Webgrind: A Web Frontend for Xdebug

29 Apr 2008

My about page has mentioned a web based frontend for Xdebug for some time. The project has a name now: The idea for Webgrind, a spin on Valgrind, came from lack of profiling tools for PHP, particularly on OSX. Though it is possible to install kcachegrind on osx it seems overkill for many uses and is definitely not as easy as unzipping a folder to the webroot.

After sitting on the idea for some time, I spoke with Jacob Oettinger about it and he promptly started on the foundation. What we have done up to this point is far from the power of kcachegrind, but it does allow for simple profiling in the browser to locate methods and functions most in need of optimization. Plus it installs in seconds.

I have since learned that the PHP group has a suggestion for a Google Summer of Code project that replicates the features of KCacheGrind as a web frontend. It seems Chung-Yang Lee has signed up for the challenge and it will be interesting to follow his progress.

We are currently making the last changes before releasing the first version on our Google code page for Webgrind. Please let us know what you think of this and of any ideas for future features. A downloadable package will be ready on Wednesday.