PhpStorm vs. Retool Comparison


PhpStorm JetBrains	Retool	+	+
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About The Lightning-Smart PHP IDE. PhpStorm deeply understands your code. PhpStorm is perfect for working with Symfony, Laravel, Drupal, WordPress, Zend Framework, Magento, Joomla!, CakePHP, Yii, and other frameworks. The editor actually 'gets' your code and deeply understands its structure, supporting all the PHP language features for modern and legacy projects. It provides the best code completion, refactorings, on-the-fly error prevention, and more. Make the most of the cutting edge front-end technologies, such as HTML 5, CSS, Sass, Less, Stylus, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, Emmet, and JavaScript, with refactorings, debugging, and unit testing available. See the changes instantly in the browser thanks to Live Edit. Perform many routine tasks right from the IDE, thanks to the Version Control Systems integration, support for remote deployment, databases/SQL, command-line tools, Docker, Composer, REST Client, and many other tools.		About Retool is the AI-native enterprise app development platform where teams build and ship production-ready apps — at AI speed, with enterprise governance built in. Describe what you need and get a working app, import React-based apps from Lovable, Replit, or Claude Code, or connect your AI agent via MCP. However your team builds, every app lands in Retool with RBAC, SSO, audit logging, and your existing permissions already in place. Retool connects to databases, APIs, LLMs, and external tools out of the box. Teams can build AI agents, dashboards, workflows, and full-stack apps — with a visual editor for speed and direct code access for precision. Trusted by over 10,000 organizations including Amazon, Stripe, DoorDash, and OpenAI to get AI-built apps safely to production.
Platforms Supported Windows Mac Linux Cloud On-Premises iPhone iPad Android Chromebook		Platforms Supported Windows Mac Linux Cloud On-Premises iPhone iPad Android Chromebook
Audience PHP developers		Audience Data teams, engineers, and operations teams at startups and enterprises looking to rapidly build secure, AI-powered internal tools that integrate with their existing systems
Support Phone Support 24/7 Live Support Online		Support Phone Support 24/7 Live Support Online
API Offers API		API Offers API
Screenshots and Videos View more images or videos		Screenshots and Videos View more images or videos
Pricing $199 per user per year Free Version Free Trial		Pricing $10 per user per month Free Version Free Trial
Reviews/Ratings Overall 4.2 / 5 ease 4.2 / 5 features 4.8 / 5 design 4.0 / 5 support 5.0 / 5 Read all reviews		Reviews/Ratings Overall 5.0 / 5 ease 5.0 / 5 features 5.0 / 5 design 5.0 / 5 support 5.0 / 5 Read all reviews
Pros & Cons from Real Users Pros Clean and customizable interface. Multiple themes and color schemes for personal preference. Simple yet powerful layout for managing files, tools, and navigation. Support for multiple project views and easy file navigation. - The auto-suggestion feature is quite accurate and comes very handy while coding on a big project. - The color themes can be easily customizable according to the user preference. - It supports Git and version control. - It in built assistance feature helps in highlighting errors and give suggestions in real-time. Debugging from browser. Decent support, responsive and to the point. Some search features are good once you learn to use them. Php lacks many advanced IDE like other popular languages but PhpStorm definitely fills the void. It supports all major frameworks and features intelligent autocomplete that understands your code. It has built in developer tools and database support for even most advanced php development. It is also quite affordable for enterprise development. Easy to use & user friendly interface. Autocomplete feature. In-app terminal & ssh support. Supports front end HTML , CSS & JS files. Tons of customization options. Add-ons to support different PHP frameworks. Cons The sheer number of features and options might overwhelm new users. Some UI elements may seem cluttered when working with larger projects, but this can be customized. - The code initialization and debugging takes a lot of time. - It can be sluggish sometimes when compiling a large code base. A lot. I've thought I'd switch over from phpEd, but honestly, the time I'm spending on trying to figure out how to disable these annoying automatic things, and the amount of time I'm spending communicating with the support is insane. I've easily lost days worth of work-time already. It does a lot of things to "help"; but they don't help but hinder. Some of it can be disabled, some can not. But even those that can be disabled; good luck finding these. Also the key shortcuts are rather weird so plenty of time to reconfigure those. The lack of ability to fold comments only, or open to methods only; no helping this. Then there's the error highlighting; it highlights essentially whole files, just because it just cannot figure out either the smarty syntax(!), or the code structure. There are plenty more, I'm not going to bother to detail it all out. There are things that are in the dev queue for many years now, some would help - but it seems these will never get done. Unlike other tools from Jetbrains it has no Community edition, so beginners or individual users might consider that as a big con. Expensive yearly price. Resource Intensive - takes long time to load.		Pros from Real Users Pros For our internal workflows and tooling, we now use retool for everything. It is super easy and quick to get our critical operations workflows built. Excellent support from their team too!
Training Documentation Webinars Live Online In Person		Training Documentation Webinars Live Online In Person
Company Information JetBrains Founded: 2000 Czech Republic www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/		Company Information Retool Founded: 2017 United States retool.com
Alternatives Apache NetBeans Apache Software Foundation		Alternatives StackAI
CodeLite		Bolt.new StackBlitz
JetBrains Fleet JetBrains		Rayven
WebStorm JetBrains		DronaHQ
PyCharm JetBrains View All		DataGrip JetBrains View All
Categories AI IDEs IDE Source Code Management		Categories Agentic AI AI Agent Builders AI Agents AI App Generators AI Automation AI Code Generators AI Coding Agents AI Coding Assistants AI Development AI IDEs AI Mobile App Builders App Design App Makers Application Development Database Database Clients Drag and Drop App Builders IDE Low-Code Development Mobile App Development MongoDB GUI Clients No-Code Development PostgreSQL GUI Clients Rapid Application Development (RAD) Vibe Coding Web App Development Workflow Management
IDE Features Code Completion Compiler Cross Platform Support Debugger Drag and Drop UI Integrations and Plugins Multi Language Support Project Management Text Editor / Code Editor Show More Features Source Code Management Features Access Controls/Permissions Bug Tracking Build Automation Change Management Code Review Collaboration Continuous Integration Repository Management Version Control		Show More Features App Design Features Change Management Collaboration Design Templates Drag & Drop Feature Library Prototyping Testing Management Visual Interface Low-Code Development Features AI-Assisted Development Business Process Automation Collaborative Development Data Aggregation and Publishing Deployment Management Drag & Drop Integrations Management Iteration Management Performance Monitoring Requirements Management Templates Visual Modeling Web / Mobile App Development Workflow Management No-Code Development Features AI-Assisted Development Business Process Automation Collaborative Development Data Aggregation and Publishing Deployment Management Drag & Drop Integrations Management Iteration Management Performance Monitoring Requirements Management Templates Visual Modeling Web / Mobile App Development Workflow Management
Integrations Docker Git MySQL Active Directory Amazon Q Developer Amazon Redshift Amazon S3 Code Time Crowdin Dash EasyCode Gemini GraphQL Indent JavaScript Mailtrap Mistral Code Okta Snowflake Tailor Show More Integrations View All 87 Integrations		Integrations Docker Git MySQL Active Directory Amazon Q Developer Amazon Redshift Amazon S3 Code Time Crowdin Dash EasyCode Gemini GraphQL Indent JavaScript Mailtrap Mistral Code Okta Snowflake Tailor Show More Integrations View All 46 Integrations
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