IDE alternatives?
I'm using PHPStorm since around 14 years now. I like it and don't have many complains about the IDE itself.
But a couple things let me think about looking for an alternative:
- Pricing: Until a couple years ago, you got an discount if you paid your yearly license every year. That is gone and they even increased the price
- Performance: It feels sometimes abit slower than usual
- Coding: AI is so good now. Since around an half year, after I wrote a good ruleset, I didn't wrote any code anymore. Claude does the hole coding part for me now. PHPStorm is still great to check diffs, search in big codebases but I'm using like 20% of the IDE now.
- AI Sub: My employer paid me the AI Pro sub in jetbrains now 2 times already. First time beginning of last year when it was completly new. And a few month alter they added a never communicated credit system which was basically gone in 2-3 days. I got it this year again and it is still ok to be able to let a different AI check a new feature but if I had to pay it, I would say it's not worth it.
My employer is paying the PHPStorm license and it's not about me saving money but still... I think I should try different IDEs. AI intregration is not important so far. I'm using Claude code and sometimes Claude Desktop if it's about frontend with screenshots which both run outside of the IDE just fine. Sometimes I start claude inside the IDE CLI but there is no a big benefit if it's running in the general terminal or PHPStorm terminal.
I have VSCode installed but it's more my basic editor for any kind of file, not my IDE.
I was also reading that Zen might be good. But maybe thats already to AI focused? Is the free version enough or is Pro much better?
What other IDEs are worth a look for MacOS (M4 Pro)?
My PHPStorm license is valid until next year. I have alot of time to test different IDEs.