PHP Sniffer installs statistics
By wongjn · VS Code Marketplace · Linters
Uses PHP_CodeSniffer to format and lint PHP code.
PHP Sniffer has 237,016 recorded installs on VS Code Marketplace.
It ranks #1350 of 2,500 tracked VS Code Marketplace listings by installs.
It is rated 4.9 out of 5 from 15 ratings.
PluginStats has 3 daily observations since Oct 16, 2026; the latest is from Oct 18, 2026.
Rating: 4.87 / 5 from 15 ratings
About PHP Sniffer
PHP Sniffer
Uses PHP_CodeSniffer to format and lint (mainly) PHP code.
Features
• Runs phpcs to lint code. • Runs phpcbf to format fixable code validation errors, using the built-in commands "Format Document" or "Format Selection" (PHP only). • One may need to set this extension as the default language formatter for some languages. The following snippet is an example for PHP that can be added in a settings.json:
Requirements
• PHP • PHP_Codesniffer
Extension Settings
Quick Setup
settings.json:
And if your projects look like this:
Validation and formatting will work (see below for alternative filenames for .phpcs.xml).
In Depth
This extension contributes the following settings:
• phpSniffer.run: When to run phpcs (the linter). Can be onSave, onType or never. • phpSniffer.onTypeDelay: When phpSniffer.run is onType, this sets the amount of milliseconds the validator will wait after typing has stopped before it will run. The validator will also cancel an older run if the run is on the same file. • phpSniffer.extraFiles: Glob patterns of extra files to match that this extension should run on. Useful for standards that don't just validate PHP files. This extension will always run on PHP files — be sure to have your files.associations setting correctly setup for PHP files. • phpSniffer.executablesFolder: The folder where both phpcs and phpcbf executables are. Use this to specify a different executable if it is not in your global PATH, such as when using PHP_Codesniffer as a project-scoped dependency. Can be absolute, or relative to the workspace folder. • phpSniffer.autoDetect: Set to true for the extension to auto-detect phpSniffer.executablesFolder as ./vendor/bin/ per workspace folder (applies only if phpSniffer.executablesFolder is empty). • phpSniffer.standard: The standards to check against. This is passed to the phpcbf and phpcs executables as the value for --standard. Can be absolute, or relative to the workspace folder. If not set, PHP_CodeSniffer will attempt to find a file to use, at the root of the currently open file's workspace folder in the following order: 1. .phpcs.xml 2. phpcs.xml 3. .phpcs.xml.dist 4. phpcs.xml.dist • phpSniffer.snippetExcludeSniffs: Sniffs to exclude when formatting a PHP code snippet (such as when _formatting on paste_ or on the command format on selection). This is passed to the phpcbf command as the value for --exclude when not formatting a whole file. • phpSniffer.disableWhenDebugging: Disable sniffing when any debug session is active.
Known Issues
Windows Hanging PHP Process
When phpcs encounters a malformed array declaration, it can sometimes hang from an error. This is exacerbated by the fact that we do not have access to the spawned php process in the extension code and cannot kill php.exe directly. This causes many non-exiting PHP processes on Windows machines which can really slow down the machine. The fix for this is to update squizlabs/PHP_Codesniffer in use to >=3.4.2.
Description from the VS Code Marketplace listing.
- linters
- php
- phpcbf
- phpcs
Where PHP Sniffer sits in the listing
Each band is one page of 20. Installs on a log scale. Placement is projected from installs, so it can differ from the marketplace's own sort order. Hover a dot to see the listing.
Charts
Images: 30d · 1y · all time · 1600×900 dark
Adoption over time
7/30/90-day growth
Ranking history
Filled points are observed values; hollow points come from Internet Archive snapshots of the listing page. Dashed segments span periods with no observations — values between points are not interpolated.
Recent observations
Full history (3)Similar VS Code Marketplace Linters plugins
Data source
Install counts, average rating, and rating counts come from the public Visual Studio Marketplace gallery API. Installs are cumulative and exclude updates.
Listing: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wongjn.php-sniffer. First seen Oct 16, 2026; last successful collection Oct 18, 2026. See the methodology.