Your website looks old though, makes me wonder if DS has been abandoned. Thank you for the rundown Jeff I have used Mamp Pro and DesktopServer until finally jumping on the Local bandwagon not too long ago. I use DS, and I like it enough to speak well of it, but it irks me that you boast that the Premium version facilitates easy migration when a free plugin like All In One Migration does this brilliantly already so well, I cant imagine that any other method could better it lest they get it down to like 1 or 2 clicks or something. Hi Jeff, I am not sure how I missed this review since I do try to stay on top of all the press DesktopServer gets (good and bad). WordPress packaged by Bitnami is pre-configured and ready-to-use immediately on any of the platforms below. There are quite a few different applications and tools that fit this bill, but for now well be comparing the four GUI-based tools that seem to me to be the largest players in this space: XAMPP, MAMP (Pro), DesktopServer, and Local. What was the solution if you did? . The bitnami installer worked well enough. Neat stuff here. Local makes this difficult, unless you only have the theme in the repo. I also show you how to ea. The best dev environment available for Windows today is Ubuntu on Windows, free for Win 10 by Microsoft. It lets you customize username, password, database user/password etc during the process. SHAMPs XAMPPs interface, at least on MacOS, is less than intuitive. Ive wanted to do local development for a while, but found it to be too hard to configure. All the others listed are open source. I shouldn't be too hard on you: Bitnami isn't completely awful, but when you're dealing with Wordpress, there are much better standards nowadays that encourage modern development practices. Im not much for managed WordPress hosting, I like a normal LAMP environment for ease of use with GIT personally, but I think youre article accurately sums up these tools. https://fishing-en.com/why-are-my-carp-dying/. Get rid of your existing XAMPP installation and start fresh with the one Bitnami will install for you. Using the Bitnami Virtual Machine image requires hypervisor software such as VMware Player or VirtualBox . Actually, I started installing Valet (Plus) right away. 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. Will now boot to Linux and see how far I get in the xampp, mamp, wamp kerfuffle. It doesnt come with WP-CLI, but it is two steps to install and the it is available from any terminal window including phpStorms terminal. To you is odd to say Shamp, to me is odd to say zamp, because Shamp is the natural sound of XAmp in Portuguese. I paid for a DesktopServer Pro subscription in October 2015 when I thought 4.0 was right around the corner. Though their most recent version Local Lightning only supports one addon out of 5, offering you to enable XDebug support for PHPStorm. For MacOS, you'll need to install WordPress directly in XAMPP's site directory as recently OS X native modules have been deprecated. I started using Local (By Flywheel) a few months ago and like being able to easily match my local PHP version to my live one. Uncheck this unless you want to learn about cloud hosting through Bitnami. Blogs and articles and infographics, oh my! Right before I renewed in 2016 they told me via Twitter that PHP version switching was on the roadmap for 4.x. Really anything Apache/MySQL/PHP runs in here. Then it launches the stack and you get five options, the first of which will be the one you want. X - This is used because XAMPP is a cross-platform tool that can be used in conjunction with all major operating systems. I use it all the time in my line of work. Our library provides trusted virtual machines for every major development stack and open source server application, ready to run in your infrastructure. WP-CLI is something I cant live without personally but as long as it can be installed, I dont see any problems there. Nice group of people. 2- Then install It's simple. Still figuring it out, but Ill probably get there someday! Recently installed Valet to give it a try (as local doesnt yet work with High Sierra which I rushed into installing on a machine). Lets have a more in-depth look at these local WordPress development environments. I had thought that at some point in this process I would be able to select a hostname like wp-local.dev, but this wasnt the case. FYI There are also tabs for Manage Servers where you can see that MySQL and Apache are both running. This (Windoze & 3rd party workarounds) are probably exactly the reason that there are "some kind of Linux users". It's a stand alone. Wow, Im not in the loop with DS, just know it as one of the more widely-used solutions for local development on Mac but disappointing to hear that theyve dropped the ball. Auto installer for the stack, WordPress, Joomla, Magento, and others. Ive recently started using Laragon for Windows. Timely post as currently looking at different options. 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. Sequel Pro for MySQL gui, and over the years Ive gotten used to editing nginx/apache server configs. That said, my Windows machine with WSL makes setting up a LAMP stack super easy. DesktopServer is super easy to use and gets you up and running with WordPress in a snap, but might be a little too basic for developers who need to test in different server environments. This is useful for developers but for writers not so much. Both of these hypervisors are available free of charge. Beyond that, there are other advantages to the Premium Membership. These software listings are packaged by Bitnami. Login as root + the password that you set on wordpress installation. It sits there and does the work of installing, which takes a few minutes. 6- go to xampp phpmyadmin Login as root or whatever then add new Database and call it as same as in the wp-config.php define ( 'DB_NAME', ' bitnami_wordpress ' ); With this database selected go to import "Next to . Advantages of XAMPP: It is cross-platform software It possesses many other essential modules such as phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, MediaWiki, WordPress, Joomla and more. I fired up Local By Flywheel and within an hour had a new site up and running on my Windows 10 laptop. Linux users, making the world a better place, on repo at a time. ah forgetten about their promise to give ex-presmattic uses Local Pro for free. Been trying to migrate some of them to run in Docker containers, so theres less stuff needing to be run locally. Just hopped onto the Bitnami community and found out how to create multiple sites. DS keeps promising a patch, even an update. Thanks for the reply. Its easier than you think to install a local version of WordPress on your laptop. It is just not finishing. Longtime Laravel user and didnt know about that, thanks for sharing! My problem is finding a reliable and easy way to periodically clone our site and install it locally. Local is almost perfect. So we need something thats easy to use and will do most of the heavy lifting for us. Its a real Ubuntu Linux environment that runs natively on your CPU, integrates with the native Windows file system, and so on. Im very happy with it and I think you should include it in your next review. Ive turned off some windows features as well . Cant recommend Laravel Valet enough! One click gets you an interface where you can open the DB, open terminal, open the web root folder, open local hosts file (Windows), etc. This is useful for developers but for writers not so much. Next I tried just setting up a LAMP stack and ran into never ending MySql errors, regardless of how I installed MySql or MariaDB. If you know of any advantages to installing a local version of WP via XAMPP over Bitnami, please chime in and straighten me out. The rest of the applications offer paid versions with more features. I started with MAMP a long time ago, then DesktopServer, then Pressmatic / Local. Finding PHP installation path did confuse me, but if you open up Site shell and enter where php, it should point you to the right path. Full disclosure: MAMP Pro is my daily driver. Windows is and always will be poorly supported for PHP development, because hardly anyone deploys PHP projects to Windows servers. ; ; ; ; ; (1/5 semicolons) 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. First off, the 3-site limit. I know it is already mentioned here but i need to make sure that VVV gets the attention it deserves:). However, Local does come with 2-3 pre-installed versions of PHP which makes it easier to test in different environments. Im not super impressed with XAMPP for this reason alone. Additionally, it includes WP-CLI installed on each site by default as a developer plugin (meaning that when you deploy, the plugin stays local and does not get shipped with the site), NGROK integration for sharing of your site across the internet through a secure tunnel (perfect for the developer who wants to show it to their client), the ability to import archives from most popular backup plugins (Duplicator, Backup Buddy, Updraft, etc), and the ability to export from a local site to a .zip archive for remote deployment or creation of blueprints (perfect for people who start out with the same theme or framework and plugins for every site), Bypass login (allows you to bypass the administrative login on local sites), Dreamweaver support, and a few other things. The whole process is just about an hour. If you were to Bing installing a local WordPress, the results would most likely direct you to an XAMPP tutorial. Heres a taste of how easy it was for me to install it on my laptop. Its just tough when something breaks, but they do have a really good community of people who can help. Desktop Server runs under PHP5.5. Thanks for the Valet Plus pointer. Sometimes upgrading from version to version can be a little challenging, things change with permissions and things like that between the versions, but Ive been happy with it. The current Mamp Pro 5.2.x is almost as fast as Valet+ in WP backend, quite a bit faster than Local by Flywheel, it uses less RAM and CPU than both (significantly less so than LbF), so I currently tend to disagree with the Authors comment of "slow as molasses" in the review above. XAMPP starts off with a silly pronunciation (we can all agree, it should be pronounced zamp) and continues the trend with a clunky install process, unintuitive interface, and lack of features. I would have given it a perfect 5 if WP-CLI was somehow accessible directly. WordPress is one of the world's most popular web publishing platforms for building blogs and websites. Agreed. ;;;; ; (3/5 semicolons) My experience of MAMP Pro on Windows was that it went kablooie every time I tried to set permalinks, though that is apparently not a universal problem. Thats why the XAMPP tutorial is so darned long. 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. currently using Vagrant and Docker depending on how i feel that day. And by Kansas, we mean theMad Men Is it content, or is it marketing? might give it a try. Many times when migrating between local and remote copies, my URLs would get messed up. If I read this right, you are incorrect MAMP Pro offers an automated install of WordPress. Thx. Many thanks for information about these tools and instructions how to use. So I gave up on Local. I have the paid version of All-in-One. Especially for non-technical people who rely on WordPress for their livelihood, Bitnami makes a ton of sense because its worlds easier than the alternatives. Not really, Ive been using Local myself recently and dont have any issues running the plugin. The point to a localhost is to speed up development I thought. Its unchecked, so leave it that way unless you want to be able to send email notifications from your blog once its up and going. 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. Uncheck this unless you want to learn about cloud hosting through Bitnami. 1 Answer. I only use Windows at Home and use Mac at the Office. The local by fly wheel site looks new and fresh, you know, flat design and all of that. From there, it offers links to download bitnami modules for WordPress and other applications. WAMP provides support for MySQL and PHP. Being able to switch those on the fly or at least select different configs for different dev sites is extremely helpful. https://media.giphy.com/media/26ufdipQqU2lhNA4g/giphy.gif. Its more like a a spanish cs sound for words like Contexto or Flexible and like a spanish J in words like Mexico. This is where DesktopServer really shines when compared to MAMP/XAMPP. So kept reading and among the comments, I focused on Laravel Valet and Local by flywheel. While I like Local by you-know-who, I always felt it is somewhat on the slow side a remote site on standard serverpilot/OVH VPS is about twice as fast in the WP backend and it really likes to use a lot of resources, CPU, RAM, and even disk space for the Docker disk image. You can browse Bitnami modules for XAMPP here . Runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48541d4f1b1f608680571d013b091b8d2723475f448db118bca53ed2bd0dc2d3.png. Sometimes useful, so might as well leave the box checked. However rotten communication and a whole lot of hollow promises forced me to find alternatives. You just launch the installer package and mash at the next button until you realize that you actually clicked a button that said finish. Im beginning to think that this installation section is a bit superfluous as the install process for DesktopServer is pretty much the same as MAMP or XAMPP. Local also supports community developed addons which helps you modify and extend the apps functionality. (I use LocalWP.) So many choices! Don't forget to add WordPress packaged by Bitnami to your favorites. I always thought that was overkill for WordPress dev. This helps to avoid issues when uploading files to the stack. Its actually slower than working on my website online. Speaking of deployment, the Premium Software has a built-in deployment functionality which makes it super easy to deploy to a live site. While this is technically what any local development setup requires, most of the other options that were reviewing here do this for you pretty seamlessly. This works great and its super quick. Once the install was complete and I found the app that I needed to run (hint for users of Alfred/Spotlight as app launchers: its not called XAMPP, it is intuitively called Application Manager), I couldnt get the server to start up. and then edit the wp-config.php in xampp copied wordpress. WordPress - A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.. Home DevOps Build, Test, Deploy Server Software UPDATED Jan 31, 2023 Bitnami vs WordPress Decisions Pros & Cons Stats Description Alternatives In my research the main advice is SSD (of course) and Not Windows 10 because of bloatness and notorious for background services. 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. The main reason to upgrade seems to be that the free version will only let you create three sites, while the $100/yr premium version lifts this limitation. No more cowboy coding . 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. Definitely not renewing the DesktopServer subscription this year, though if 4.0 ever comes out, Ill certainly kick the tires on the free version. Getting back to the core discussion by the author, does anyone know which one of these Dev Environements is the fastest??? Find your favorite application in our catalog and launch it. Couldnt quite believe how easy it was. They have been brilliant in my book. XAMPP, which you may be surprised to find out is pronounced Shamp, is probably the oldest local development environment around and possibly the most complex. Do you want to configure email support? Might lighter and faster than VVV. Bitnami - The App Store for Server Software. Go to the folder where you install XAMPP and start looking til you find a folder that has a file called wp-config.php, or just search that file in your computer. C:\Bitnami\wordpress-5.8.3-0\apps\wordpress\htdocs. At minimum, look into Laravel Valet , Composer , and Bedrock . So if you ever wanted to switch to Windows for local development, MAMP is an option. 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). Flywheel was also recently acquired by WP Engine, so Local is now a WP Engine product. Not only because Ive been using it for years and Im already entrenched, but also because I often need to access my dev sites via the CLI. Their features and supported versions of software are at least worth to look at. - DiMithras Nov 29, 2022 at 22:27 Anyone else have this issue or have a best setup. Switch between php versions on the fly. If youve been using HyperV then youre probably well aware of incompatibilities with other virtualization techniques, but because Local abstracts all of the virtualization away, you might not know how the environment is working and so its not clear thats why its failing. Installing XAMPP seems easy enough: just download the correct installer from their website and run it. I used to setup an entire VM environment for network sites and subdomains, and Local just handles it really well. http://downloads2.mamp.info/MAMP-PRO-WINDOWS/releases/3.3.1/MAMP_MAMP_PRO_3.3.1.exe. Beats the rest by a long margin because it is so easy to do. Its disrespectful to the OS movement and WP community, and detrimental to the long-term. Youll need to install XAMPP-VM for Mac to be able to install XAMPP addons separately. The default is to install phpMyAdmin, which is the admin panel you would use if you were going to go in an monkey with your WordPress database. I swear I read it somewhere, but that doesnt mean I was right. Bitnami Virtual Machines contain a minimal Linux operating system with WordPress installed and configured. When it finished its thing, I had a new WordPress install at 127.0.0.1 which isnt exactly what I wanted. I run this script every hour with CRON to backup all of my MAMP DBs https://gist.github.com/JRGould/9cb494b21a6886d47d7d4929931ff730 Makes it much easier to act a bit recklessly with my local environment. The issues were gong after deleted Macport and reinstalled Homebrew. While Local and DesktopServer allow you to customize domain names for local sites, XAMPP and MAMP (unless youre using Pro) dont. It also greatly reduces the risk of making and breaking changes on a live web server. Expert Answers: XAMPP is more powerful and resource taking than WAMP. The All In One Migration tool ended my search for a migration plugin that didnt require knowledge of DBs or FTP or anything. Bitnami WordPress Stack. Ive been using MAMP Pro for a number of years and have found it to be reliable, adequately configurable, and a bit slower than Local. Then it launches the stack and you get five options, the first of which will be the one you want. I was lucky enough to have a friend do my XAMP installation for me (hes an actual web developer). Note that I wont be covering CLI-based local dev environments in this article. The changes werent showing up unless I cleared the cache. Theres a better way, and its called Bitnami. - Toms Cot. I decided to try Local, but ended up frustrated. I cant say enough nice things about Local. If youre looking for a local dev environment on MacOS and you dont need to write Perl, I dont recommend XAMPP. Ive had fits trying to get Local installed on a Windows 10 machine. This is very timely for me as Im finally upgrading from MacOS Yosemite (10.10) to Sierra (10.12). Ive used all of these for years, and like you favored MAMP Pro, but warming to Local, because woah have you seen ALL those tech specs on that download page , On Windows, Laragon is pretty amazing. It may be a little basic for someone who needs to develop and test themes or plugins in varied deployment scenarios. You have to know to choose Apache, phpmyadmin, mySQL etc, which means installation is no walk in the park. Bitnami tutorials simply dont seem to exist in droves, probably because theyre not very necessary. Home Applications These software listings are packaged by Bitnami. The software has its glitchy moments, however. XAMPP doesnt allow you to switch between different versions of PHP, instead it has different download packages with different PHP versions included. Im in total agreement with Guy about Desktop Server. Domain management. Please dont recommend WP tools that are not open source, when OS options exist. Its great for tinkerers as you can create little auto-installers and scripts and mess with a lot of the defaults and config files. Noties: WordPress will install phpmyadmin and Apache, therefor it will not need Xampp. Believe Local by Flywheel uses Docker, so started reading about that and Vagrant and Valet. For me, that's C://xampp. 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. Local is dope! Ready? Ive been putting it off because I dread once again going through all the Homebrew scripts, conf file edits, virtual host setup, etc. On top of the free version, Local offers two paid plans for individuals and teams costing $20/month and $50/month respectively. For MacOS, youll need to install WordPress directly in XAMPPs site directory as recently OS X native modules have been deprecated. Because everything runs in Docker containers, it leaves a very small footprint on your system. Recently, Local was renamed as Local Lightning, which as the name suggests works lightning fast. The latest version (as of April 2018) uses PHP v.7. 3- copy the wordpress files from the installation. Bitnami tutorials simply dont seem to exist in droves, probably because theyre not very necessary. Apache Friends and Bitnami have been collaborating in order to provide easy-to-install modules, such as Wordpress, Drupal and many other PHP project. Once youve chosen your local development environment tool, see our advice on the best setup for your local WordPress development environment. Desktop Server could at least complete a migration from remote to local, but it still regularly messes up my URLs. 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. It's a great resource for anyone who wants to get detailed info on branding, target audience, and goals from their new customers. ;;; ; ; (3/5 semicolons) Notice how wonderfully short it is. You need to open the site shell in Local. Go to Database bitnami_wordpress then export as .sql then go. Advantages of WAMP: It is easy to Use. At least it comes with an uninstaller. Pilothouse has cool features like automated hosts file management, and SSL support for all local sites out-of-the-box. Another option I am using is devilbox (docker): https://github.com/devilbox. Im the author of Pilothouse (http://www.pilothouse-app.org/), which is a free/open source CLI app for managing a Docker-based local development environment, with a focus on WordPress and Laravel development. Sometimes useful, so might as well leave the box checked. Ive since moved to Valet which is perfect for my needs (I do a lot of Laravel and Craft in addition to WordPress). Local is the fastest and most intuitive and well designed application among all. https://laragon.org/ Laragon for me is the the best localhost webserver without any doubt (for windows). Currently BitNami has other options like the full WordPress stack which will install as many WordPress as you want each one with its own Apache and MySQL server. WordPress is the world's most popular blogging and content management platform. Add your name, email and login info you want for the blog. . Just wondering.. Bitnami wordpress windows installer works fine as it packages apache inside, but bitnami wordpress module runs fine and messes up XAMPP control panel Apache. Are there other GUI-based tools that you think I should have covered on this list? All subfolders in /opt/bitnami/wordpress have 775 using UNIX permissions notation, which means the following: Read, write, and execute: bitnami user and daemon group. Because its built for WordPress development specifically, the DesktopServer app is primarily a wizard that lets you install new WordPress installs under their own .dev.cc domain names. Both are for Windows though. It's easier than you think to install a local version of WordPress on your laptop. 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. Theres a better way, and its called Bitnami. System Requirements Bitnami XAMPP modules require either XAMPP or a Bitnami LAMP, MAMP or WAMP stack already installed. I tried using Local and loved it, but I had a problem when I was updating the CSS. I'd suggest you download and install xampp. In the XAMPP folder there is the htdocs folder. I should mention I am on Windows 10, core i5, 12GB, 1T SATA. It sits there and does the work of installing, which takes a few minutes.