IntelliJ IDEA, PHPStorm, and WebStorm are all IDEs or Integrated Development Environments for different programming languages. IDEs are software where you write a program in a particular language and execute it to see the output. The major difference among the above-mentioned three IDEs is that IntelliJ IDEA is for Java programming, PHPStorm is for PHP language and WebStorm is for JavaScript language. These IDEs are different from one another in terms of the features they provide.

Developers’ Choice – There are different reasons why these IDEs have become popular among the developers or why the developers choose to use them over many other IDEs available. IntelliJ IDEA is truly intelligent as there are advanced autocomplete features available and the error detection is superfast and indicative even before you execute. There is a vast level of plugins integration possible and it works comfortably with various technologies and frameworks smoothly. It is due to its intelligent features, better code analysis, and robust plugins architecture that developers consider it the most advanced among other IDEs for Java.

As for PhpStorm, there are many developers who consider it to be the best among all PHP IDEs. It supports all the popular PHP frameworks. The plugin architecture is robust and there are several modern tools available that will enhance web development to the next level. The code analysis is quite advanced and it is considered to be an all-rounder. It also works on Mac and there are various types of themes available to work with.

As far as WebStorm goes, it is definitely the most popular IDE for JavaScript. It is highly intelligent and intuitive like IntelliJ. The overall environment is smart for faster commercial development. Debugging is super easy as the error messages are detailed with various suggestions. One of the most important things for web development is spellcheck and the tool is integrated. All the latest web technologies are supported and it is also a cross-platform IDE.

Speed – Out of the three IDEs, WebStorm is the fastest performing IDE and PhpStorm is the slowest. IntelliJ IDEA falls in between but one can classify it under the slow category. The reason for PhpStorm to be slow is that it uses a lot of memory and if there is not enough free memory space available, the performance goes down significantly. When you open large files, it takes a lot of time. Therefore, as far as choosing a high speed and nearly perfect IDE goes, WebStorm for JavaScript is the closest one you can get.

Supported Languages – IntelliJ IDEA comes with two different versions called Community and Ultimate. Apart from Java, it supports, Groovy, and XML for the Community version while the Ultimate Edition supports ActionScript, HTML, CSS, XHTML, JavaScript, Ruby, and SQL. Furthermore, it has support for PHP, Python, Go, Perl, Scala and other via plugins only.

WebStorm support AngularJS, ReactJS, and VueJS, for web development, React Native, Ionic, and Cordova for mobile development, NodeJS, and Meteor for server-side development and Electron for desktop development.

PhpStorm supports both front-end and server-end technologies. You can work with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Stylus, CoffeeScript, and TypeScript. You can also work with various database technologies like DB and SQL. That is why PHPStorm is rightly called an amalgamation of WebStorm and PHP and SQL.

Application – IntelliJ IDEA is mainly used for server-side development and it can also be used for a standalone application. PHPStorm has the ability to help the developers develop server-side as well as client-side development. As a matter of fact, among the three IDEs, PhpStorm is a complete IDE is a true sense as it is also having database technologies integrated which helps in the complete development. WebStorm is more for client-side development though server-side development is also possible. As far as the community support goes, IntelliJ IDEA leads as it is the flagship product of JetBrains followed by PhpStorm and then WebStorm.

Pricing – The community version of IntelliJ IDEA is available free of cost and it is an open-source software. There is another version called the ultimate version that cost $149 for the first year and less in the subsequent years. PhpStorm cost $89 for the first year but lesser as years progress. WebStorm costs $59 for the first year and $35 from the third year onwards. If you are working on all the technologies, you can opt for all products pack for $249 for the first year and $149 from the third year onwards. There are also monthly pay systems for the uses and you should definitely try out the trial version before purchasing. Moreover, there are different pay packages available for businesses and organizations.

The common thing among these three IDEs is that all of them are made by the same company JetBrains. Some of the popular companies using IntelliJ IDEA are Fitbit, Square, Hubspot. PhpStorm is being used by 9GAG, Lyft, Webedia, while WebStorm is popular among SalesForce, Soundcloud, Wix, BMW and much more.

Kitty Gupta
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