Laravel Idea for free: PhpStorm users save the extra plug-in

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Since July 30, 2025, the popular Laravel Idea plug-in has been available free of charge for all users of the JetBrains development environment (IDE) PhpStorm. Anyone who has already installed the plug-in can now use all functions at no additional cost.

Laravel Idea was developed by Adel Faizrakhmanov and has been downloaded over 1.5 million times from the JetBrains Marketplace. It adds new features to PhpStorm's built-in Laravel support: from intelligent code completion for routes, validations, and configurations to full support for Blade components, Eloquent ORM, Livewire, Inertia.js, and many more packages.

Would you like more information on the new features of PHP?

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More convenience for Laravel developers

With the step of making Laravel Idea available for free, PhpStorm also becomes more interesting for Laravel projects. The close collaboration between the plug-in development team and JetBrains should enable functions with AI support and a deeper integration of Laravel-specific magic methods in the future.

Installation takes place via the plug-in marketplace in PhpStorm under Settings | Plugins. After installation, the options can be configured under Settings | Languages & Frameworks | Laravel Idea.

Code completion for Eloquent ORM

A central feature of Laravel Idea is the intelligent support for Eloquent ORM, Laravel's object-relational mapping system. The plug-in automatically recognizes model relationships, column names, and query scopes and offers context-sensitive autocompletion. For example, users can have methods such as where(), with() or orderBy() with specific table columns and relationships suggested directly, even with dynamically generated structures.

The aim is not only to save time when writing code but also to reduce sources of error. According to the announcement article, this function provides a better overview and greater efficiency, particularly in larger projects in which many database relationships play a role.

Also for IntelliJ users

Not only PhpStorm users will benefit: Users of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate will also receive the full range of Laravel Idea functions free of charge. According to the announcement, anyone who has purchased the plug-in for a fee from May 1, 2025, will automatically receive a 50 percent discount on the next renewal of their PhpStorm license as compensation for the short-term change.

PhpStorm support is available via email for questions about refunds or special cases. The new regulation does not apply retroactively to all previous purchases, as the decision to integrate was only made in May 2025.

PhpStorm as Laravel IDE

PhpStorm is recommended by Laravel itself for development. In addition to Laravel Idea, the IDE offers functions such as Junie, an AI coding agent, and integrated tools for Laravel Pint, Pest, Larastan, and Artisan. Modern front-end technologies such as Tailwind, Vue.js, or React as well as database integration are also supported. According to the blog, JetBrains is planning to integrate Laravel Idea directly into PhpStorm in the long term.

(mdo)