CakePHP for me. I chose CakePHP and used it as my main PHP framework for at least a couple of years before noticing and giving Laravel a fair try. Ultimately I selected Laravel because I felt it fit with my preferred …
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.
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.
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.
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 …
Groups that use a [variety] of development environments (.net, python, web), Jebrain's products and Webstorm, in particular, are a great choice for productivity. If your developers are accustom to another IDE it might be better for all to sync on the same one. I wouldn't take the cost aspect as a consideration. A productive developer is far more important.
I would say that Laravel is not a suitable framework for high-frequency, high-volume, real-time interaction or processing millions of records in batch operations. It shines for standard database web applications (CRUD, Admin Panels, etc.) and is a fantastic multi-developer framework.
PhpStorm is well suited for any project that utilizes PHP. I have used it on Windows, Ubuntu, and Mac OS and it works great on all those platforms. Having a solution that keeps the developer from having to constantly switch tools to do their job is invaluable. Whether you're a junior developer, front end engineer or a senior developer, PhpStorm is a great product that will help you get your work done.
Laravel utilizes the best possible PHP standards and coding practices.
Laravel uses many widely-accepted community libraries and builds upon them, rather than re-inventing everything.
Laravel has many components available from the community and is extremely easy to build custom components for, either with custom code or by integrating existing third-party PHP libraries.
Laravel is flexible enough to power pretty much any kind of application I can imagine.
Database browsing, Remote host browsing, and all the deep seated customizations for both the UI and Technical feasability are the result of an amazing integrity and compatibility with most components and technologies.
The built-in shell is insanely helpful for traversing code in order to debug scripts with ease, and the plug-in system makes this software quite extensible.
Not to mention the variety of options and settings (divided into global settings and per-project settings) are both intuitive & easy to use, especially the fact that I can export and import them across my workstations while maintaining my spacing & indentation, highlighting, inspection patterns and syntax styling.
The popup file search sometimes frustrates me. It caps the number of results, and sometimes it isn't clear that it simply stopped looking. I also used to have trouble finding string occurrences that I knew were in my project, but I think they've made improvements in this area recently.
Being a AAA IDE, WebStorm can be a memory hog. If I don't kill it every few days, it can get really slow. I would love to see performance improvements.
Speaking of performance, WebStorm can take a long time to launch. I'd like to see improvements in launch times.
Laravel is updated regularly, which is great. However, in order to get the latest features, use the newest 3rd party libraries, have the most current security updates, and ensure that the newest features of PHP are usable, you have to continuously upgrade your Laravel application. This costs time and money, obviously, and if you don't stay on top of the updates you will quickly fall behind. This is the case with any open source software, but it needs to be considered for any team considering using Laravel or any other software.
Because of the size of the Laravel community, there are a LOT of 3rd party libraries. Some of these are great, some are less than great. Sometimes it's difficult to evaluate the quality of a library, making it difficult to trust many libraries. Developers need to be cautious and thoughtful when considering using new software.
Because of the rapid development of the Laravel framework, the size of the community, and the simplicity of being able to publish content online - it is very easy to find documentation, tutorials, or other "advice" that is not up to date, or that has outdated information.
Some of the newest github copilot features lag behind what's being done in vs code and would be nice if more of the newer features were brought over though this has greatly improved recently
Interface can be a little overwhelming for newcomers
Some features like rainbow brackets should be native rather than addon
Laravel PHP Framework has continued to exceed my expectations. It supported me in the development of a high quality and stable web application that is mission critical for the organization. I cannot imagine wanting to use any other tool for web development. Documentation, unit tests, and numerous integration options make using Laravel PHP Framework a natural choice.
Great in debugging, testing, developing and maintaining softwares in a number of languages. Great support for many languages and their syntaxes. Great support of many third party extensions and plugins like GIT and html plugins. The RAM usage of WebStorm however could be really improved, it literally takes almost all of the RAM of my machine with 16GB RAM
As I mentioned earlier Laravel PHP Framework has lot of in built feature as well as there is vast set of packages available to add the features in your application. It has very large community who can help when you feel stuck somewhere. This is why this rating is justified.
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.
I gave this rating because I have never needed their customer support, which is the highest level of support I suppose. When a product works just fine out of the box and everything you may need is well documented, it's a paradise for the customer. But I've seen some questions asked on their portal, and I've seen thorough answers given to the questions and the willingness to support the customer with follow-ups and everything else.
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
I think WebStorm is way ahead of open-source editors. Please don't get me wrong, I love open-source. But the other free editors have a lot of configuration which blocks my whole coding experience. Take "Atom" for example. I used it for about 3 months, but in that time I had to update the plugins hundreds of time, and for every little thing (e.g. linter) I had to download a community plugin, and with each plugin atom would get a little slow. Take "Eclipse" for another example, which is very suited for Java, but not so suited for JavaScript. Sublime was good, but WebStorm comes with many exciting features that I did not find in sublime/notepad.
Supporting unit testing is bigger plus point in Laravel than any other framework. Developing with Laravel is much easier. Other frameworks have value in market, but Laravel has taken the lead in popularity among PHP developers in recent years. The large community supports you if you have problems. Using Laravel, integration became easy with third-party libraries, but it was costly too.
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.
PhpStorm decreased the time to market of new features - we are following the Agile SCRUM methodology with 2 weeks sprints. Using PhpStorm helped with releasing UI features even faster than 2 weeks.
Considering the price of the license and the cost of the server where we run it, the ROI is still high due to less time spent by developers with writing code, debugging, refactoring etc. Especially when you have highly paid developers.
Increased people's happiness - by using a modern tool with lots of features which has made their work easier.
