Adios, Zend Studio. Hola, Komodo Pro!
While my posts have been few and far between over the last several months, anyone who’s been following along knows I’ve been wrestling with the decision over my preferred development environment.
A long time BBEdit user, I bit the bullet and (mostly) switched to Zend Studio back in November 2005. I was frustrated by Zend Studio’s clunky Subversion handling, but within a few weeks was willing to put up with that for Zend Studio’s great debugging environment and intimate knowledge of PHP that helps speed coding along on a line-by-line basis.
Then, I got a MacBook Pro in February. A 2.0Ghz Intel-based MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM went a long way to helping me get over how slow Zend Studio is on OS X. But, the switch to an Intel Mac broke Zend Studio’s great debugger. Whoops! There went at least half of why I was using Zend Studio in the first place.
I emailed Zend about this issue several times over the following months, and when it hadn’t been resolved by July, I chose not to renew my Zend Studio license. I toyed with switching to TextMate for awhile, but it just didn’t have the oomph I had gotten accustomed to with Zend Studio.
I’m sure there’s a valid reason that Zend hasn’t shipped an update for Zend Studio that would allow Zend Studio Server’s debugger extension work on Intel Macs in the 8 months since they first hit the market … but for the life of me, I just can’t imagine what it is.
Enter Komodo Pro. Komodo Pro 3 has supported Intel Macs for months. (Still no word from Zend on this issue.) Its debugging environment is based on the robust Xdebug extension.
What’s especially nice is that while Komodo bundles Xdebug, I’m fully able to compile my own, along with my own PHP. In fact, I’m working through building Mashery on a MacBook Pro, PHP 5.2.0RC1 running as a fast-cgi under Lighttpd with Xdebug 2.0beta6, all through Komodo Pro 4.0alpha3. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that exact setup to everyone, it’s working out very, very well for me. (The Live Folder/Live Import feature in 4.0 alpha3 is critical for Zend Studio switchers.)
That’s what it boils down to: Komodo Pro lets me work the way I want to, with the tools (and versions of those tools) I want to use. Zend Studio, on the other hand, does not.
Hi!
I never heard of it, but it looks really great! So many features and so cheap Student version with almost all features in it? I’m using Zend Studio too, but I should give it a try!
Thanks for tip!
depi
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Thanks for the link, I’m trying that out. I’ve got a license for ZS4, but with ZS5 out, I’ve been wondering if I would want to upgrade. Since my ZS usage is currently purely personal, it’s a lot of cash.
Let’s see how Komodo works on my linux system.
Stefan Koopmanschap
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 12:51 am
Interesting to hear. I tried to find an alternative to Zend Studio this spring, but could find none. While the debugger is a great feature, what really makes me stick to Zend Studio is the great class/function insight that I just can’t live without anymore.
Granted, load times for a project are tremendous, especially if there are many different classes - but once you start coding, the time gained is tremendous. I remember reviewing Komodo at the time, as it was one of the big players in PHP IDEs but I was very disappointed in how badly it compared on the class an function insight level.
Do you know if that has gotten any better in the new Komodo version? If it has, I’ll definitely check it out again, as I would love to dump that big Zend Studio brute…!
Sebastian Mordziol
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 1:49 am
Sebastian, I have had a few problems with Komodo Pro 4 alphas, but nothing that I wouldn’t expect from alpha software. (Locks up occasionally, bogs down sometimes, etc.)
Overall, Komodo Pro’s class/function insight is comparable to Zend Studio’s. (Assuming that what you mean by “insight” is prompting you on needle/haystack, haystack/needle reminders while you’re typing, function and variable completion options, etc.)
The differences were a little jarring at first, as I’d gotten pretty used to Zend Studio’s look and feel … but Komodo Pro is also an attractive application, and now that I’m a month into this formal switch, I can barely remember what I was missing from ZS during that first week.
Clay
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Thanks a lot for the info Clay, I will definitely check it out again
Sebastian Mordziol
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 2:28 am
Well, I’m not sure if it’s because they are working on PHPide however, there has been no update at all for PHPide since it was released first time.
Jad
Thursday, August 17th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Komodo always has been a good tool. Personally, though, Zend Studio’s support and embracement via introspection of phpDocumentor-style docs is a major, major plus for me, and based on a little bit of exploration it looks like Komodo doesn’t have that level of integration (this appears to be on K 3.5, which is the latest prime-time release). ZS both makes it easy to write good docs and in my interest.
That being said, I like that Komodo gives you more flexibility, and the Intel Mac problem with ZS has been a real annoyance. I’m actually running Parallels WinXP to get around it…. *weeps quietly*
Ed Finkler
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
I just want to give my thanks to whoever recommended Komodo Pro over Zend Studio. I am PHP programmer (and pretty much a fanatic about php right now). I first learned about php 6 months ago in my internship. However, the software used there was “high cost” software. I’m talking about Macromedia Studio softwares and Zend Studio. I got so familiar with Zend, that I couldn’t find anything else to help me program my web pages.
After my internship was over, I was back to square one and had to work with GPL (General Public License aka FREE) softwares. I found none of them very satisfying, so I got the Zend free trial. Been working with for 17 days and it will expire in 13 days.
My main concern about Zend was the cost. I am just an entry-level php programmer and do not want to go burning up my money by buying a 1 year license for Zend. After my trial is over, I am considering Komodo Pro trial version with an intent to buy there cheap licenses.
Thanks again for the great help
Chris Lynch
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Hi all,
I seem to be a little confused here? Did someone recommend Komodo as a great IDE for PHP? I am not sure what kind of php developement people who recommend Komodo are doing on a daily basis, but if your developing large OO based web applications such as a CRM, ERP, etc, Komodo, and any other IDE that I have tested does not even come close to Zend Studio.
By far the most useful feature is code completion and the intellisense features that Zend has down pat. If I create a new class with 20 or so methods, it is ridiculous that I would have to remember the name of each method just to call it. much the same can be said about code completion from functions with PHP’s own library.
If i have my own library of 50 or so classes then code completion and intellisense (the ability for the IDE to know what methods, etc are in classes I create, etc) is absolutely essential. Komodo and every other IDE I have tested (in an attempt to get replace Zend) DO NOT have this essential functionality.
If your just hacking away at a few small scripts then maybe this is not so important, I for one cannot live without it! If Zend only had similar code completion for javascript and CSS it would in a league of its own no questions asked. Another problem is that Zend is made in Java which causes obvious performance problems when compared with IDE’s devloped in .net, its obviosuly coded in Java for compatibility across all platforms (mainly linux and windows).
I was not impressed with Komnodo, ive tried it at least 3 times now and always end up uninstalling it within a few hours.
Kish
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 9:43 pm