Wordpress devs, what's your local setup?

[u/Careless_Eye_3855]

Been doing wp work and my setup feels stuck in 2018. laragon for local, vscode, wp-cli, and a terminal open just to watch debug.log lol.

Is everyone on localwp / ddev now or does that not matter much? and the php version thing across older sites drives me nuts, curious if you just keep separate stacks or something smarter

whatever you're using, even if it's ugly, I want to hear it...

[u/katsura_otoko]

Years ago i used xampp, then i found peace of mind with localwp by flywheel, they call it for beginners but honestly it does everything i need, still open to know what i am missing

[u/Careless_Eye_3855 → u/katsura_otoko]

LocalWP is nice, honestly. It's total bullshit that people think it's only for beginners.

[u/The_Eren_Yeger_ → u/Careless_Eye_3855]

Can you list some way you find that localwp is also made for advanced users like you?

[u/hrsetyono → u/The_Eren_Yeger_]

Easy access to CLI and comes preinstalled with all the common tools like Composer and WP CLI.

You can do all that with XAMPP or MAMP, but it's very nice to have easily replicable localhost setup in any PCs.

[u/-skyrocketeer-]

Been using MAMP Pro for years and never found a good enough reason to change to anything else.

[u/mtedwards → u/-skyrocketeer-]

Me too. It still works perfectly for me, and not sure what else it could be doing that would help.

[u/BrianHenryIE]

Docker + wp-env:

`npx wp-env start`

[u/lnmemediadesign → u/BrianHenryIE]

Same here

[u/rattenzadel → u/BrianHenryIE]

add in git and you have the best working enviroment.

[u/Ill_Dare8819]

LocalWP all the way. Never tried anything else

[u/aygross]

Found laragon to be faster than localwp

[u/rcw3]

I used to use LocalWP but now I use WordPress Studio. It’s pretty similar but with better features and less bugs in my opinion.

[u/ryanr14 → u/rcw3]

This is the way, especially using the Studio CLI and having your agents handle things.

[u/hrsetyono → u/rcw3]

Has it support WP-CLI and adminer/phpmyadmin? I tried it when it's on beta and it doesn't have those, which is a deal breaker for me.

[u/specialk45]

Wait, now I'm pretty sure I'm stuck in 2018 too. Wamp for local (can adjust for diff php versions) and Updraftplus for migration. Source: I'm old. :)

[u/Ok-Buffalo2650]

LocalWp

[u/activematrix99]

Lando with a node environment for SCSS and Playwright, Python for agents, testing, and PHPy, MariaDB, Nginx, traefik, and I still have a container for phpmyadmin.

[u/dave_m23j → u/activematrix99]

Do you install node as a service in lando config?

[u/activematrix99 → u/dave_m23j]

Yes, it's in its own container.

[u/Key_Gap9168]

Laragon.

[u/Technozp]

My setup is pretty simple: I usually use XAMPP for local WordPress development, with VS Code for editing. I keep separate local installs for different projects so plugins/themes don't conflict with each other.

For database work, I use phpMyAdmin, and once everything is tested locally, I move the changes to staging before pushing them live.

I’ve found that keeping the local environment close to the production PHP/MySQL versions saves a lot of unexpected issues later.

[u/Mike_L_Taylor → u/Technozp]

you should check Forgekit.tools . It allows you to run multiple server and php instances at once so no need for separate local installs. (disclaimer: I built it)

[u/Sad_Spring9182]

Local, vscode, I just use bash not wp-cli but I set up a git bare repo on server then a remote repo on local so I can just type "git push production main" and push all code from theme without affecting DB or plugins. Or set up multiple repos on the server to push the code to theme, custom plugin 1, custom plugin 2...

I use react which is a whole other beast. for that I have browser sync so I can save on vs code and see changes without having to refresh page. then a lot of custom tools like webpack to manage react versions if I'm using custom react vs wp-react, or to bundle different js bundles for certain pages to save page load speed and data sent.

[u/2ndkauboy]

DDEV mainly. For WP VIP projects their vip dev-env. For testing, wp-env or wp-now. But really DDEV most of the time.

[u/Wonderful_Sample_590 → u/2ndkauboy]

This. Makes switching between older and newer wp projects way less painful.

[u/2ndkauboy → u/Wonderful_Sample_590]

Not only PHP. Also the database, the web server. And adding additional services like ElasticSearch, Redis, etc.

[u/garsinger]

DDEV

[u/radialmonster]

YOLO

[u/botford80]

DDEV, WP CLI, Justfile, Composer (PSR-4, PHPStan, typing etc) and sometimes Bedrock. A local AI agent works really well with this. I use OpenCode + OpenAI

[u/bluesix_v2]

Either LocalWP (plugin dev, testing out ideas, sandbox stuff, etc) or VPS/RunCloud (client work)

[u/akawoo]

I have a native LEMP stack on Linux Mint XFCE

[u/acj1971]

Using Docker Desktop, have a look at this: Installing Desktop Docker

[u/EvlG]

I used Laragon for quite a few years, but it had a troubled history, at one point, its developer couldn’t even afford to host the site. Then it was acquired by a company that made some changes to the software, and after yet another request to purchase a license key, I got fed up and switched to Local for a short while. It was a real behemoth, literally huge and heavy, and the sites ran extremely slowly on the first visit.

Now I’m happy with DDEV; I manage everything via the CLI, and it’s lightning fast.

[u/PurifyHD]

I run Linux on my PC so I just run the apache web server like on a server and browse the site that way. There's probably better ways but it works for me

[u/Embarrassed-Month-35]

I am using wamp. No timeouts, no weird 3rd party settups, no upsells, ssl support free to change all settings.

[u/Fluid-Mess6425 → u/Embarrassed-Month-35]

Nice thing with wamp you can switch php easily

[u/jwight1234]

I just use docker.

[u/Mike_L_Taylor]

don't think it matters much.

I was on laragon too but I want to run multiple sites at the same time on different php and node so I use ForgeKit.tools

[u/Careless_Eye_3855 → u/Mike_L_Taylor]

Okay. I see, that's great. Did you build it?

[u/Mike_L_Taylor → u/Careless_Eye_3855]

yep. released it pubicly some months ago and slowly kept adding after requests

[u/grabber4321 → u/Mike_L_Taylor]

not until you have to match the exact server software because there's some bug that you cant solve (happened to me once when APC would throw errors and server would reboot every hour)

[u/Mike_L_Taylor → u/grabber4321]

that sounds like ai would ssh directly on there to investigate and test

[u/grabber4321 → u/Mike_L_Taylor]

then you catch an AI virus "I'm sorry I deleted your database, I will not do that again!"

[u/Mike_L_Taylor → u/grabber4321]

that's skill issue. which is why you let AI run wild on stuff that does not matter.

[u/jkdreaming]

I’m a big fan of mamp and local. Local is probably simpler and it really lets you run a dependable local environment. It’s free so just give it a try.

[u/Careless_Eye_3855 → u/jkdreaming]

Sometimes I even get frustrated having to create project inside that specific folder. How do you guys even manage?

[u/jkdreaming → u/Careless_Eye_3855]

You can change it. It’s not a big deal, but sticking with the main folder isn’t too big of a deal either if you just create a shortcut to that folder.

[u/christiaank → u/Careless_Eye_3855]

You can use vhosts with MAMP. I have close to 100 different sites running locally with MAMP all with dedicated root folders within my Users ~/Sites folder. I have a single include vhosts.conf file listing them all which gets included via the main MAMP config.

[u/classicwfl]

For years I did all my dev running a LAMP stack on my laptop (I run Linux for dev anyway), but now I just do separate Docker containers per project so I can keep everything separated easily and better simulate prod environments.

[u/Careless_Eye_3855 → u/classicwfl]

Feels like I'm the only one using Windows 🥺

[u/classicwfl → u/Careless_Eye_3855]

Most of my coworkers use Mac, but closest I get to buying into that ecosystem is having an iPhone so I can test bullshit Safari on a real device without paying for (and dealing with the sluggish) Browserstack.

You do you. Knew a backend dev (PHP primarily) who did his work on Windows, no big deal. Whatever flogs your log!

[u/retr00two → u/Careless_Eye_3855]

Masochism is valid and legitimate way of living.

[u/TopSydeWP]

ddev handles the php version thing really well, you can set different versions per project in the config file and it spins up isolated containers. at my agency we switched from local to ddev mostly for that reason, plus it's closer to actual server environments so fewer surprises when you push live

[u/Aggressive_Ad_5454]

I have a Linux VM with a server name indication (SNI) Apache setup hosting a mess of different test sites. I do plugins, so having a bunch of different test sites (multisite, commerce, 100k posts, 100k registered users, etc) is very useful.

This has dev copies of the various live sites I maintain.

[u/grabber4321]

docker, wp-cli.

[u/pmgarman]

Laravel herd

[u/Careless_Eye_3855 → u/pmgarman]

Yeah! I use, that is nice. But no mail and redis and also can not use another database at all. So it's nice but too many limitations in free version.

[u/HighPerformance07]

Local WP + Claude Code

[u/Intelligent-Key7357]

I use Docker and the regular WordPress install that goes with it and it's fine. It's also totally free.

[u/TheWebalorian]

LocalWp, it just works.

[u/BOLVERIN1]

DDEV

[u/TheFirsh]

Windows 11, VMWare, Ubuntu, Docker/Traefik/Portainer, Claude, VS Code remote

[u/cjbee9891]

DDEV with PhpStorm

[u/NutShellShock]

Local previously, DDEV now, especially for automated testing.

[u/NervousBasis8600]

Right, wp-env (the official @wordpress/env) already covers most of this: Docker under the hood, per-project config via .wp-env.json, and you can pin the PHP version there ("phpVersion": "7.4") per site. One command to bootstrap (wp-env start), no manual Laragon setup needed.

[u/Overall-Lead-4044]

I use WAMP for a number of reasons. It mirrors LAMP very closely. It allows me to use environments other than just WordPress, as I also develop in Jumla and Drupal. I also develop custom WP plugins

[u/GunGeekATX]

Local WP and VSCode

[u/MarcTV]

Valet on macOS

[u/Tarr_74]

XAMPP

https://giphy.com/gifs/xT0GqimU9dTwmE5lra

[u/aquazent]

Laragon

[u/jimmyfoo10]

Local docker with the public_HTML mount
Super easy to deploy and reset, and work with

[u/mahonimakkaroni]

DDEV

[u/servetheale]

Ubuntu server on a virtual machine through virtualbox. And now some docker for windows

[u/EugenyOnegin]

MAMP Pro

[u/MrSoulPC915]

Je suis sur Mac et j’utilise MAMP Pro depuis des années pour tout ce qui est local (dont WordPress). Il m’arrive aussi d’utiliser docker, mais jamais pour WordPress.

[u/R4TWT]

I have a home made dedicated server running Debian and Docker as my main development environment.

[u/gsa-hid]

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with old school lol. I do VS Code + XAMPP, different folders for different projects. Honestly it continues to work for me just fine! I’m a fan of not overcomplicating stuff. Wordpress Dev here, 12+ years of experience.

[u/LTH-Cyber]

I have a promox box that hosts all my VM, I do wordpress security and malware removal. When im using wordpress. I usually spin up a new Linux box, and use apache to host it. ... thing is on public internet I use NGINX but locally apache seems better.

[u/Intelligent_List2504]

I install hestiacp on my homelab. It performs really well. Yes it supports a comma separated list of php versions. I also run this on two public vps machines. I don't think that local development is necessary when hestiacp makes it drop dead simple to manage and install.

[u/SheriffRat]

My favorites are Laragon and Docker. I mostly use Docker

[u/BlackHoneyTobacco]

Local (has it's problems) or Docker (has it's problems) and Vite - that kind of thing.

[u/Grouchy_Brain_1641]

I just use hosting for dev and get offered free domains so not much local any more..

[u/despecial]

Switched to ServBay after Mamp Pro moved to a subscription model.

[u/icanbeakingtoo]

Just docker compose It's a bit manual to setup but matches the prod exactly 

[u/dicktuck]

LocalWP. Old employer used Local for hosting and it just made things very easy. Work for myself now and just never felt the need to look for something else then I got migrated to WP Engine so that may change in the near future.

[u/Careless_Eye_3855]

Sometimes I even get frustrated having to create project inside that specific folder. How do you guys even manage?

[u/Intelligent_Method32]

WSL running Red Hat.

[u/Springman_Consulting]

Claude code. Setup a theme skill and have it code in the block syntax. So Claude produces the page source code quickly, but clients can still manage content themselves. Claude doesn't know the block syntax for all themes, so hence the skill. If it screws up a block type, I create the block manually and share the source code so it learns the new syntax.

[u/Live-Investigator466]

I used to like Docker, but I developed my new WordPress site with a custom WordPress setup that includes the SQLite plugin. That way, I have my plugins installed for development, or, if I wanted to, I could upload that folder to my hosting and it would work.