NetBeans vs. PhpStorm

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
NetBeans
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
NetBeans is a free and open source platform and integrated development environment (IDE).N/A
PhpStorm
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
JetBrains supports PhpStorm, an integrated development environment (IDE).
$9.90
per month per user
Pricing
NetBeansPhpStorm
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
For Individuals
$99
per year per user
For Organizations
$249
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
NetBeansPhpStorm
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
NetBeansPhpStorm
Considered Both Products
NetBeans
Chose NetBeans
NetBeans is free, open source and offers a lot of open source plugins. If you don't have money to invest in a proprietary IDE, you can use NetBeans as the main IDE. Also, it's backed up by a great community and Apache so you know that it will receive upgrades and updates to …
PhpStorm
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
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.

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
NetBeansPhpStorm
Small Businesses
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
PyCharm
PyCharm
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
NetBeansPhpStorm
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(22 ratings)
7.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(4 ratings)
9.4
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
NetBeansPhpStorm
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
NetBeans is extremely user friendly and easy to start developing complex applications. Adding and configuring external libraries is much simpler than in Eclipse. It is highly cost effective and most of the latest framework based libraries required are automatically downloaded to the projects. The overall tool is also light weight and consumes less memory as compared to other competitor tools.
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JetBrains
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.
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Pros
Open Source
  • Debugging - Save time hunting down errors by stepping through the code to find the root of a problem.
  • Refactoring - Easily rename classes and variables or make other structural changes using built-in refactoring tools.
  • Service management - NetBeans integrates seamlessly with web application servers like Tomcat and GlassFish.
  • Source control - Works well with Git and other version control tools.
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JetBrains
  • 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.
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Cons
Open Source
  • NetBeans [should] work smoothly with systems having less RAM. Systems with less RAM face trouble with NetBeans.
  • File open history also requires improvement. Once NetBeans is restarted, all files are closed automatically and there is no shortcut to open last opened files.
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JetBrains
  • 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
Open Source
Netbeans enhances my coding work, shows me where I have errors and helps find variable instances. I would be lost without find/replace in projects functionality as I use projects as templates for new projects. Occasionally the code hints aggravate me, but I understand that it is actually making me a better coder, working to get the 'green light' of a clean file with no errors or clumsy code.
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JetBrains
The UI is very easy to understand. From common to less common, with the search feature, you can find anything you are looking for within the software. For me, that makes it tremendously easy to use.
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Support Rating
Open Source
NetBeans has a very strong user community. We can find solutions here for almost all the problems we face. In addition, we can forward NetBeans Support teams the problems we cannot solve. We can get quick feedback from the support teams, but I generally try to solve my problems by following the forums.
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JetBrains
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
Open Source
It works very smoothly as compared to other tools . The problem of restarting and reimporting the projects is not in the netbeans IDE . The front end development features are good . Netbeans connector is one of the best thing which enables us to deeply integrate netbeans IDE with google chrome browser
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JetBrains
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 DB). Another point was that the application is cross-platform.
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • By working on Netbeans I just learned one more tool and can teach others about it. One should learn every tool so that it might help someday if another editor is not available and you have to use different software for your work.
  • Compiling code became easy as it is not a feature of normal text editors. Only IDE can do this.
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JetBrains
  • 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.
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