Is Earthly or PhpStorm better?

Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and PhpStorm at $24/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Earthly or PhpStorm?

Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Earthly and $24/month for PhpStorm.

Does Earthly or PhpStorm run on more platforms?

Earthly runs on Web, CLI. PhpStorm runs on windows, mac, linux.

Can I use Earthly for free?

Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. PhpStorm starts at $24/month.

What is Earthly best used for?

Earthly is most often used for enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers, automating incident response procedures across all repositories, embedding compliance requirements into development workflows, standardizing build processes with earthfiles. Of those, enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers and automating incident response procedures across all repositories are not what PhpStorm is typically brought in for.

What can Earthly do that PhpStorm cannot?

Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. PhpStorm covers PHP-aware coding assistance, Integrated debugger, Front-end tooling, Database tools.

Developer Tools · head to head

Earthly vs PhpStorm

Earthly

Developer Tools

Engineering guardrails for the AI era

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

PhpStorm

Developer Tools

JetBrains IDE for PHP web development

From: $24/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Earthly has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Earthly pricing model not published; requires sales contact; PhpStorm requires an ongoing paid subscription with no free tier for commercial use.
They diverge on capability: Earthly covers Policy as code, PhpStorm covers PHP-aware coding assistance.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Earthly and PhpStorm actually diverge.

Attributes where Earthly and PhpStorm differ
Attribute	Earthly	PhpStorm
Starting price	Free	$24/month
Pricing model	No pricing published on website	subscription
Free tier	Yes	No
Platforms	Web, CLI	windows, mac, linux
Founded	2020	2000

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Developer Tools).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Earthly

Policy as code
Multi-stage enforcement
AI agent governance
Repository-wide policies
Incident response automation
Compliance management
Earthfiles build tool
Satellites

Only in PhpStorm

PHP-aware coding assistance
Integrated debugger
Front-end tooling
Database tools
Version control integration
Docker and remote deployment

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Earthly

Enforcing engineering standards across AI and human developersnot PhpStorm
Automating incident response procedures across all repositoriesnot PhpStorm
Embedding compliance requirements into development workflowsnot PhpStorm
Standardizing build processes with Earthfilesnot PhpStorm

PhpStorm

Building PHP web applications with Laravel or Symfonynot Earthly
Debugging PHP code with Xdebugnot Earthly
Working across PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in one projectnot Earthly
Managing databases alongside application codenot Earthly

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Earthly

Pricing model not published; requires sales contact
Earthly Lunar is a recent launch (2025) with limited track record
Primarily GitHub-focused; limited integration with other platforms
No public documentation on pricing or feature tiers

PhpStorm

Requires an ongoing paid subscription with no free tier for commercial use.
Heavier and slower to start than lightweight code editors.
Some advanced framework-specific tooling requires additional configuration or plugins.
Renewal pricing rises for lapsed subscriptions after the grace period.

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Earthly review.

PhpStorm

$24/month

Individual$24/month
- Personal use license
- Access to PhpStorm
- Free for students and open-source maintainers
Organization$34/month
- Business use license
- Access to PhpStorm
- Volume and renewal discounts

Which should you pick?

Choose Earthly if

You need policy as code.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, CLI.
You also want multi-stage enforcement.

Earthly review

Choose PhpStorm if

You need php-aware coding assistance.
You work on windows, mac, linux.
You also want integrated debugger.

PhpStorm review

Questions people ask

Is Earthly or PhpStorm better?: Neither clearly leads. Earthly starts at Free and PhpStorm at $24/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Earthly or PhpStorm?: Earthly has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Earthly and $24/month for PhpStorm.
Does Earthly or PhpStorm run on more platforms?: Earthly runs on Web, CLI. PhpStorm runs on windows, mac, linux.
Can I use Earthly for free?: Yes. Earthly has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. PhpStorm starts at $24/month.
What is Earthly best used for?: Earthly is most often used for enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers, automating incident response procedures across all repositories, embedding compliance requirements into development workflows, standardizing build processes with earthfiles. Of those, enforcing engineering standards across ai and human developers and automating incident response procedures across all repositories are not what PhpStorm is typically brought in for.
What can Earthly do that PhpStorm cannot?: Earthly covers Policy as code, Multi-stage enforcement, AI agent governance, Repository-wide policies. PhpStorm covers PHP-aware coding assistance, Integrated debugger, Front-end tooling, Database tools.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Earthly: What is the difference between Earthfiles and Earthly Lunar?

Earthfiles is an open-source build tool that reached 12,000 GitHub stars and is used by companies like NVIDIA, Intel, and Databricks. Earthly Lunar is a separate governance platform launched in 2025 for enforcing standards across development workflows.

Source

PhpStorm: How much does PhpStorm cost?

PhpStorm is sold via JetBrains Toolbox subscription starting around $24/month for individuals and $34/month for organizations, with free licenses for students and open-source maintainers.

Source

Earthly: How does Earthly Lunar enforce standards?

Lunar converts engineering standards, compliance requirements, and processes documented in AGENTS.md files, wikis, and incident postmortems into enforceable guardrails that apply consistently across repositories and development stages.

Source

PhpStorm: Is there a free trial?

JetBrains offers a free trial of PhpStorm so developers can test it before subscribing.

Source

Earthly: What is the pricing for Earthly Lunar?

Pricing is not published on the website. Interested customers should contact Earthly's sales team for current pricing and feature tiers.

Source

PhpStorm: What platforms does PhpStorm support?

PhpStorm is a desktop IDE available on Windows, macOS, and Linux via JetBrains Toolbox.

Source

Earthly vs PhpStorm

Earthly

PhpStorm

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Earthly

Only in PhpStorm

What people use each for

Earthly

PhpStorm

Where each one falls short

Earthly

PhpStorm

Pricing, plan by plan

Earthly

PhpStorm

Which should you pick?

Choose Earthly if

Choose PhpStorm if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Earthly

More on PhpStorm

Keep looking

Other head to heads