Hi! I am developing WordPress websites for over 6 years now and I am still wondering what everyone is using as their local environment. Simply because I am looking for a new one since I had problems with the previous ones I used.
I used MAMP for a really, really long time. But for some reason I started getting major problems after having to update that app. It just removed all databases from all my local projects.
So after that I started to use Local. Local in it self is amazing but it has one major problem: It's slow. Really really really slow. Not fun and productive to work with. If I can somehow find a fix for this I'll keep using Local.
Now I am looking into Docker, DevKinsta. Devkinsta seems great but for some reason I can't connect my site to the databases. In the .env everything is set right. But I guess I am still doing something wrong.
What are you using? Please let me know your experiences.
theRTT
Personally, at the moment I’m just using Homebrew and have PHP, Nginx & MySQL installed, along with Dnsmasq for configuring my local ‘.test’ domains.
Nice and simple, all controlled via a mix of terminal and various bash scripts I’ve set up over the years.
Have you tried XAMPP? What you said about localwp is very true. But I think XAMPP is lighter and simpler. But can sometimes be prone to errors and unstability. Maybe it’s because it hasn’t been updated for almost a year now.
Another option is WAMP. I personally hate it because it runs from the tray and not a dashboard like the others. You need to go to the tray and make adjustments one click at a time.
Another one can be Laragon, but that hasn’t been updated since 2022. But I don’t know it might be relevant to you.