For those cases where you have to work on remote code, NetBeans‘ remote project functionality seems to put it ahead of other PHP IDEs. It pulls down a tree of files and uploads files that you save. Having a local copy allows it to offer its full code comprehension, auto-complete, and great rename refactoring for “remote” code. In contrast Eclipse allows you to open remote files using Remote System Explorer, but you only get PHP syntax highlighting, not the excellent PDT.