If you&#x27;re just now looking into xdebug, how could you know the differences or make a valid comparison? For one, you can remote debug way easier than with JVM debuggers. For the 80% use case it is just as easy&#x2F;just as useful. The JVM debugging tools provide way more functionality and for local debugging are just there and ready to use in a way xdebug isn&#x27;t. But frankly, the fact that you&#x27;re JUST looking into xdebug makes me question whether or not people should be paying you to write PHP.<p>I have kids fresh out of college that work for me that use xdebug all day every day, remote, over Vagrant VMs, and local with different IDEs. This is a solved issue- you clearly are working in a smelly codebase, don&#x27;t have the &#x27;advanced&#x27; PHP skills you think you do, and seem to think that PHP is awful because the other cool kids said so.