There is a "debug" button next to "run" button in PHPStorm. What for? (c: From PHPStorm web help I read that xdebug is supported. There was a nice wizard that helped me through the installation process. I got stuck by the 5th and 6th point - "./configure" and "make". Found a solution here . Also it was necessary to update my XCode to enable command line tools like "make" for OS X. In the wizard, there is a following step "cp modules/xdebug.so /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20100525". Be aware that "no-debug-non-zts-20100525" should be a folder. And "xdebug.so" should be copied inside this folder. Had some issues where "xdebug.so" were copied as file named "no-debug-non-zts-20100525" into "extensions" folder. And it works now..