What is the difference between WebStorm, PhpStorm, PyCharm and RubyMine?

Question

I am considering making the switch to JetBrains IDE's as the trial of PhpStorm was quite impressive to me and a clear jump over Sublime.

I've always been reticent of IDE's since discovering Sublime and leaving DreamWeaver.

To me, it seems clear that PhpStorm is WebStorm + PHP.

Opening up the PyCharm and RubyMine, they seem very similar as well.

So, the big question is, are PyCharm, RubyMine and PhpStorm different enough to make it work buying the All Products Pack, or can the extensions from one be installed on the other and essentially make one software capable of all?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Basically: PhpStorm = WebStorm + PHP + Database support (although latest versions of WebStorm can have Database support if you have a license for DataGrip or All Products Pack: see https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/10925-database-tools-and-sql).

Similar kind of story with PyCharm and RubyMine: they are IDEs for Python and Ruby development.

You cannot install PHP plugin inside PyCharm or RubyMine or other way around. Each language plugin has certain dependencies that are not available in other IDEs.

If you need one IDE for all languages, consider IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate .. or All Products Pack where you can have all IDEs (see https://www.jetbrains.com/store/?fromMenu#edition=personal).

---

You cannot open the same project in multiple IDEs (as they use slightly different project settings and different module types) especially at the same time (as IDE saves config files at any time, especially the workspace.xml file). I mean: you can, but you will have conflicts and some settings might be lost.

At the same time you can work with the same files in multiple IDEs: just keep project settings (.idea subdfolder) in different places: project can be created in one place and then completely different Content Root (folder) can be attached instead.

Answer 2

I love trialling editors and IDEs. After 5 years of switching between many, I'm hooked on PHPStorm. It does everything you need and loads more. I mainly use for PHP and JS/Node. Other editors simply don't have the goods. I'd possibly consider switching to the VSCode IDE but it's super-expensive. Sublime is beautiful in its simplicity, but an IDE offers you so much more in the way of type-hinting, templates, etc, etc. The only downside is that I hate the PHP part of the name 'PHPStorm'. Seems fussy, but it just sounds a bit legacy...! My opinions, anyway...