XAMPP is a set of programs you can install on your computer to help develop WordPress websites locally. It includes everything needed to run WordPress which is a web server and database. XAMPP refers to Apache (web server), MySQL (database), PHP (programming language) and Perl (programming language).

You can download an installation program for different operating systems. I use Windows 10.

The installation is very straightforward and you just follow the prompts. There are a few things to be aware when running the software.

  • The program on Windows needs to be Run as Administrator for everything works correctly.
  • The folder where you will store websites is C:\xampp\htdocs

You may get some conflicts with the IP port for the web server if you have installed other development software like Visual Studio.

The final thing to be aware of is that to close the programs, you need to click the Quit button in the XAMPP Control Panel otherwise the web server and database server continue to run in the background.