If you are looking for a free PHP IDE to write your next application, look no further. It’s not an overstatement to tell you that PHPStorm is one of the best PHP IDEs available today. While it has the same, great features as other IDE’s, it offers plenty of unique functionality that stands above the rest.
After making couple of researches, i found out there are so many features you can get from free tools. Here are the best free editors out there.
Vim
Vim stands for Vi Improved as it’s the improved version of the Vi code editor created for Unix systems. It adds several important features to Vi, such as comparing and merging files, syntax highlighting, search history, spell checking, split view, support for protocols such as HTTP, FTP, and SSH, and many others.
Support
- Supported operating systems: Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS
- License: Vim License
- Source code: https://github.com/vim/vim
- Supported languages: PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, Lua, JavaScript, Perl, C, C++, and many others
You can use Vim in six basic modes, respectively normal, visual, select, insert, command line, and ex (exit) modes — see this article by FreeCodeCamp for the main differences between Vim modes. Vim has a text user interface that you can manage using commands and key mappings. However, if you’d rather use Vim with a graphical user interface, you can download its Gvim (Graphical Vim) version as well.
Similar to Emacs, Vim is highly customizable and extensible and supports hundreds of programming languages. There are thousands of Vim plugins available, but you can also use Vim Script (also called VimL), Vim’s internal scripting language, or another scripting language to add extra functionality.
Vim is a very robust tool, but if you are a beginner or code only occasionally, it’s probably not the best choice for you because of its steep learning curve. However, if you want flexibility and custom functionality and don’t mind learning, Vim can be the ideal PHP editor for you. If you want to go that route, here’s a great tutorial by The Valuable Dev blog about how to configure Vim as a PHP editor.
Best features:
- editing functionality such as advanced search and replace, multi-level undo tree, split view, code completion, and more
- extensive plugin system
- built-in manual
- 6 different editing modes
- easy mode for beginners
- Unicode and multi-language support
RJ TextEd
RJ TextEd is a one-person project by Rickard Johansson (RJ) — and a really impressive one. It’s a full-featured source code editor for Windows operating systems, created specifically for web development. Even though RJ TextEd’s website looks a bit basic, this is a text editor with many interesting features under the hood.
Support
- Supported operating systems: Windows
- License: freeware but accepts donations (no particular license is specified)
- Source code: not released
- Supported languages: HTML, CSS, Sass, LESS, Markdown, JavaScript, JSON, PHP, ASP, Java, Perl, and more
You can change every aspect of the UI by choosing and customizing a theme, open multiple document views at the same time in different arrangements, and use developer-friendly tools such as a color picker, an HTML validation and repair tool, charmaps, text-to-HTML conversion, and many others. RJ TextEd also has an embedded browser preview (Chrome and Internet Explorer) for HTML files.
The licensing of RJ TextEd is a bit unusual. Although it’s freeware software, it’s not open source, as the author doesn’t want to release the source code. However, you can still extend the functionality by creating an extension. If you have any questions to ask, RJ TextEd has an active user forum too.
Best features:
- HTML and CSS wizards
- regular expression creator
- macro manager
- FTP/STFP client with syncing
- editing functionality such as side-by-side file comparison, advanced sorting, code folding, auto-completion, and more
- browser preview for HTML files
- theme manager with pre-designed themes
- built-in project manager
Microsoft Visual Studio Community Free
What We Like
- Well-supported with updates and the addition of new features.
- Supports a range of programming languages.
- Nice, beginner-friendly design.
What We Don’t Like
- Premium features come with a high price tag.
- Heavy program that consumes significant memory and processing power.
- Bit of a learning curve for new users.
Microsoft Visual Studio Community is a visual IDE to help web developers and other programmers create applications for the web, mobile devices, and the desktop. You may have used it previously, but Visual Studio Community is the software’s latest version.
Microsoft offers a free download, as well as paid versions (that include free trials) for Professional and Enterprise users.
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a free coding-only app that’s part of the Visual Studio suite but stands alone. It’s an excellent standalone code editor for dozens of coding and scripting languages.
Download Microsoft Visual Studio Community
BlueGriffon Free
What We Like
- Multiplatform support (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
- WYSIWYG editor with previews.
- Good for beginners.
What We Don’t Like
- Can suffer lag during use.
- Lots of options may bewilder new users.
BlueGriffon is the latest in the series of web page editors that started with Nvu, progressed to Kompozer, and now culminates in BlueGriffon. It’s powered by Gecko, the Firefox rendering engine, so it does a great job of showing how work would be rendered in that standards-compliant browser.
It’s available for Windows, macOS, and Linux and in a variety of languages.
This is the only true WYSIWYG editor that made this list. As such, it’s more appealing for beginners and small business owners who want a visual way to work, as opposed to a code-focused interface.
Atom
Atom is a free and open-source text and source code editor for macOS, Linux, and Microsoft Windows with support for plug-ins written in Node.js, and embedded Git Control, developed by GitHub.
Atom is a desktop application built using web technologies. Most of the extending packages have free software licenses and are community-built and maintained. Atom is based on Electron (formerly known as Atom Shell), a framework that enables cross-platform desktop applications using Chromium and Node.js. It is written in CoffeeScript and Less. It can also be used as an integrated development environment (IDE).
Best Full-Featured HTML Editor: Bluefish
What We Like
- A fast and lightweight program.
- Multiplatform support (Windows, Mac, and Linux).
What We Don’t Like
- Primarily a code editor without a WYSIWYG interface.
- Lacks an easy FTP upload feature.
Bluefish is a full-featured HTML editor that runs on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Noteworthy features include code-sensitive spell check, autocomplete of many languages (HTML, PHP, CSS, and more), snippets, project management, and autosave.
Bluefish is primarily a code editor, not specifically a web editor. This means it has flexibility for web developers who write in more than HTML. However, if you’re a designer and want more of a web-focused or a WYSIWYG interface, Bluefish may not be for you.
Brackets
Brackets is an open-source editor written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with a primary focus on web development. It was created by Adobe Systems, licensed under the MIT License, and is currently maintained on GitHub by Adobe and other open-sourced developers.
Brackets is available for cross-platform download on Mac, Windows, and is compatible with most linux distros. The main purpose of brackets is it’s live html, css and js editing functionality.
Visual Studio Code – Open Source
Visual Studio Code is a source code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux and macOS. It includes support for debugging, embedded Git control, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, and code refactoring. It is also customizable, so users can change the editor’s theme, keyboard shortcuts, and preferences. It is free and open-source.
GNU Emacs
Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose.You’ll love the slick user interface, extraordinary features and amazing performance.
Eclipse Free
What We Like
- Plug-in design makes adding new languages simple.
- Open source with a large community that makes problem-solving easier.
What We Don’t Like
- Not as light as other editors.
- Consumes considerable system resources, especially on large projects.
Eclipse is a complex development environment that’s perfect for people who do a lot of coding on various platforms and languages. It’s structured in a plug-in design, so if you need to edit something, find the appropriate plug-in, and go to work.
If you create complex web applications, Eclipse has many features to make your project easier to build. It offers Java, JavaScript, and PHP plug-ins, as well as a plug-in for mobile developers.Download Eclipse09of 09
CoffeeCup Free
What We Like
- Website server management is easy.
- Good for HTML and CSS editing.
- User-friendly and a good option for beginning designers.
What We Don’t Like
- Many features are only available with the paid version.
- No WYSIWYG editor (unless you purchase).
- Not the best editor for coding languages beyond web design.
The CoffeeCup HTML editor has a free version as well as a paid, full version. The free offering is a good product, but be aware that many of this platform’s best features require that you buy the full version.
CoffeeCup also offers an upgrade called Responsive Site Design 2 that supports responsive web design. This version can be added to a bundle with the full version of the editor.
Many sites list this as a free WYSIWYG editor. However, when we tested it, it required the purchase of CoffeeCup Visual Editor to enable WYSIWYG support. The free version is a very nice text editor only.
This editor scored as well as Eclipse and Komodo Edit for web designers but didn’t rate as high for web developers. However, if you’re a beginner at web design and development, or you’re a small business owner, this tool has more features appropriate to you than either Komodo Edit or Eclipse.
Conclusion
There are a bunch of PHP editors available for Windows. While there is a lot that can be said about the best option for a PHP IDE, a PHP editor or a PHP compiler, many developers prefer command line applications. Some developers don’t even have a need for an IDE for PHP. For example, if someone works on server configurations and needs to edit files directly from the command line using PHP syntax, they may skip over using an IDE.