This article contains a list of text editors with features specific to the PHP scripting language.

Free editors edit

Editor License Latest Version Platform Autocompletion File Browser GUI builder Internal Browser Version Control PHP Debugger
Linux macOS Windows Other Local FTP SFTP SSH
Aptana Studio APL/ GPLv1 3.6.1 Yes Yes Yes JVM Yes ? Yes Yes ? With XDebug[1]
Atom MIT 1.13.1 Yes Yes Yes FreeBSD[2] Yes[3] ? No Yes ?
Bluefish GPLv3 2.2.9 Yes Yes Yes FreeBSD[4] Yes ? Yes Yes ?
Brackets MIT 1.8 Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? No Yes ?
CodeLite GPLv2 17.0 Yes Yes Yes FreeBSD[5] Yes ? No Yes ?
Eclipse PDT EPL 7.0 Yes Yes Yes JVM Yes ? Yes Yes Yes With XDebug[6]
Geany GPLv2 1.29 Yes Yes Yes FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD[7] Yes ? Yes Yes ?
gedit GPLv3 3.22.2 Yes[8] Yes Yes[8] FreeBSD Yes[9] ? Yes[9] Yes ? With XDebug[10]
GNU Emacs GPLv3 27.1 Yes Yes Yes BSDs, OpenSolaris Yes dired (builtin) tramp (builitin) tramp (builtin) tramp (builitin) Yes Yes vc (builtin) ?
jEdit GPLv2 5.5.0 Yes Yes Yes JVM No Yes Yes[11] Yes[11] Yes[12] No Yes ?
Kate GPLv2 16.08.1 Yes Yes Yes FreeBSD No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes ?
KWrite GPLv2 16.08.1 Yes Yes No FreeBSD No ? No Yes ?
KDevelop[13] GPLv2 5.0.3 Yes Partial[14] Yes FreeBSD[15] Yes ? Yes Yes Yes ?
Komodo Edit MPL 10.1.2 Yes Yes Yes ? Yes ? Yes Yes[16] No[17]
NetBeans CDDL/ GPLv2/ LGPLv2.1 21[18]   (20 February 2024) [±] Yes Yes Yes JVM Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes With XDebug[19]
Notepad++ GPL 7.2.2 No[20] No Yes No Yes No No No No No No Yes With XDebug[21]
SciTE GPLv2 3.7.1 Yes[22] Yes Yes FreeBSD[23] No ? No Yes ?
Sublime Text Shareware 4113 Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
TextMate GPLv1 1.5 No Yes No No Yes ? No Yes ?
Vim Vim License 9.0 Yes Yes Yes Yes[24] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Visual Studio Code MIT This template is not used anymore. The latest stable and pre-release versions are maintained in Wikidata and they appear automatically in the main article for Visual Studio Code.


Yes Yes Yes No Yes[25] ? No Yes ?

Cross-platform edit

  • Aptana Studio – Eclipse-based IDE, able to use PDT plugins, visual JS editor. Open-source, free project. (Community edition merged in).
  • Atomfree and open-source[26] text editor with out-of-the-box PHP support.
  • Bracketsfree and open-source editor in HTML5/NodeJS by Adobe Team the best for integration frontend
  • CodeLite – an open source, cross platform IDE for C/C++ and PHP. The built-in plugins supports SVN, SSH/SFTP access, Git database browsing and others.
  • EclipsePHP Development Tools (PDT) and PHPEclipse projects. With additional plugins supports SVN, CVS, database modelling, SSH/FTP access, database navigation, Trac integration, and others.
  • Editraopen source editor. Syntax highlighting and (partial) code completion for PHP + HTML and other IDE-like features like code browser etc.
  • Emacs – advanced text editor. The nXhtml addon has special support for PHP (and other template languages). The major mode web-mode.el is designed for editing mixed HTML templates.
  • Geany – syntax highlighting for HTML + PHP. Provides PHP function list.
  • jEditfree/open source editor. Supports SFTP and FTP.
  • Komodo Edit – general purpose scripting language editor with support for PHP. Free version of the commercial ActiveState Komodo IDE.
  • Netbeans – IDE with PHP support and integration with web standards. Supports SFTP and FTP. Full support for SVN and Git since 7.2 and powerful plugin support for added functionality.
  • SciTE – PHP syntax highlighting, compiler integration, powerful config via Lua API.
  • Vim – provides PHP syntax highlighting, debugging.[27]

Windows edit

  • ConTEXT – *No longer under development* Freeware editor with syntax highlighting.
  • Crimson Editor – Lightweight editor. Supports FTP.
  • Microsoft WebMatrix – A combined editor, server and publishing environment, syntax highlighting for HTML, PHP, Razor, node.js, C# and JavaScript and publishing through WebDeploy and FTP. Supports multiple file encodings as of version 2.
  • Notepad2 – Simple editor with syntax highlighting
  • Notepad++FLOSS multi-language editor with macro support, syntax highlighting (possible export to HTML), code completion, php.net function reference, foldable code blocks etc.; expandable via plugins, e.g. (S)FTP support, version control (Git, SVN), documentation generators, snippet support, spell checking, custom classes completion, code beautifiers
  • PSPad – Supports FTP; syntax highlighting.
  • RJ TextEd – Text editor with many great features

macOS edit

Linux edit

Proprietary editors edit

  • ActiveState Komodo IDE – Support for PHP syntax checking, debugging, trial available (NOTE: As of 2020, ActiveState Komodo is now completely free, and only requires that you register an account in order to use)
  • Adobe Dreamweaver – Supports SFTP and FTP; Trial available
  • BBEdit – Supports SFTP and FTP; Trial available
  • Cloud9 – Online editor (supports multiple languages)[28]
  • Coda – Supports SFTP and FTP; Trial available
  • CodeCharge Studio – Supports FTP
  • Codelobster – Editor with syntax highlighting, debugger, code validation, supports FTP.
  • Codenvy – Cloud development environment.
  • Embarcadero RadPHP (formerly Delphi for PHP) – Focus on web (Facebook, Google) and mobile (iOS, Android) development; Trial available
  • EmEditor
  • HTML-Kit – Syntax highlighting, supports FTP.
  • HyperEdit – Integrates PHP, JavaScript and HTML in an only interface WYSIWYG.
  • JetBrains PhpStorm – PHP IDE with editor, on-the-fly code analysis and other web development specific tools including FTP/SFTP synchronization; Trial available
  • Komodo IDE – Cross-platform integrated development environment for PHP as well as Python, Ruby and Perl.
  • Microsoft Expression Web – Full PHP support with syntax highlighting, etc.; Trial available
  • NoteTab – Allows you to have multiple tabs open for different files, has FTP support, comes in two trial versions (NoteTab Standard, NoteTab Pro) and one free version NoteTab Light. NoteTab Pro highlights tags.
  • NuSphere PhpED – A PHP development environment and integration with modern web standards. Supports SFTP, WebDAV, and FTP. Native support for CVS source control system, SVN and Git support can be added using Tortoise Windows Shell plugins.
  • PHPEdit – Supports SFTP and FTP
  • PHP Tools for Visual Studio PHP syntax highlighting, debugger, code validation, testing, support for other languages, among others. One- month trial available
  • Rapid PHP Editor – Support for PHP syntax checking, auto-complete, debug and support for CSS, Javascript and HTML
  • SlickEdit
  • Smultron
  • SourceLair – Online IDE for PHP,[29] as well as JavaScript and Python
  • TextPad – Trial available
  • Top PHP Studio – Supports FTP
  • UltraEdit – Supports SFTP and FTP; Trial available
  • Zend Studio – (Cross platform) professional PHP IDE, based on the PHP Development Tools plugin for the Eclipse platform; Trial available

References edit

  1. ^ "How to debug php in Aptana Studio". Archived from the original on 7 August 2013.
  2. ^ Instructions for building Atom on FreeBSD are all that are officially available. No official binary releases are available.
  3. ^ With the atom-autocomplete-php package.
  4. ^ "FreshPorts -- www/bluefish: HTML editor designed for the experienced web designer". freshports.org.
  5. ^ "FreshPorts -- editors/codelite: Open Source IDE for C/C++". freshports.org.
  6. ^ "Debugging using XDebug – Eclipsepedia".
  7. ^ "Third-Party Packages | Geany". geany.org.
  8. ^ a b Outdated packages available only: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gedit.
  9. ^ a b Plugin: https://github.com/addiks/gedit-phpide
  10. ^ Plugin: https://github.com/addiks/gedit-dbgp-plugin
  11. ^ a b With the FTP plugin
  12. ^ With the SSH Console plugin
  13. ^ "KDevelop PHP Support". Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  14. ^ No pre-built binaries are available. Build instructions are available for macOS.
  15. ^ devel/kdevelop-kde4 Port
  16. ^ With the Komodin Git addon
  17. ^ [1] The PHP debugger is supported in Komodo IDE, not in Komodo Edit
  18. ^ Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
  19. ^ "Debugging PHP Source Code in the NetBeans IDE".
  20. ^ Will run in Wine, however
  21. ^ "Debugging PHP using Xdebug and Notepad++ : Part I". 25 January 2009.
  22. ^ But it is not free
  23. ^ editors/scite Port
  24. ^ Has been ported to virtually every Unix/Unix-like system and various others. Reference: download : vim online.
  25. ^ With the PHP IntelliSense extension.
  26. ^ Henry, Alan (5 October 2016). "Atom, the Text Editor from GitHub, Goes Free and Open-Source". Lifehacker.
  27. ^ How to Debug PHP with Vim and XDebug on Linux
  28. ^ "Cloud9 – Your development environment, in the cloud".
  29. ^ "PHP support in SourceLair". SourceLair Help.