The process isnt fun and its entirely possible to make mistakes. As a long-time MAMP Pro user, I do wish that DesktopServer had a better site management UI. Comparatively, it feels faster than any application Ive reviewed in this article. But it does so much for you for free that I imagine itd be a hard sell if the free version wasnt limited by the number of sites you can install. Activate the "All-In-One WP Migration" plugin. Just pop the following into the command prompt (make sure you're in the same directory as installer) bitnami-wordpress*.exe --wordpress_instance_name blog1. It is just never finishing. Both are for Windows though. Ram is a PHP developer from India. But before i do, I really do need to say that I appreciate the write-up AND the review. I cant say enough nice things about Local. I like to use WAMP Server for Windows because its easy to configure the advanced settings for the applications. Honestly, just keep mashing that next button. I write highly researched content in a conversational toneview my samples here: http://ivyleaguecontent.com/#work. Desktop Server is great too! Not quite sure what all DesktopServer does behind the scenes but Local usually needs to update /etc/hosts file for the custom domains to work. XAMPP isnt all bad. Take a look here at the ridiculously long, drawn-out process for installing XAMPP plus Wordpress on your machine. Bitnami vs Xampp I am a noob with very little tech knowledge. I also enjoy being able to switch PHP versions on the fly when necessary and not having to pay for MAMP PRO. In general, the DesktopServer UI is a bit weird as its essentially an infinitely looping wizard rather than a traditional app. If youre looking for a local dev environment on MacOS and you dont need to write Perl, I dont recommend XAMPP. Ive recently started using Laragon for Windows. Again with the acronyms here, MAMP stands for Mac Apache MySQL and PHP. Add your name, email and login info you want for the blog. I like that it runs on all of Windows, MacOS and Linux; I can change php versions on the fly and use perl etc. Local is almost perfect. Bitnami vs WordPress | What are the differences? From there, it offers links to download bitnami modules for WordPress and other applications. Cannot recommend it enough. My advice is, dont even bother with Windows binaries of PHP or PECL extensions nothing beats having full access to the real Linux software, development tools like xdebug, and a near-identical environment to that which your production servers will be running! You need to open the site shell in Local. I found MAMP buggy when I first updated to Catalina and could never get it working again. . If you use HyperV on Win10, Windows virtualization suite (which is rock solid virtualization), you cant run Local and unfortunately Local just hangs on startup No error message, no progress, no log, it just hangs on the startup screen. This helps to avoid issues when uploading files to the stack. Maybe its because Im used to a more app-based approach but it took me a bit to realize that most of XAMPPs interface exists as a web app on localhost. Is there anything else youd like to know more about when it comes to setting up your local development environment? Im surprised to see it mentioned at all, let alone 4 star rating. Thanks for the Mamp mysql warning. Instead you just launch the app and if its your first time running it, youll be greeted with the following screen: Local is a cross-platform application and supports all major operating systems. Full disclosure: MAMP Pro is my daily driver. They provide the same setup as a VM, Docker container or even a direct install to a cloud provider. FYI There are also tabs for Manage Servers where you can see that MySQL and Apache are both running. I first tried installing XAMPP under a new user on my Mac laptop. Install XAMPP and Bitnami WordPress on Windows 10 | Notes I like to use Vagrant VVV. If you know of any advantages to installing a local version of WP via XAMPP over Bitnami, please chime in and straighten me out. Find your favorite application in our catalog and launch it. Getting started Understand the default PHP configuration Obtain MySQL credentials Understand the default port configuration Its actually slower than working on my website online. Switch between php versions on the fly. These websites can all have unique domain names and can be customized by their owners, while sharing assets such as themes and plugins that are made available by the server admin. Its easier than you think to install a local version of WordPress on your laptop. Hey Daren! Bitnami tutorials simply dont seem to exist in droves, probably because theyre not very necessary. Honestly, Im only withholding the last semicolon because I still have two more reviews to do and I dont want to have to refactor this highly intuitive rating system. Agreed. (Changing Configuration) WAMP is Available for both 64 bit and 32-bit system. Ive been using Local for the last year or so and been really happy with it, especially how it handles WP multisite/network using subdomains, something that is a lot more complicated to setup in typical LAMP/MAMP/XAMP setups, or with DesktopServer. You might get an alert that tells you Windows Firewall has blocked some features of this app. Originally called Pressmatic, Local was later acquired by Flywheel who has since been giving it away for free to all new users. Get rid of your existing XAMPP installation and start fresh with the one Bitnami will install for you. WordPress packaged by Bitnami for Microsoft Azure All in all, Id say DesktopServer works well for WordPress site developers. Valet is something Im looking forward to trying in near future too, been hearing nice things about it. Ready? I used to setup an entire VM environment for network sites and subdomains, and Local just handles it really well. Select your language now (default English). Googled the issues I was having and realized I was FAR from the only one. I was so happy with DesktopServer and got so disappointed when their promised new version just never released. Bitnami for XAMPP greatly simplifies the development of PHP applications on top of ApacheFriends XAMPP, by installing WordPress and many more open source applications on top of XAMPP. Error: The brew link step did not complete successfully The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local Error: Failed to create /usr/local/opt/gettext Things that depend on gettext will probably not build. However, Local does come with 2-3 pre-installed versions of PHP which makes it easier to test in different environments. Powerful yet simple, everyone from students to global corporations use it to build beautiful, functional websites. NOTE: Bitnami native installers are available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms. Right before I renewed in 2016 they told me via Twitter that PHP version switching was on the roadmap for 4.x. Is checking this box all you need to do to get FollowSymLink working or is there more? It has a bit of a load time, but after loading, it is the fastest local wordpress server of the various methods Ive tested. Thanks for the comparison, though. I tried using Local and loved it, but I had a problem when I was updating the CSS. Until it collided with Windoze 10 and refused to update the "hosts" file. I have used Xampp but find the method to add Virtual servers (more than one web site) "interesting" it sometimes works. Its great for tinkerers as you can create little auto-installers and scripts and mess with a lot of the defaults and config files. Another really useful article Many thanks! WordPress packaged by Bitnami provides a one-click install solution for WordPress. This article was originally written by Jeff Gould in 2017 and has since been updated. Free. ;;;; ; (4/5 semicolons) Whereby I just dont get it. Still figuring it out, but Ill probably get there someday! I chalked this up to the fact that I already had MAMP and Local installed on that machine and there was probably some conflict. Uncheck this unless you want to learn about cloud hosting through Bitnami. In case you were wondering, the stack consists of the following components: Now, if you werent using the Bitnami Stack, youd be installing each of those components separately. For example, with XAMP, you have to pick and choose which components you want to install, which means you have to know what they are. Im in total agreement with Guy about Desktop Server. Take a look here at the ridiculously long, drawn-out process for installing XAMPP plusWordpress on your machine. So we need something thats easy to use and will do most of the heavy lifting for us. So kept reading and among the comments, I focused on Laravel Valet and Local by flywheel. Perhaps installing WP the long way, using XAMPP gives you features and control you dont have when you go the Bitnami Route, but I didnt discover what those might be in my research. Ive had fits trying to get Local installed on a Windows 10 machine. I was lucky enough to have a friend do my XAMP installation for me (hes an actual web developer). Id love to see Pilothouse included in your next round of CLI-based local environments. You alsohave to name things like databases, and answer questions relating to those names. Noties: WordPress will install phpmyadmin and Apache, therefor it will not need Xampp. Login as root + the password that you set on wordpress installation. FYI There are also tabs for Manage Servers where you can see that MySQL and Apache are both running. It presents itself as a "small" app with a simple interface and system tray icon. Download WordPress packaged by Bitnami Just saying. Back to Local, I guess. That said, my Windows machine with WSL makes setting up a LAMP stack super easy. Its disrespectful to the OS movement and WP community, and detrimental to the long-term. If youre developing a WordPress theme or plugin, its also often necessary to make sure that your code runs well on different servers, under different versions of PHP and MySQL. No brainer. Definitely worth a look.. https://laragon.org/. Should i use wamp or xampp? Explained by Sharing Culture A - Stands for Apache, which is the web server software that allows you to request and view a website's pages. Good to hear that, Kirk. The local by fly wheel site looks new and fresh, you know, flat design and all of that. Its available for both Windows as well as Mac. The plugin I made to the fish site works fine, I worked with mysql It is the one thing I miss about moving back to a Mac. We have another complete article covering Laravel Valet, VVV ( Vagrant), Chassis, etc. To everyone here. Simply allow Apache HTTP Server to communicate on these networks. and the default is that your private home network is checked. Once it's installed you download wordpress and extract the folder to the xampp/htdocs folder.. Xampp usually installs directly to your C: drive. Will now boot to Linux and see how far I get in the xampp, mamp, wamp kerfuffle. If you've ever manually installed WordPress, the rest of the process should feel pretty familiar. Bitnami WordPress Stack. Critical error when installing Wordpress through XAMPP locally? Thanks for the rundown, Id gone from WAMP, to XAMPP, to MAMP, to VirtualBox, to Vagrant/VB, to Docker, and now Homebrew services (nginx, mariadb, php) on my mac has been pretty turnkey for getting all these things running. Its really not a limit in that you can actually create as many sites as you want, but you ARE limited to the number of sites you can manage at one time. After wasted several days of trying, found this review. Local is dope! Auto installer for the stack, WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and others. https://sridhar.blog/tag/valet/ https://sridharkatakam.com/browsersync-in-laravel-valet/, Loved the review, and more importantly your sense of humor (were all too serious sometimes). Not sure what to do when MacOS 10.13 hits I hate waiting to upgrade OS but relying on a dev environment that youre not sure will work on the next version of the OS forces that on you! It provides an easy interface to share your sites on the internet using Ngrok. Not really, Ive been using Local myself recently and dont have any issues running the plugin. Finally, I set up MAMP. WordPress Virtual Machines - Bitnami Flywheel was also recently acquired by WP Engine, so Local is now a WP Engine product. +1, Id be very interested to see this compared to the other VM options out there. Its great when it works, but Ive encountered problems with in on more than one occassion. I did have to restart it a couple of times before figuring out that I also needed to go back to the Application Manager and turn on MySQL. (I use LocalWP.) System Requirements Bitnami XAMPP modules require either XAMPP or a Bitnami LAMP, MAMP or WAMP stack already installed. Yep I keep hitting skip haha eventually Ill do a full MySQL Dump, make sure all my locals are pushed to Bitbucket, and Ill run the update. Many times when migrating between local and remote copies, my URLs would get messed up. This (Windoze & 3rd party workarounds) are probably exactly the reason that there are "some kind of Linux users". The elder *mp?" Some seeminly simple things like finding where PHP is installed on Local can melt you mindit took me 2 hours to set up VSCode to use Local on Windows. You cant use anything above PHP 8.0.0 (they have been promising an update for a long time), if on windows using Apache you must have it installed on drive C, and any sites you add must be on Drive C for it to work. Just a heads up DesktopServer has been discontinued, and Local has gone downhill fast, I have spent a few days trying to get it up and running. Easy to set it up and you can develop just in a few minutes. Setting up a site in Local usually takes 60-90 seconds for me, and using the site feels fast too. Youll need to go through their application to open the SSH container separately for each site. Heres How They Fit Together. So if you ever wanted to switch to Windows for local development, MAMP is an option. A couple of the releases had some problems, but most of the time I have been very happy with Local and will continue using it until something better comes along , Ive been using Mamp Pro for the last year. Getting back to the core discussion by the author, does anyone know which one of these Dev Environements is the fastest??? XAMPP installation is complicated but Bitnami offers instant results when installing WordPress locally. Ive recently discovered Laragon for Window, which has taken all my problems away. In the XAMPP folder there is the htdocs folder. We use Local at our agency and we are very satsified! You just launch the installer package and mash at the next button until you realize that you actually clicked a button that said finish. At minimum, look into Laravel Valet , Composer , and Bedrock . I like the idea it just works (always on) and is very fast, but not yet convinced that working in a non-sandboxed environment is the way to go? Both the Bitnami WordPress installer and XAMPP come bundled with these three software to make it easy to get a WordPress site running on your local computer. Then, youll be setting up your database, etcyou know the drill (and if you dont, refer to that tutorial link I gave you at the beginning of this section). I might do a review for Windows only applications soon, and Ill be sure to include WAMP in the process. Certainly none of the options are perfect. Meanwhile you can sit back and be glad youre not going through this part yourself, the way you would have to if you were installing via XAMPP. WAMP vs XAMPP Server - What's the Difference? It pains me to say it. Ill give XAMPP the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe the Mac app is just their weak link. You can change and add PHP versions pretty easy, edit the php.ini file, check error logs, Apache configuration, and even edit the sites-enabled files for each domain/project. How to Install XAMPP and WordPress Locally on Windows PC - ThemeIsle Blog Thanks again for the great article! I do not find this file either. Our library provides trusted virtual machines for every major development stack and open source server application, ready to run in your infrastructure. WAMP is significantly better solution than XAMP. Ive used XAMP, WAMP, Local, VVV, Vagrant, and even Bitnami standalone servers, and Docker, but Laragon stands out for minimalism, simplicity, and solid automatic features. We have a much better option now . SHAMPs XAMPPs interface, at least on MacOS, is less than intuitive. This is where DesktopServer really shines when compared to MAMP/XAMPP. Im a big fan of this Docker setup: https://github.com/10up/wp-local-docker/ You just check it out a copy for you project, do "docker-compose up", and you very quickly have WordPress running at localhost. I havent worked with Valet too much yet, but I think Im kind of put off by the zero-config aspect I want a little bit of config Let us know how you fare with Valet if you do make the switch! The default installations of Bitnami and XAMPP on the same computer will cause some conflict between the two, unless special care is taken to address this. I have recently installed the DS 3.9 Pro version and although I am happy with the interface and quick support with them, I am plagued by speed issues. For all the freelance writers out there who use WordPress to make a living, there are very few who relish developing the kind of knowledge it takes to do all this. Heres a taste of how easy it was for me to install it on my laptop. Local is the fastest and most intuitive and well designed application among all. Interestingmany of you seem to recommend Laragon, I might give it a shot at some point. DS keeps promising a patch, even an update. ; ; ; ; ; (1/5 semicolons) You can run WP-CLI, Composer, and Laravel Artisan commands right from your host without having to install and manage those packages on your host, and you dont need to SSH in to the Docker containers to run them, so its very easy to use. When ServerPress is asked when they intend to support modern PHP, they seem to skirt the issue and shut the conversation down, so it is clearly a bit of a sore point for them. Advantages of WAMP: It is easy to Use. XAMPP is a little challenging to get started with (and I admittedly have never used it on a Mac) but once youre comfortable with it I find its extremely flexible. What was the solution if you did? After fighting with Xampp, Mamp (for Windows!) So many choices! Then theres the Bitnami Cloud Hosting advertisement which asks you if you want to learn more. All the others listed are open source. Home Applications These software listings are packaged by Bitnami. Get rid of your existing XAMPP installation and start fresh with the one Bitnami will install for you. Perhaps installing WP the long way, using XAMPP gives you features and control you dont have when you go the Bitnami Route, but I didnt discover what those might be in my research. Sometimes useful, so might as well leave the box checked. Bitnami vs WordPress | What are the differences? A few of these are new to me though, so thanks for the intro! Cant recommend Laravel Valet enough! Thats why the XAMPP tutorial is so darned long. Im a 65 year old web developer newbie. - DiMithras Nov 29, 2022 at 22:27 It can intercept emails so that any outgoing emails from any app is captured and opened in a text file. I kept getting errors due to unknown causes in config.php while using MAMP. ;;;;, (4.5/5 semicolons) I dont want to create a new website, I want to work on an existing one, that has a Git repository. Theres a better way, and its called Bitnami. I dont recall any problems setting up Local on Window. You'll need to install XAMPP-VM for Mac to be able to install XAMPP addons separately. It sits there and does the work of installing, which takes a few minutes. Setting up a new site in Local is quite quick and can be made even quicker by setting up a blueprint which essentially copies all files, databases, config files, and Local settings. Local makes this difficult, unless you only have the theme in the repo.