We all accept that PHP is king in a server-side programming language. PHP enables us to create larger scale dynamic websites and web applications with desired interactivity. The robustness of PHP is in its code, and you need to have a skilled programmer to leverage it.
However, the richness of a programming language and skill level of programmers are not enough combination to deliver projects on time with the expected level of quality at the end. It also requires additional supports from frameworks to organize the development process, and IDE with adequate toolsets to bring accuracy, performance, and speed in coding.
If you have the right set of PHP app development tools, your success is assured. Therefore, I have initiated the current post to acknowledge PHP developers which tools are better and why it is so. Of course, I try to give it in an organized manner in the following categories so that developers can make their best choice.
- Development Environments
- Performance
- Code Profiling
- APM
- Logging
- Debugging
- Version Control
- Security
- Miscellaneous
Let’s check all one-by-one.
Integrated Development Environments (IDE) Tools for PHP App Development
IDE is a software to facilitate programmers in coding by providing source code editor, build automation tools, debugger, compiler, interpreter, and other tools. IDE ease various tasks of development such as authoring, compiling, modifying, debugging, and deploying the software. It offers multiple tools and process within one interface window.
PHP has a number of decent IDEs, text editors, and hybrid development environments. Out of those some significant ones are:
Eclipse PDT
It encompasses the following features:
- Code profiling
- Code formatting
- Syntax highlighting
- Unit testing
- Debugging
- Code templates
- Content assistance
Zend Studio
It is an ideal IDE for PHP development and can deploy on any server including Zend server and leading cloud servers. It has extensive plugin capability with Eclipse.
Sublime Text
It an excellent text editor for startups and sometimes for certain projects when an IDE can overkill things. It allows split as well as simultaneous edits.
Script Case
It is web-enabled IDE resides on cloud and support connections to database engines. It creates charts and interactive reports.
XAMPP
It is a decade old IDE for PHP and part of Apache products. It supports MySQL and has decent control panel.
Performance Tools for PHP Development
Code performance is a vital aspect in any programming to ensure speed, quality of code, and apply best coding practices to make code futuristic. PHP performance tools for development can segregate into followings:
- Code Profiling Performance Tools for PHP App Programming
- Log Monitor Performance Tools for PHP App Development
- APM (Application Performance Monitoring) Tools for PHP Application Development
You must select the appropriate tools during various stages of PHP development. For instance, code profilers are good during development stages, but APM can do its best after deployment of your PHP application. Today, we can get a combination of performance tools for PHP app development. Let’s check some of the leading tools.
New Relic APM
It offers full-stack visibility such as trends at a glance, browser, mobile, and infrastructure monitoring, performance tracking, code-level diagnostics, cross-application tracing, and low-impact production thread profiler like services.
Retrace
It allows a view of related logging to find and fix issues. It helps in recognize bottlenecks and requests affected. It tracks and monitors all key application and server metrics. It catches critical info about code performance using code profiler.
App Optics
It has 150+ integrations and plugins. It offers server as well as infrastructure monitoring along with application monitoring and visualization using custom metrics and analytics.
Debugging Performance Tools for PHP Web Development
We know code pro filers are looking for opportunities to enhance the code while debuggers identify errors within the code and pinpoint to correct it with a possible suggestion if AI engine is integrated.
X Debug
It is an extension to PHP IDE and works well with all. It offers single-step debugging and stack tracing functionality.
Debug Bar
It is great for PHP, but also support debugging of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript like modern front-end technologies to ease the life of PHP developers. It also helps in monitoring of network traffic.
Version Control Tools for PHP
When a team is working on a PHP project with more than one or two developers even at different locations, integration and collaboration among team members become a crucial point especially for maintaining code documents.
It is a version control system that helps developers the source code and code branches beautifully. It assures the safety of the main branch of code and simultaneously allows developers to add updates and new features in the side branches of code. The following are highly used version and sub-version control systems for PHP.
Git
We most often confuse with Git and GitHub, but Git is a mechanism of GitHub transactions. It has easy to learn and run the command-line interface and supports cloud-based repositories.
GitHub
It ideal cloud-based solutions used by a vast developer community as a de-facto version control solution. It offers collaboration and development tools to help the developer community active on it.
Vagrant
It an excellent tool to create a virtual environment. It used to control different versions of environments and also destroy easily when no longer in use.
Security Tools for PHP App Development
Today, security is the most sensitive issue on the web and mobile arena. It seems cool when you identify and solve the vulnerability issue before you release the PHP applications. Some PHP security tools help developers to detect vulnerability in the code during and after the development process using the various PHP security tools.
RIPS
It is a robust PHP scanner to detect vulnerability. It eliminates false positives and useful in code quality analysis. It has a robust risk detection mechanism and compiles with security standards in the industry.
Miscellaneous Tools for PHP App Development
It is web browsers, and particularly, Chrome offers a variety of PHP tools for developers to take instant and real-time help in PHP development. Some extensions provide out-of-box features and functionality to help PHP developers in their day-to-day development tasks using normal or developer modes.
Conclusion
If you think whatever I have presented here is enough for your next PHP app development project, you are making a big mistake. There are tons of PHP development tools, but I have explained a few out of all and in categories. If you are interested to know more or looking for an advanced project with our PHP development team, M-connect Solutions invites you to set a stage by initiating a conversation with the team.
About Hemant Parmar
Hemant Parmar is an eCommerce expert and a keen Magento consultant who specializes in meeting the needs of businesses in the e-commerce space. Years in the eCommerce market make him a perfect choice for sharing his expertise on eCommerce and Magento 2 development. He believes that customers need to be met no matter how challenging it might be.
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