Is there a free IDE for PHP on Mac?

Question

I wanted to find a good but free PHP IDE for Mac. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Answer 1

Well, there is Eclipse if you want an IDE. But for PHP development an editor like TextMate/Emacs/MacVim is more fun to work with.

Answer 2

I use Eclipse with Aptana for PHP.

Answer 3

Komodo is wonderful, and it runs on OS X; they have a free version, Komodo Edit.

Answer 4

PDT eclipse from ZEND has a mac version (PDT all-in-one).

I've been using it for about 3 months and it's pretty solid and has debugging capabilities with xdebug (debug howto) and zend debugger.

Answer 5

Try the new Netbeans 6.5 Beta. The release should be out Oct 15. http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.5/beta/

Answer 6

You'll find a good list of PHP editors on Wikipedia...

Answer 7

I use vim in a terminal. I prefer less configuration, though netbeans is very nice.

Answer 8

My latest find is, "Coda" which doesn't feel like a full IDE, but has code completion, SVN, FTP and even terminal integration. It's light-weight and has an awesome slick interface. I switched from Textmate (which has most of the above, except a built in terminal emulator) because it has split views too!

Answer 9

Aquamacs with PHP mode. It comes with PHP mode installed and with a nice HTML Helper mode as well.

Answer 10

Personally I like the simplistic views. I am currently using dreamweaver with all of the toolbars and such turned off, but have been very happy with just TextEdit. If you want syntax highlighting I seem to remember that link text supports it, but I am not sure if it is still freeware or if it has changed to shareware/donationware/etc...

Answer 11

I've used Zend, Komodo and bbedit. They are each useful, but definitely the most reliable it seems to me is jEdit. Its code syntax is nice. It has plugins for just about everything. Its free. Its java, which is fine if you're on a fast computer. Zend is cool, but after using it for a year I've learned it needs work in its ftp and sftp (unreliable connection to the server and no alerts to let you know you've lost connection at times) and komodo is not stable. bbedit is mediocre. Dreamweaver don't bother unless you want a program that is like an infant meddling with your website.

Answer 12

I recommend you netbeans .its free. it is available for all platforms, and mostly it is good for editing php, jsp, java, css, html, ... Good for SVN, mercurial, Plus you can integrate it easyly with kenai.com...

it helps with the IntelliSense kind of pop up.

believe me, i'm using it for php development and its the best suited ide i can find...

Answer 13

Here's the lowdown on the IDE's that I'm aware of for the MAC (I mean IDE's NOT text editors like jEDIT or the like):

NetBeans 6.8 - Best functionality of all offerings. Includes inline database connections, code completion, syntax checking, color coding, split views etc. Downside: It's a memory hog on the Mac. Be prepared to allow half a gig of memory then you'll need to shut down and restart.

Dreamweaver CS4 - Very good for Javascript/HTML/CSS, but only marginal for PHP. There is some color coding, but no syntax checking or code completion native to the package. Database connections are supported, and so are split views.

Komodo Edit - A step above a Text Editor. Does not support database connections or split views. Color coding and syntax checking are there to an extent. The project control on Komodo is very unwieldy and strange compared to the other IDEs.

Aptana 1.5 - The perfect solution. Eclipsed based and uses the Aptana PHP plug in. Real time syntax checking, word wrap, drag and drop split views, database connections and a slew of other excellent features. Downside: Not a supported product any more. Aptana Studio 2.0+ uses PDT which is a watered down, under-developed (at present) php plug in.

Zend Studio 7.1 - Almost identical to Aptana, except no word wrap and you can't change alot of the php configuration on the MAC apparently due to bugs.

For my time, I'm using NetBeans, which is free, and extremely feature rich. I can deal with the memory issues for a while, but it could be slow coming to the MAC.

Cheers! Korky Kathman Senior Partner Entropy Dynamics, LLC

Answer 14

Aptana's PHP development set is very, very good on Mac, in recent releases its unfortunately been replaced by the PDT version.

Personally I'm sticking with Aptana 1.5 for now, BUT you can still install the original version from Aptana Studio 1.5 into Aptana Studio 2.0, see this discussion for details http://www.bram.us/2010/01/26/installing-the-original-aptana-15-php-plugin-in-aptana-20/

Answer 15

I just want to point out the distinction between an IDE and and a text editor. An editor lets you modify text - Period. Some editors offer code completion, code suggestions, code folding, other fancy tricks etc, but it is still just moving letters across a page in some organized fashion. Some have low functionality (eclipses cannot even word wrap), others can do everything (geany, notepad++, ultraedit)

An IDE offers debugging, variable / fn / method introspection. Any extra feature beyond these is just makes an editor a glorified 'project management' tool or an 'enhanced editor', etc.

A tool that understands and can analyze code is what makes an editor an IDE.

Answer 16

If you don't need an IDE, or are more comfortable with the sense of 'ease' that a text editor gives you - I'm going to put in a strong recommendation for BBEdit. I still find it better than TextMate (though I acknowledge that a vim/emacs fight is emerging there).

BBedit presents a wide range of support for UI, autocomplete, hinting, SFTP, commandline, applescript (BBEdit is tightly-coupled to a scripting language for full automation), version control, file browsing, GREP, etc. It's become even better in the recent year since TextMate created competition.

Personally, I find applescript a much more comprehensive script automation mechanism than shell scripts, because it allows for full UI control via click events + the normal shell-level operations.

Answer 17

Aptana is phenomenal (I like the 2.0+ versions despite the plugin changes) and it's great that it's Eclipse based so you can use it for other languages or frameworks (Java, Android SDK, etc). I also generally really liked it for front-end HTML/CSS/JS before moving over to Visual Studio 2010 full time on Windows AND it has great plugin support for all the popular JS libraries. Not exactly a PHP-centric feature, but a good web dev feature to have nonetheless

Answer 18

Aptana Studio, as others have mentioned, but it's all in the versions. They've gone through several major versions and each has its advantages and disadvanages.

• Some like the "original", version 1.5.
• Some like version 2 (current stable)
• But their new Studio 3 Beta, is very promising. They're still working out bugs but making releases often. http://www.aptana.com/products/studio3/download

Aptana is great: phpdoc syntax, full code completion across your projects, showing you a list of methods for a given object (including inherited methods), shows errors when your PHP doesn't parse, has SVN integration, etc.