I recommend using PhpStorm - nothing else even approaches it in terms of features and code analysis.
I’ve become the primary maintainer of a jumbled mess of a PHP/Laravel project we use as our"mission control" at work and I’ve been dying due to lack of dev tools. Might have to take a look at this (pester my manager for a license) assuming it has Laravel support.
Jetbrains Phpstorm is probably best in class, but you’ll have to pay for it.
Here’s hoping you have Docker installed, because Laradock rules. (It’s not just for Laravel.)
If the project is a Laravel project, Laravel Herd just came out. If you’re on a Mac, there’s also Valet. If you prefer a VM, there’s Homestead - a PHP Vagrant config.
A lot depends on how the PHP site was set up. Does it have requirements? Apache? What version? MySQL? Is it using a framework? Composer, hopefully?
Theoretically all you need is PHP installed. You can run it from the command line with -S… maybe.
More information would be helpful.
