These are my favorite set of tools for PHP development. I have personally used all these tools to create this blog. If you are a newbie and looking for tools to build your first PHP website, this is the ultimate guide for you. I’ve also included information about the operating system where I’ve tested each tool.
There are a lot of tools that can help you when creating a website or web application. There are many different types of PHP applications for Mac OS X. Here is a list of the best PHP development tools in the industry.
Xdebug
This is one of the great tools to be used with PHP. This is a debugging tool for PHP and it adds a lot of features which makes debugging PHP really easy and joyful. Xdebug is an open-source tool. Sometimes it can be difficult to set up and configure Xdebug. But once you did, it’ll be really helpful for your development. The main features of Xdebug are given below.
- Enables a step debugger which provides an interface that a lot of other tools such as IDEs can be integrated with.
- It monkey patches PHP’s var_dump() function to enhance it with better results such as syntax highlighting the output, limiting the depth of the array elements printed on the screen, pretty formatting the output, etc.
- Contains a profiler that can be used to measure performance bottlenecks in your code.
ALSO READ: How To Build An On-Demand Food Delivery App Like UberEATS
DebugBar
Debugbar is a great tool that can be integrated into any PHP project to collect and display profiling information. It can be installed with the composer. It provides the following information in a bottom bar when your application is running in the browser.
- Request time
- Memory Usage
- SQL queries ran to generate the current page
- Exceptions if any
- $_REQUEST details.
PHPUnit
PHPUnit is the defacto standard for writing unit tests for PHP. It provides all the necessary things required to write such as Stubs, Fixtures. It also integrates really well with Xdebug to generate code coverage reports.
Faker
Faker is a PHP library to generate fake data. When testing, we often create records by randomly typing in some keystrokes in the place of real data. This approach might work for forms, but it will not be very aesthetic when doing demos. And you can’t actually check how the UI would look with real data. Faker solves this problem by letting us generate fake data of different types. It also lets us use those to populate our database.
Faker supports integrating with popular ORMs such as Doctrine, Eloquent, Mandango. So, it will be really easy to populate the database without having to write many queries. It supports a lot of different types of data that is required for any non-trivial projects.
PhpSpreadsheet
This is a successor to the popular spreadsheet library called PHPExcel. This is written in pure PHP without any additional dependencies. It provides you with classes that can be used to read and write popular spreadsheet formats given below.
- CSV
- Microsoft Excel(xlsx)
- LibreOffice Calc(ods)
ALSO READ: Developing an Express Application Using TypeScript
Adminer
Adminer is a database management system that is claiming to be the best alternative for the popular PHPMyAdmin tool. PHPMyAdmin can be quite heavy and slow at times and I haven’t felt any of those issues with Adminer when I used it.
The main selling point of adminer is that it is written in a single file and lighter than PHPMyAdmin. Other features that are better than PHPMyAdmin are below,
- Adminer supports different database engines such as MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Oracle.
- It is not possible to alter a view in phpMyAdmin, it must be dropped and recreated manually but it can be done in Adminer.
- Adminer provides links to documentation for all SQL keywords and much more.
Here I explained some of the useful PHP tools that I have been using. I hope they are useful to you as well. what are the PHP tools that you’re using in your day to day work? Let me know in the comments.
Get in touch with the best web development company in the Industry. hire dedicated php developers right now for your business.
PHP Storm
PHPStorm is developed by JetBrains. It is an IDE for PHP and provides an editor for other languages too. It is a commercial tool.
Features:
- Code assistance even while working with databases and SQL.
- Auto completion & Syntax highlighting.
- Easy code navigation.
Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Supported Languages: PHP code editor is for PHP, CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
Cost Details:
- For Individual users: $89 for one year, $71 for the second year, and $53 from there onwards.
- For Organizations: $199 for the first year, $159 for the second year, and $119 from there onwards.
Official website: PHP Storm
AWS Cloud9
AWS Cloud9 is ideal for developing PHP applications completely in the cloud. In addition to allowing you to create web applications without the need for a server, this tool supports all of the advanced features you’d expect from a modern IDE like code hinting and completion.
XAMPP
This tried-and-true PHP tool is well supported, easy to install and free for anyone to download. It might have more features than you need, but it’s especially helpful if you use MySQL for database management. You can even install CMS components on top of XAMPP with the help of Bitnami.
4. Eclipse PDT
Though originally intended for Java coding, Eclipse can be extended to support PHP with the PDT plugin. Eclipse is open source and has all of the features you’d expect out of an IDE such as PHP profiling, syntax highlighting and unit testing; however, it requires a lot of resources to run, which could present an issue for smaller development teams.
ScriptCase
With ScriptCase you can create web-enabled applications in a matter of minutes. ScriptCase connects to most database engines, and it can produce interactive reports with helpful charts and tables. You can try ScriptCase for free for 20 days, but after that expect to pay an annual fee of $280-480 depending on which package you prefer.
PHPDesigner
PHPDesigner may be the most feature-rich IDE made for specifically PHP developers. It contains just about everything you need to create and debug dynamic web apps including a PHP code beautifier tool. Of course, all of those features come with a hefty licensing fee. Fortunately, the intuitive interface makes PHPDesigner especially helpful if you’re just getting started with learning PHP.
PHPUnit
PHPUnit is just like JUnit except that it’s for PHP testing instead of Java testing. It allows you to create your own unit tests and see the results in several different formats. PHPUnit is particularly useful for consistency and scalability testing.
Selenium
Selenium is a lightweight, open source testing framework that lets anyone create custom UI tests in any language. It is compatible with most browsers, and it deploys on Windows, Linux and macOS.
PHPDocumentor
This open source PHP documentation generator features a web-based command line interface. It automatically parses PHP code and outputs documentation in HTML, PDF, CHM and Docbook formats. You can integrate cross referencing and tutorials by linking between documentation. Check out the demo version of PHPDocumentor 2 to see the selection of new and improved PHP templates.
PHPDox
If you need quick API documentation for your PHP application, PHPDox is the perfect solution. It even includes helpful details like code coverage and complexity information. In addition to the handy search feature that lets you quickly find the information you need, you can expand the tool’s functionality with a number of plugins.
RIPS
RIPS started out as an open source tool for identifying vulnerabilities in PHP applications, but it has evolved into a comprehensive security monitoring service. Unfortunately, the free version of RIPS is no longer supported, but you can still use it. The premium service purportedly provides ongoing threat analysis with no false positives.
Securimage
This open source script lets you make and manage CAPTCHA codes to secure your PHP applications. CAPTCHA codes are especially useful on submission forms for filtering out spam and security threats.
Retrace
Retrace is a performance monitoring tool with an excellent error tracking feature to help you identify exceptions and address bugs quickly and efficiently. Take advantage of the two-week free trial before you decide if it’s worth the monthly fee.
New Relic APM
New Relic is similar to Retrace in that it gives you a thorough overview of your PHP application’s performance. Aside from infrastructure monitoring, New Relic can collect user data and provide valuable analysis to assist you in creating a better user experience.
AppOptics
If you’ve ever used TraceView, then you should feel right at home with AppOptics. That’s because its creator, Solarwinds, acquired TraceView and incorporated all of its features into their own performance monitoring tool. At just $20 per month per host, AppOptics supports a surprising amount of integrations, plugins and custom metrics.
AppDynamics
AppDynamics boasts more features than other performance tuning tools including end-to-end monitoring and code-level diagnostics. AppDynamics comes with a steep price tag of $230 per month per server, but you certainly get what you pay for in this case.
Conclusion
There are many great tools available for PHP, especially since it’s now the most popular programming language on the web. These tools help PHP developers accomplish their tasks faster, which consequently makes work easier.