Unlike most Midgard applications and development tools, PHPmole is a native client-side program designed for the the GNOME desktop environment. Being a native application, it can offer its users with a more rich and user-friendly interface, plus easy connectivity with other desktop software. However, this also means that it needs to be installed on the client machine instead of running it from the server via a regular browser. The system works also on KDE and other desktops if the required GNOME libraries are present.

PHPmole offers a quite impressive set of features for developing Midgard applications. This includes class browser, debugger, HTML editor, syntax highlighting, autocompletion and context-sensitive help with integrated function reference. PHPmole communicates with the remote Midgard server using an XML-based transport layer, and supports multiple servers.