Local websites are great for site development because you can add, edit, break and fix the site without the world seeing those edits. If you install WordPress on your localhost then you can test new themes or plugins with the same results. Once you’re happy with your website changes you can push them live, for the world to see. Let’s learn about two ways you can create a local WordPress website.
What is a Local Website?
The localhost is a server that allows you to host your website on your machine-only visible to you. An example of a localhost is if you created a basic website using HTML. When you save your files as .html and click to open them your browser opens, displaying the HTML content. The site is not currently online and is only visible to you. We can accomplish the same local website using WordPress-the only difference is we’ll need to install a few other programs to get WordPress to display our content. Luckily the additional software we needs comes bundled into one nice install package.
Install WordPress Locally with MAMP
MAMP is a free local website hosting solution that allows you to create websites on your computer. MAMP has a more graphical setup and with a few clicks you can have your local website environment up and running. With MAMP’s free version you can install one website, with their paid version you have unlimited installs.
Read our “how to” post on how to install WordPress locally using MAMP.
Install WordPress Locally with XAMPP
XAMPP is very similar to MAMP except it has a less graphical setup. XAMPP is free and has the ability to run multiple websites where you only get that with the paid version of MAMP. Adding additional websites would require you to modify two file each time you needed to create a new instance. Modifying the files is not too difficult but is more work then clicking the add new button in MAMP.
Read our step-by-step post on how to install WordPress locally using XAMPP.
Both MAMP and XAMPP are great programs to use to create local websites. Your decision comes done to do you want a more graphical or text-based interface.
