# PhpStorm Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra > With the help of Capterra, learn about PhpStorm Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Integrated Development Environment (IDE) products and more. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/186624/PhpStorm --- # PhpStorm Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons Last updated on March 13, 2026 Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. Independent research methodology Capterra’s researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or speak to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology. 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[Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-ensure-transparency/) [Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Users](#users)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Integrations](#integrations)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews) PhpStorm ## What is PhpStorm ? PhpStorm is a lightweight and smart PHP IDE designed with a focus on developer productivity. It understands your code at a deep level and provides smart code completion and on-the-fly error checking. PhpStorm is always ready to help you shape your code, run unit tests, or provide visual debugging. PhpStorm is perfect for working with Symfony, Laravel, Drupal, WordPress, Laminas, Magento, CakePHP, as well as front-end technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, Vue.js, React, and more. ## What is PhpStorm used for? [Integrated Development Environment (IDE)](https://www.capterra.com/ide-software/)[Source Code Management](https://www.capterra.com/source-code-management-software/) Overall rating Based on 157 user reviews Reviews sentiment Positive 100% Neutral 0% Negative 0% Starting price $249 Per User, Per Year Free trial available Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Do you work for PhpStorm ?[Manage this product listing](https://digitalmarkets.gartner.com/get-listed/claim-bx?url=http://www.jetbrains.com&name=PhpStorm ) ## Compare with a popular alternative Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status. ### PhpStorm 4.8 (157) VS. [### Microsoft Visual Studio](https://www.capterra.com/p/80230/microsoft-visual-studio/) [4.6 (3,005)](https://www.capterra.com/p/80230/microsoft-visual-studio/reviews/) Starting Price $249 Per User, Per Year Starting Price $499.92 Per User, Per Month Free Trial Free Version Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version Ease Of Use 4.5 (157) Ease Of Use 4.3 (2,967) Value For Money 4.5 (133) Value For Money 4.4 (2,229) Customer Service 4.5 (99) Customer Service 4.2 (2,067) ## PhpStorm alternatives Highest Rated [IntelliJ IDEA](https://www.capterra.com/p/136010/IntelliJ-IDEA/) [4.7 (1,257)](https://www.capterra.com/p/136010/IntelliJ-IDEA/reviews/) Starting price $19.90 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 98% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/136010/IntelliJ-IDEA/) [PyCharm](https://www.capterra.com/p/186625/PyCharm/) [4.7 (369)](https://www.capterra.com/p/186625/PyCharm/reviews/) Starting price $249.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 98% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/186625/PyCharm/) [Eclipse IDE](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) [4.3 (203)](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 85% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/205298/Eclipse-IDE/) [Apache NetBeans](https://www.capterra.com/p/178681/Apache-NetBeans/) [4.3 (231)](https://www.capterra.com/p/178681/Apache-NetBeans/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 87% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/178681/Apache-NetBeans/) [View all alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/186624/PhpStorm/alternatives/) ## Who uses PhpStorm ? Based on Capterra reviews from the past 6 years Company size Based on 111 reviews 100% 75% 50% 25% Smallbusiness Midsizebusinesses Enterprise Top job functions Based on 111 reviews IT & Software Development 61% IT & Software Development 61% Marketing 13% Administrative 10% Engineering 10% Others 6% Top industries Based on 111 reviews Computer Software 46% Information Technology and Services 30% Internet 10% Design 7% Other 7% ## Features Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically. Code Editing 4.9 (65) 67.69% of 65 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Edit code that has been previously created for product development. Code Development 4.9 (63) 68.25% of 63 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Create code from scratch For Developers 4.8 (63) 60.32% of 63 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important For the intention to be used by developers Graphical User Interface 4.5 (58) 50.00% of 58 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important A visual way of interacting with an application or operating system using items such as windows, icons, and menus Debugging 4.5 (54) 59.26% of 54 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Detect and remove errors Data Modeling 4.1 (25) 36.00% of 25 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Conceptual model of how data items relate to each other PhpStorm 10 features Application programming interface that allows for integration with other systems/databases Track and monitor efficient handling of all changes/transitions Create code from scratch Edit code that has been previously created for product development. Conceptual model of how data items relate to each other Detect and remove errors For the intention to be used by developers A visual way of interacting with an application or operating system using items such as windows, icons, and menus Track revisions and updates made to files and navigate between different versions Create/edit commerce applications for mobile devices and/or web Features 4.8 (157) 4.8 Based on 157 reviews ## Pricing Value for money 4.5 (133) Free Trial [View pricing plan details](https://www.capterra.com/p/186624/PhpStorm/pricing/) PhpStorm (Organization) $249.00 Per User,Per Year It includes: - Code Quality Analysis - Databases & SQL - Debugging - Easy Code Navigation & Search - HTML and CSS Editor - Profiling - Smart PHP Code Editor - Testing - VCS All Product Pack (Organization) $779.00 Per User,Per Year It includes: - Code Quality Analysis - Databases & SQL - Debugging - Easy Code Navigation & Search - HTML and CSS Editor - Profiling - Smart PHP Code Editor - Testing - VCS Php Storm (Individual use) $99.00 Flat Rate,Per Year It includes: - Code Quality Analysis - Databases & SQL - Debugging - Easy Code Navigation & Search - HTML and CSS Editor - Profiling - Smart PHP Code Editor - Testing - VCS All Product Pack (Individual use) $289.00 Flat Rate,Per Year It includes: - Code Quality Analysis - Databases & SQL - Debugging - Easy Code Navigation & Search - HTML and CSS Editor - Profiling - Smart PHP Code Editor - Testing - VCS Value for money 4.5 (133) 4.5 Based on 133 reviews ## Integrations [ GitHub](https://www.capterra.com/p/129067/GitHub/) ## Support, customer service and training options Customer Service 4.5 (99) Support - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - Phone Support - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat Training - In Person - Live Online - Webinars - Documentation - Videos Deployment - Web - Android - iPhone/iPad Typical users - Freelancers - Small businesses - Mid size businesses - Enterprises Customer Service 4.5 (99) 4.5 Based on 99 reviews ## User reviews Overall rating 4.8 Based on 157 reviews Filter by rating 5(124) 4(33) 3(0) 2(0) 1(0) Mentioned topic Sorted by most recent TE Tom E. Senior Frontend Developer Higher Education ### "Solid IDE with regular updates" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 March 25, 2026 Overall PhpStorm is my favourite development IDE and I use it more than just PHP including Twig, VueJS and more. Pros I like using PhpStorm as, not only is it great for PHP development with Symfony and Twig but also for JavaScript. I personally use it for VueJS. This is due to the plugins you can install. It fully integrates with Github and Github Copilot, has great code searching facilities. The learning curve is minimal and overall it straightword to use. Cons There are times when PhpStorm will occasionally freeze. This seems to happen on my Mac environment. I'm not sure how it performs on other environments. Switched from [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) PhpStorm for me can do everything that Visual Studio Code did and more. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. DG Damian G. CTO Information Technology and Services ### "Burning Burritto" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 March 8, 2026 Pros Easy of use when writing in multiple platform such as windows/macOS. Very good debugging tool helping to solve complex issue with ease. Cons Very often on for example company laptop have some performance issues, making project indexing taking ages and putting laptop fan's to the sky. Switched from [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) Have a lot of issues with it, problem with integrations, lack of plugins for my specific needs Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Nick B. Engineer III Computer Software ### "Preferred IDE for seasoned PHP developers" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 January 8, 2026 I've been using PhpStorm for over 10 years and it has always been, and remains to this day, my preferred IDE. Pros PhpStorm is a feature-full IDE designed with PHP developers in mind. On top of standard code editing, testing, and debugging features, it brings all the best that JetBrains has to offer from its suite of products. It's easy to use, and intuitive, with a small learning curve, and it's capable of handling multiple languages that are critical to building modern web apps. Cons There really isn't much to complain about with PhpStorm. On the odd occasion, you may run into memory usage issues. This product is a beast, and does require a fairly robust machine to run efficiently. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. GP Gilbert P. SysOPS Information Technology and Services ### "My daily driver: An indispensable too" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 November 25, 2025 PhpStorm works exceptionally well. It has become an indispensable part of my stack; I honestly couldn't imagine working without it now. It is reliable, powerful, and keeps me productive every single day. Pros Its seamless integration into my daily workflow. It is my everyday tool, and I particularly appreciate the intelligent code completion, robust debugging, and refactoring capabilities. It fits my development style perfectly. Cons It can be slightly resource-intensive (RAM) during the initial indexing of very large projects, and it slow to startup, but the performance trade-off is absolutely worth it for the features provided. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. VB Visakh B. Software Developer Computer Software ### "All-in-One for PHP, But not lightweight" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 4/10 October 3, 2025 I’ve been using PhpStorm for about a year for CodeIgniter and Laravel projects. While it sometimes feels heavy compared to other editors, the advanced debugging, code navigation, and refactoring tools save me a lot of time. Overall, PhpStorm is a professional IDE that is worth it for serious PHP development. Pros PhpStorm automatically suggests code, detects errors early, and helps with syntax highlighting.Works really well with Laravel and CodeIgniter. Cons It’s a subscription-based paid IDE, which may be expensive compared to free editors like VS Code.Beginners might find too many features confusing at first. Switched from [Sublime Text](https://www.capterra.com/p/179535/Sublime-Text/) PhpStorm is a full IDE with many built-in tools (debugger, database tools, version control, etc.). This richness makes it use more RAM, CPU, and disk I/O, especially when opening large projects. Sublime Text is much lighter to run. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. TB Tony B. Developer Computer Software ### "PHPStorm - my go to IDE for several years" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 October 2, 2025 Very happy, or I wouldn't keep renewing every year. They keep the system up to date with the latest versions of PHP and most of the time if Im watching youtube videos, the person is more than likely using PHP Storm so it seems to be popular with people other than me Pros I've been using it for years. I tried VS Code and I tried a multitude of other IDEs over the years but PHP Storm seemed to just gel with me. I love the debugging tools, the remote file view, the ability to edit a remote file, and linking to github to name but a few Cons It can be heavy on memory. I guess for what it's doing it may not be but I quite often have 3 or 4 projects open at the same time and you really notice your memory disappearing. They do regular updates but when it has to rebuild the indexes after a new version or for some other reason, it can be quite slow and certain features aren't available whilst it doing its indexing Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. JT James T. Owner Information Technology and Services ### "Great IDE, heavy resource usage." 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 September 8, 2025 Overall good experience with Phpstorm. Have used it as my daily IDE for years and don't see that changing anytime soon. Pros The simplicity of the interface is a big bonus. There are plenty of extension options that allow you to integrate about anything into it. Cons It is incredible resource heavy and can easily take multiple gigs of memory to run. But performance of the app isn't an issue. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AC Alex C. Engineering Manager Renewables & Environment ### "PhpStorm - the solution you never knew you needed" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 September 2, 2025 I have been a daily user for 4 years now, and have convinced colleagues to try it. All who have tried it, switched to it, or to Webstorm. Pros It is really a complete solution for building websites and applications with PHP. The ease of installation and use is staggering. There is a plethora of good plugins from assistance with other languages to debugging. The learning curve is almost nonexistent and the code editing is a dream. Cons No real cons on normal usage. When refactoring folders in a large codebase it would be helpful if the app would differentiate more between usage of same. Switched from [Notepad++](https://www.capterra.com/p/185965/Notepad/) [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) First, just to try it out, but then I was convinced in the first week. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. TA Taoufiq A. Web Developer Computer Software ### "Very good ide minor issues with WSL" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 July 23, 2025 Very good ide. Gain lot of time when using the autocomplete and intelligence artificial assistant and ai agent Pros Help me in php coding for large projects like magento, prestashop, laravel and symfony. Recently ai was integrated to ide Cons The application crash and freezes in startup screen on windows 11 WSL with ubuntu distribution. Index is created everytime Switched from [Visual Studio Code](https://www.capterra.com/p/186634/Visual-Studio-Code/) Company got the license key for the product Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. EA Estrella A. Software engineer Computer Software ### "PhoStorm us great for testing " 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 7/10 July 20, 2025 I have stopped using phpStorm to code but I keep using it to test, I grabbed not found a better too for this. Pros I like the intuitive UI particularly the testing one. Every test can be run by clicking the little arrow that shows to its left and you can easily see all your test suite results at a glance. Cons When I look for text it can be really slow. Sometimes it won't show results when I know for a fact what I'm looking for us in they project. Sometimes lint is also very slow and keeps showing me an error that's not there anymore. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. [View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/186624/PhpStorm/reviews/) ## Top-rated software of 2026 ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox. Popular comparisons [Microsoft Visual Studio vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/80230-186624/microsoft-visual-studio-vs-PhpStorm) [IntelliJ IDEA vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/136010-186624/IntelliJ-IDEA-vs-PhpStorm) [PyCharm vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/186624-186625/PhpStorm-vs-PyCharm) [Eclipse IDE vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/186624-205298/PhpStorm-vs-Eclipse-IDE) [Apache NetBeans vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/178681-186624/Apache-NetBeans-vs-PhpStorm) [Essential Studio vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/186624-228226/PhpStorm-vs-Essential-Studio) [WebStorm vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/186624-231557/PhpStorm-vs-WebStorm) [Bitbucket vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/186624-233341/PhpStorm-vs-Bitbucket) [Open DevOps vs PhpStorm](https://www.capterra.com/compare/186624-267175/PhpStorm-vs-Open-DevOps)  Independent research methodology Capterra's researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or speak to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/proprietary-data-research/) How Capterra verifies reviews Capterra carefully verified over 2.5 million+ reviews to bring you authentic software experiences from real users. Our human moderators verify that reviewers are real people and that reviews are authentic. They use leading tech to analyze text quality and to detect plagiarism and generative AI. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-verify-reviews/) How Capterra ensures transparency Capterra lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us—so that users can make informed purchase decisions. Capterra is free for users. Software providers pay us for sponsored profiles to receive web traffic and sales opportunities. Sponsored profiles include a link-out icon that takes users to the provider's website. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-ensure-transparency/)